ose have chiefs,
commandants, sections and sub-sections, and they're rotten with clerks
and orderlies of sorts, and all the bally box of tricks. You can see
from here the sort of job the C.O. of a Corp's got!"

At this moment we were surrounded by a party of soldiers carrying boxes
in addition to their equipment, and parcels tied up in paper that they
bore reluctantly and anon placed on the ground, puffing.

"Those are the Staff secretaries. They are a part of the
H.Q.--Headquarters--that is to say, a sort of General's suite. When
they're flitting, they lug about their chests of records, their tables,
their registers, and all the dirty oddments they need for their
writing. Tiens! see that, there; it's a typewriter those two are
carrying, the old papa and the little sausage, with a rifle threaded
through the parcel. They're in three offices, and there's also the
dispatch-riders' section, the Chancellerie, the A.C.T.S.--Army Corps
Topographical Section--that distributes maps to the Divisions, and
makes maps and plans from the aviators and the observers and the
prisoners. It's the officers of all the departments who, under the
orders of two colonels, form the Staff of the Army Corps. But the H.Q.,
properly so called, which also includes orderlies, cooks, storekeepers,
workpeople, electricians, police, and the horsemen of the Escort, is
bossed by a commandant."

At this moment we receive collectively a tremendous bump. "Hey, look
out! Out of the way!" cries a man, by way of apology, who is being
assisted by several others to push a cart towards the wagons. The work
is hard, for the ground slopes up, and so soon as they cease to
buttress themselves against the cart and adhere to the wheels, it slips
back. The sullen men crush themselves against it in the depth of the
gloom, grinding their teeth and growling, as though they fell upon some
monster.

Barque, all the while rubbing his back, questions one of the frantic
gang: "Think you're going to do it, old duckfoot?"

"Nom de Dieu!" roars he, engrossed in his job, "mind these setts!
You're going to wreck the show!" With a sudden movement he jostles
Barque again, and this time turns round on him: "What are you doing
there, dung-guts, numskull?"

"Non, it can't be that you're drunk?" Barque retorts. "'What am I doing
here?' It's good, that! Tell me, you lousy gang, wouldn't you like to
do it too!"

"Out of the way!" cries a new voice, which precedes some men doubled up