After soda water, the sick Tommy requires certain delicacies in food. Eggs and chickens and fruit and vegetables were necessary. The quartermaster soon began to lift up his voice. What with the supply and transport depots of the Indian Army and our own Army Service Corps, and the inevitable confusion of two different Army systems, he became extremely irritable. This confusion existed in every department. On the medical side, there was the British scale of field ambulances and hospitals, and this differs entirely from the Indian scale. What could have been more suitable for muddling than this? Its effects could be seen in the expression of the quartermaster. I can see him clearly, a plump, stocky man, with arms akimbo, his helmet on the back of his head, the flesh of his face in folds of disgust with sweat pouring off him, and his once elegant waxed moustache drooping, saying in a chant: "The man who gets me out to this ---- country again isn't born yet." That was when the bullock tongas, after travelling over the surface of this cradle of the earth all day in search of certain supplies, returned empty. Chickens and eggs were local produce. The natives put fancy prices on things. What we paid was supposed to be a controlled price. It must be remembered that we introduced a lot of money into the country, and entirely changed the financial standards of the Arabs. Arab coolies got tenpence a day--that is, their pay was not far short of the European Tommy. Sometimes they struck for higher wages. It did not breed a good spirit, but it may have been the best spirit under the circumstances. It was, at times, necessary to use violence to _belumchis_, who insolently demanded absurd charges, and a certain padre gained respect by administering a severe thrashing to one of these rascals. When the Russians came down, one of them was obstructed for a moment by an Arab on the river bank. The Russian officer--a big fellow--picked him up and threw him into the river.