Many wounded or sick soldiers, British and French, are brought by river or canal from near the front to near a base hospital or the sea. The motion is easy, the men have good air and quiet; any who are well enough to be on deck have pleasant and changeful surroundings to look at. The English have fitted up for this purpose many of the large, square-built and bluff-bowed--almost box-like--French canal boats. They are towed, in pairs, by small tugs. The French Red Cross uses barges driven by engines placed aft. [Illustration] [Illustration] XV AT A BASE STATION A midnight scene at a base railway station. Train-loads of “walking wounded” on their way to England are met at any hour of the day or night by V.A.D. workers who offer the men hot tea or cocoa, and bread and butter. The quality of the food, and the manner of the gift, give extraordinary pleasure to the tired men. [Illustration] XVI ON A HOSPITAL SHIP The boat here is an old one; in newer boats the accommodation is finer, but the drawing shows the ordinary mode of bedding the patients in double tiers of continuous bunks. At some point in the passage an R.A.M.C. orderly asks every patient to what part of “Blighty” he belongs, and an effort is made to send him to a hospital near his home. The orderly’s approach, as he makes his rounds, is always eagerly awaited throughout the ship by the wounded men. [Illustration] XVII DISEMBARKED TROOPS WAITING TO MARCH OFF An every-day scene at the French ports where our men land. Whatever may come after, there are few moments so thrilling to an untravelled soldier of the New Army as those in which he awaits the order to march off into the unknown, with all the strange events of war before him. [Illustration] XVIII SOLDIERS’ BILLETS--MOONLIGHT The unusually comfortable quarters of a Company in reserve while other Companies of its Battalion are in the firing and support trenches, two or three miles further up. Reserve billets are more often under ground, sometimes in the cellars of ruined houses. A thick covering of ruins above gives complete security against shell fire. [Illustration] XIX A GUN HOSPITAL Many wounded or worn guns, of all calibres, are brought back for treatment to “hospitals” which do not fly the Red Cross. Here are a few invalided “heavies.” The gun on the extreme right is the first British 9.2 that came to France. Like most of our heavy guns she has been christened by her crew and bears the punning inscription, “Lizzie, Somme Strafer.” [Illustration] XX AN OBSERVATION POST The lower part of the first of the ladders leading up to an artillery observation post in the top of a tall tree. It commanded a large part of the Somme battlefield until the summit ridge was won; every detail of several successful British advances could be watched from the tree-top. The battle has now left it far in the rear, and it is disused. [Illustration] [Illustration] THE SOMME BATTLEFIELD.