It is a strange life, that life at the Base--it is like life on an "island" in a London thoroughfare, with the traffic streaming by on either side. All day long there are men arriving to go to the front, all day long there are men coming back on their way to England. For a week you live on this "island," equipping men for drafts all the morning--for most of them seem to have dropped part of their equipment into the sea on the way across--and sitting in cafes in the evenings, drinking strange mixtures of wines and syrups and soda water. Then, one day, the Colonel sends for you. Your turn has come to set out on that journey which may have no return. "You will proceed to the front by the four o'clock train this afternoon," he says. "You are instructed to conduct a party of 100 Northshire Highlanders, who are in 'S' Camp, which is over there," and he waves his hand vaguely in the direction of the typewriter in the corner of the room. These are your instructions, and, after a prolonged hunt for "S" Camp, you march off to the station at the head of a hundred Scotchmen, not one of whom you can understand. At the station you make a great show of nominal rolls and movement orders, and finally get your Highlanders packed safely in their compartments under strict injunctions not to leave the train without your orders. Now comes the time to look after your own comfort. If you have "been up" before you have learnt that it is wise to stroll into the town for your last proper tea, and not to come back much before six o'clock, by which time the train is thinking of reluctantly crawling out of the station. If, in your absence, someone has else has tried to settle in your compartment, providing his rank is not superior to your own, you get rid of him either by lying strenuously or by using a little force. Thus, if you are lucky, a good liar, or a muscular man, you can keep the carriage for yourself, your particular friend, your kits, and your provisions (which last, in the form of bottles, require no small space). All along the line are children, waving their grubby hands and shouting in monotonous reiteration, "Souvenir biskeet, souvenir bully biff," and you throw them their souvenirs without delay, for no man sets out for war without a plentiful stock of more interesting provisions to keep his spirits up. All along the train, in disobedience of orders, the carriage doors are open, and "Tommies" and "Jocks," and "Pats" are seated on the footboards, singing, shouting, laughing.