"Only them!" Cocon said. "In the E.N.E. of the Army Corps, there's the
Corps Artillery, that is to say, the central artillery that's
additional to that of the divisions. It includes the H.A.--heavy
artillery; the T.A.--trench artillery; the A.D.--artillery depot, the
armored cars, the anti-aircraft batteries--do I know, or don't I?
There's the Engineers; the Military Police--to wit, the service of cops
on foot and slops on horseback; the Medical Department; the Veterinary
ditto; a squadron of the Draught Corps; a Territorial regiment for the
guards and fatigues at H.Q.--Headquarters; the Service de l'Intendance,
[note 3] and the supply column. There's also the drove of cattle, the
Remount Depot, the Motor Department--talk about the swarm of soft jobs
I could tell you about in an hour if I wanted to!--the Paymaster that
controls the pay-offices and the Post, the Council of War, the
Telegraphists, and all the electrical lot. All those have chiefs,
commandants, sections and sub-sections, and they're rotten with clerks
and orderlies of sorts, and all the bally box of tricks. You can see
from here the sort of job the C.O. of a Corp's got!"
At this moment we were surrounded by a party of soldiers carrying boxes
in addition to their equipment, and parcels tied up in paper that they
bore reluctantly and anon placed on the ground, puffing.
"Those are the Staff secretaries. They are a part of the
H.Q.--Headquarters--that is to say, a sort of General's suite. When
they're flitting, they lug about their chests of records, their tables,
their registers, and all the dirty oddments they need for their
writing. Tiens! see that, there; it's a typewriter those two are
carrying, the old papa and the little sausage, with a rifle threaded
through the parcel. They're in three offices, and there's also the
dispatch-riders' section, the Chancellerie, the A.C.T.S.--Army Corps
Topographical Section--that distributes maps to the Divisions, and
makes maps and plans from the aviators and the observers and the
prisoners. It's the officers of all the departments who, under the
orders of two colonels, form the Staff of the Army Corps. But the H.Q.,
properly so called, which also includes orderlies, cooks, storekeepers,
workpeople, electricians, police, and the horsemen of the Escort, is
bossed by a commandant."
At this moment we receive collectively a tremendous bump. "Hey, look
out! Out of the way!" cries a man, by way of apology, who is being
assisted by several others to push a cart towards the wagons. The work
is hard, for the ground slopes up, and so soon as they cease to
buttress themselves against the cart and adhere to the wheels, it slips
back. The sullen men crush themselves against it in the depth of the
gloom, grinding their teeth and growling, as though they fell upon some
monster.
Barque, all the while rubbing his back, questions one of the frantic
gang: "Think you're going to do it, old duckfoot?"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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