On the arrival of No. 1 South African General Hospital at Aldershot, the final touches were given to the unit, and about 400 shipping tons of stores and equipment drawn, which, by a special arrangement with the Army Council, had been paid for out of the £15,000 voted by Sir Thomas Smartt’s Committee in Cape Town. On 12th July the unit entrained for Southampton, there to embark on H.M.T. _Huntcraft_. The ship berthed at Havre about 10.30 a.m. on the 13th, and as she was urgently required elsewhere, the unloading at once commenced; and on the following day the unit—together with its stores and equipment—left for Abbeville, which was reached on 15th July. Here it was found that the hospital would be established next to No. 2 Stationary Hospital, an Imperial unit which had been there for some time. The necessity for not interfering with the ripening harvest considerably curtailed the choice of a site, the ground allotted being a ploughed field on the slope of the hills overlooking the valley of the Somme. Abbeville itself lay about a mile away in the valley, but the railway station and “triage” were on the far side of the town and must have been nearly three miles from the hospital. Some hospital marquees had already been erected, but the layout of the hospital was greatly handicapped by the cramped area of ground then available. As the corn was reaped more ground became vacant, and, later on, by frequent striking and repitching of tents, the hospital gradually took a more symmetrical and workable shape. When the unit arrived in France the First Battle of the Somme had begun, and hospital accommodation was urgently required for the large number of casualties. So, in the absence of any kind of building, a store tent was converted into an operating tent; an improvised sterilizing shelter erected; and within forty-eight hours of arrival patients were admitted and every available surgeon hard at work. In those early days the wide surgical experience and considered judgment of Lieutenant-Colonel Ritchie Thomson proved invaluable. He had accepted the post of chief surgeon when the hospital was mobilized in South Africa, and many a sorely wounded man owes his life and limb to his skill and judgment. The initial difficulties were many: buildings and engineering services were almost impossible to obtain, and it was not until the end of November that the operating block—the first building to be erected—was completed. All, however, were willing workers, and it was not long before additional tentage was pitched and Major Merritt had organized the kitchens, stores, and a hundred and one odd things appertaining to the Quartermaster’s Department, all of which mean so much to the efficiency and comfort of any hospital.