The Motor-Bus in War

éthune for a short spell, where they reinforced the Lahore and Meerut Divisions, the latter two Divisions comprising the Indian Corps (infantry). This corps was moved t

motor-lorries with rations for the detachment in the trenches, but although our destination was shelled during this period and was within earshot of rifle fire in

ovides his own horse or its equivalent value in money on enlistment. I shall never forget the Review of the Indian Cavalry Corps by the Prince of Wales in France; the way they gave "eyes right" as each squadron marched past the Prince left in one the impression that they really meant it and were saluting the future King-Emperor. These contingents, infantry and cavalry alike, came to a far-away, strange, cold land, and to a particularly bleak part of it at that, during the rainiest winter ever experienced in a proverbially wet part of the country, dressed only in their thin Indian khaki, be it remembered. They found themselves taki

istance making a continuous bombardment, and a deep roar like thunder rent the air. This was the p

ack on Neuve Chapelle was as nothing in magnitude, compare

in woods, where they remained "standing to," in co-operation with divisions of British and French cavalry, t

isions of the Corps, under the command of Lieut.-General Rimington, were directly under the orders of General Headquarters, and were available to be attached to any army and sent to any part of the line where it was considered that an opportunity for using them might arise. Meanwhile they did their bit of reserve trench digging in various parts of

f infantrymen, to the Ypres Salient. This was in the early summer of 1915, when they reinforced the line immediately after the first German gas att

valry Regiment, forming part of a Native Cavalry Brigade, assisted in the

this plain, and at a prearranged point on it was the ration dumping-ground. Here the motor-lorries were met by the Supply Officer and their contents off-loaded. The use made by us of this ground as a camp was, of course, not unknown to the Germans, who occasionally favoured it with a certain amount of shelling. On one or two occasions they shelled it at a most inopportune moment. A smoking concert had been got up and was to take p

line of which is, "Stand up, stand up for Jesus." As the words "Stand up" were leaving their lips, a

e turned skywards, and the following are the type of comments overheard as the shells burst: "Just a bit too low," "Too far ahead," "The next'll get him," "Got him," "No, he's only doing a dive down into his own lines." Often the whole path which the aeroplane has taken across the sky is literally covered with these little white puffs of shrapnel smoke. I have counted as many as a hundred and eighty, and even then the aeroplane not infrequently escapes without apparent damage. But the Taube does not have things all its own way, for one or more of our own 'planes rise to attack, and if one is very lucky one sees it descend with a long and rapid dive-nose first, in f

re, it is flanked by earth on either side and runs between an avenue of tall and stately poplars. It has been followed by troops from every part of the world over which flies the Union Jack or the Tricolour, and they have marched along it on their way to fight the bloodiest battles of the world's history. The nearer one gets to the trenches, the worse becomes the condition of the roads, and that leading through Poperinghe to Ypres was among the roughest on which I have ever travelled. Leaving Hazebrouck, it gradu

een entirely evacuated by the civilian population, except perhaps for one or two old peasants here and there, who had possibly spent all their lives in their own particular village and intended to continue doing so, even if this entailed living a considerable part of the time in cellars. We often passed little parties of refugees making their way slowly into France, there to throw themselves on the hospitality of their more fortunate friends. Turning their backs for ever on their old homes, which they instinctively knew they had seen for the last time, a whole family, perhaps, the father leading a horse and cart piled up with such odd bits and pieces of household goods as they had managed to save, perhaps all their worldly

had been set alight by shells and were slowly smouldering; others, with their fronts completely blown away, were still standing and displayed their contents nakedly to the passer-by. Such is the ugliness of war's destruction-the desolation of desolation, deserted by every living soul. Never before have I experienced such a sensation of utter loneliness. This struck me more forcibly, I think, than anything else. If one had searched amongst those ruins, what treasures and what gruesome tragedies might

mind, a shell whistled overhead and burst with a crash a little distance away and awoke in me a sense of duty. I made my way out of Ypres along the debris-strewn road, containing here and there some fine examples of shell-holes in the middle of it. On the way ou

ate" started. That is what is meant when the official communique states that "artillery fire was directed upon billets, railheads, and communication roads"; for this was a road which much transport loaded w

to leave the danger zone as soon as we had off-loaded the rations and secured the Supply Officer's receipt for them. On one occasion only, on the return journey, however, did we have any excitement. We were travelling in convoy along a narrow road leading from the huts up to and at right angles to the main road. Just as we came to the junction of the two a few shells landed in the adjoining field, planted with tall poles, around which twining

clustered together in groups here and there the little wooden crosses which mark the graves of those of whom Robert Louis Stevenson wrote, "They despised Death and have won their discharge." They are cared for now and duly registered, and as far as possible inscribed with names and dates by