I thought at first that the doctors might have been spared the task of examining incoming drafts. The men have all been passed fit at home before they start, and it does not seem reasonable to suppose that their constitutions have seriously deteriorated on the journey. But the new examination is really necessary. Doctors, according to the proverb, differ. They even seem to differ more widely than other men. The home doctor for some reason takes an optimistic view of human ailments, and is inclined to pass a man fit who will certainly collapse when he gets up the line. The doctor in the base camp knows that he will be abominably "strafed" if he sends "crocks" to the front. He does not want them returned and left on his hands at the base. So he picks the plainly unfit men out of the drafts, and, after a tedious round of form filling, sends them back to England. There was, for instance, Private Buggins, whose case interested me so much that I should like very much to hear the end of his story. Private Buggins suffered from curvature of the spine. It was plain that he could not carry a pack for very long. Some one at home passed Private Buggins fit and he came out with a draft. He was picked out of that draft at the base in France. At the end of a fortnight's strenuous labour (form filling), Private Buggins was sent back to England. A fortnight after that he turned up again in France, one of another draft. Once more he was detached. Once more the wheels creaked round and Private Buggins went back to England. This time three weeks elapsed before he joined another draft and again submitted himself for medical examination in France. The result was the same. I do not wonder. I saw Buggins's spine once, and I hold strongly that "Blighty is the place for him." After that I lost sight of Private Buggins, for I was moved to a new camp; but I have no reason to suppose the case is settled. He is still, in all probability, crossing and recrossing the English Channel. By this time I expect he has found out ways of living tolerably comfortably under the conditions of his nomadic military service. But he ought to be given a special medal when the war is over and he is allowed to settle down again somewhere. A new draft also submits to kit inspection. I suppose kits are inspected in England before the start is made; but the British soldier has an amazing desire to get rid of the parts of his equipment which strike him as superfluous. He appears to shed kit as he goes along, and often succeeds in arriving at the end of the journey with only half the things he ought to have.