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PART OF THE ENORMOUS ENCAMPMENT OF SUPPLY-WAGONS,
WHICH CARRY THE COMPLETE SUPPLIES FOR THREE FULL
DAYS FOR ONE ARMY CORPS
So off we went, Captain F—— full of sympathy and I full of sulks, and at about half past five visited what under other circumstances would have been an exceedingly interesting big hospital full of hundreds of sick and wounded horses. But I fear I was in no mood to appreciate the ingenuity and thoroughness with which the kilometre or more of hospital sheds had been constructed by the soldiers on a framework of poles, with wicker-work sides covered with a sort of adobe, and a sloping roof of thatched straw with little gables built here and there for the mere love of beautifying which is apparently ever present in the French race, whether at war or peace.
On we went for another long run till we reached the enormous encampment of supply-wagons, which carry the complete supplies for three full days for one army corps. They had been there since the armies dug themselves in.
"We are not useful now," the Colonel in Command regretfully confided to me; "for almost all the supplies reach our armies by rail. But only wait till the advance begins. Then we shall show what we can do."
This great encampment which covered some square miles of countryside had begun as a bivouac and ended as a town. One walked down avenues and side streets solidly flanked by the huts which this army had built itself. They were all more or less standardized in building materials—wattled walls covered with clay, and thatched straw roofs. But there the uniformity abruptly ended. For these little houses had not been merely constructed by builders as they would have been in nearly any other country. This was France and they had been conceived by architects. And each house expressed the original conception of the soldier-architect who had designed it.