Avonmouth Headquarters received me over the telephone most politely, considering the time of night. "No, we've got no A.S.C. here; but you might ring up the Embarkation Office." Prrr. "Hallo! Embarkation Office? I'm ----, etc." The Embarkation Office was not quite so polite in its reception. It sounded very worried. "No. We've got no A.S.C. here. You can come along down if you like in case the company should turn up." Luckily the last train had not gone. When it drew up in the station the men greeted it as a long-lost friend. To the strains of "All aboard for Dixie" they clambered in, more cheery than ever. At Avonmouth we came out into a wilderness of mighty sheds. The night breeze from the Bristol Channel carried with it the pungent, cleanly smell of tarred rope. "This is Avonmouth," said I to the senior sergeant, "and we can't go any farther unless a ship is waiting for us. I'm going to see where we can bed down." The Embarkation Office had had time to recover from its worries and received me very politely. Eventually we got the men into one of the sheds where hundreds of sacks of oats lay about. In ten minutes they had made themselves amazingly comfortable and peace reigned. But I'm glad we went to Avonmouth. It gave me my first real glimpse of the astonishing organisation under which the Expeditionary Force was to take the field; and also of the methods of supply. Outside the dock gates, by all the approach roads into the little town, there were streaming in hundreds upon hundreds of great motor lorries, the majority of them built to carry three tons. From all parts of England and Scotland dozens were arriving every hour. The organisation of it! Here was the third or fourth day from mobilisation and there were a couple of thousand ready for transportation. You picture a vividly green lorry of a big whisky distillery up North axle to axle with the scarlet of a Brixton firm with its blatant advertisement of somebody's corsets. The cockney driver from a London furnishing house exchanged honeyed words with a colleague from "'twixt Trent and Tweed" in a polite inquiry as to why the hell he couldn't let his tail-board down without using his (the Londoner's) radiator to scrape his boots on. "Can't you imagine Tommy's comments when he finds a 'Johnny Walker' van bringing up his ammunition in the wilds of Belgium," was the general remark, "but I suppose they'll give them a coat of paint first." They didn't, as a matter of fact; at least not for several months, so that Tommy was able to indulge his gift of language to the full. And so nearly two days passed. The men amused themselves by wandering about the docks, wondering at the shipping, and making sarcastic remarks about the lorry drivers who were being taught how to handle a rifle. Then came a telegram from H.Q., Aldershot. "Return and report here immediately."