is absolutely continuous.
The men always want all sorts of things that the Supply Column
does not provide, and it is up to me to get those things, and
what is more, in most cases, to transport them also. I am in
charge of a number of wagons, limbers, etc., to carry out this
latter job, and I am responsible for the care and transport of
the ordinary supplies for our Brigade Headquarters after they
leave the Supply Column. I have also to do the following jobs:
(1) Distribute pay to the large number of A.S.C. men attached to
Headquarters; (2) when we are in billets, to see to the billeting
arrangements for the brigade, and adjust the relations between
the troops and whatever inhabitants there may be.

You must not imagine that there are no inhabitants in these
districts. On the contrary, it is my experience that people cling
to their homes and lead their ordinary lives right up into the
fire zone. Our authorities take the greatest care not to offend
the inhabitants. Let me give you an illustration. Recently we
were at a small village, now quite blown to atoms, and considered
a hot spot even out here, and which really has no inhabitants.
Well, on the occasion of entrenching operations our chaps found
it necessary to take some doors from ruined houses. They wanted
the timber for planks for trench supports and dug-outs. Though
all the inhabitants had fled or been killed long before, and the
village was little better than a dust-heap, yet a solemn and
portentous court of inquiry was held on those doors: were we
justified in taking them, and should payment be made for them to
the old inhabitants or their representatives? Eventually it was
decided that, as the doors were taken to help to make trenches,
they might be considered as destroyed by a _fait de guerre_,
which, I believe, corresponds to an "act of God" in the civil
courts, and payment ought not therefore to be made for the doors.
It was, however, pointed out that if the said doors had been used
to make a road, not a trench, they would not be _faits de
guerre_, and in such case payment would have had to be made to
the Mayor of the destroyed commune!

"Business as usual" is the motto they try to live up to
throughout these parts, and every effort is made to persuade
people that the war is