The Motor-Bus in War
r contents are loaded at intermediate points en route in the line of communications. They then proceed to the regulating station, which is to all intents an
icinity of the troops, where they either dump their contents in bulk at a prearranged point, deliver it to each regiment individually, or, in the case of an Infantry Division, off-load it to the divisional horse train. This consists of a number of thirty hundred-weight carrying capacity General
ges or small towns of corresponding size at home. They are all built on the same pattern and have the same attributes. In winter they are covered with
ains. They are composed of large closed-in trucks, each of which is marked "Hommes 40. Chevaux [en long] 8." One reads this for the first time with feelings of sympathy, for either the "ho
d Supply Officer, Railhead Ordnance Officer, and a representative of the Assistant Military Forwarding Officer, officially designated and known only by their initials, R.T.O., R.S.O., R.O.O., and A.M.F.O. respectively-not forgetting the "Commissaire Militaire," an officer of the French Army, usually of advanced age and senior rank, who is the liaison officer between the French and British Armies in matters of traffic regulation and organization. The only other personnel at railheads are a few military police, a handful of A.S.C. details, and usually a company or so of some line regiment in charge of a subaltern. These latter are employed as sentries over trains and on various fatigues, and are usually part of the remnants of a battalion that has had a rough time in the trenches and is out on rest, awaiting the arrival from England of reinforcements to bring it up once more to its fighting strength. The d
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"detail" trucks, while the R.O.O. deals with the classification and return to the Base of all unserviceable and worn out material classed a
ere is to be found also a field post office. I need hardly add that from it His Majesty's mails, always so eagerly awaited by all of us, are distributed and loaded on to postal lorries of the Supply Column allotted for the purpose, which take the mails on to the units of the Division. The field post offices are in char
hed into the railhead yard, where they were to entrain; their escort consisted of some Gurkhas, whom they looked on with evident signs of alarm and suspicion. The R.T.O. happened to be able to spea
uncommon than was formerly the case. This word "souvenir," which is frequently put in the form of a request by the inhabitants to English soldiers, appears to cover a va
in the course of his letter that the French were funny people, and