they were embarked on board the hospital ship which was waiting in readiness, and conveyed safely to Alexandria.

The campaign was fin

ished. Patrols searched the surrounding country, and found various collections of arms and ammunition, which were destroyed. Garrisons were left in Sollum and Matruh, and the Force broke up, after having reclaimed all Egyptian territory which had been invaded by the enemy, broken up the enemy forces, captured the guns and ammunition, and made it impossible for any further supplies to reach them from the coast. The unfortunate Bedouin, who had been duped by the Turks, learned

& lesson they are never likely to forget. Bereft of all their possessions, and destitute of all supplies, they surrendered wholesale in a pitiable condition of want and starvation. Refugee camps were made for them, and employment found, but the season for sowing barley had passed, and it will be long before they recover from the blow.

The Senussi still occupy various oases in the midst of the Libyan desert; but all channels by which arms and munitions can reach them are closed by the occupation of the ports on the north coast by the British and Italians; and their power of offence is completely destroyed.

WHEN the first beast got his first bruise, and kissed, or rather licked, the place to make it well, there was born the not always gentle art of massage. Since then it has been practised, more or less empirically, for centuries by human beings. Now, reinforced by scientific knowledge, and carried to a considerable degree of manual dexterity, it has been pressed, like almost every other attainment of mankind, into the service of Bellona. The changes and chances of this mortal life led me to undertake its study some twelve months ago. Half 8 year of training, mental and manual, the cold misery of three examinations in the haunted chambers of Queen's Square, Bloomsbury, and behold me the much relieved possessor of the desired eertificate, and posted to a convalescent camp on the South Coast of England.

A War Worker's life is swayed by alphabetic combinations. For me the letters B.R.C.S. have been replaced by A.P.M.C., or Almeric Paget Massage Corps-more familiarly known as the "Corpse." As of old, I wear a uniform of navy-blue serge, but the blue hat and black tie have been reversed to a black hat and blue tie. I should not know myself in a uniform where these accessories were made to match.

Our badge is a design of

some intricacy a wheel, a cross, and a pair of wings, subtly interwoven with the Corps initials and carried out in the national colours. To my mind it is vaguely reminiscent of the vision of Ezekiel, but to the general public it appears to suggest more modern forms of aviation than those practised by the prophet's cherubs-judging from the frequency with which we are asked our precise connection with the Royal Naval Air Service. But "Army Presbyterian Medical Corps" was perhaps the most ingenious interpretation put upon our mystio letters by some bright "man in the street."

Our camp lies just above the town, backed by a sweeping curve of the South Downs. It is built to accommodate between 3000 and 4000 men, and if reproduced in miniature might well figure in a catalogue at Hamley's as "Convalescent Camp; best model, complete with Y.M.C.A. hut and skittle alley; price 17s. 6d."

If you climb the green slope that rises behind it and look down at the camp from its summit, you are struck (pleasantly or unpleasantly, according to your nature) by the fact that it is not built on the rigid lines indicated by a strictly military design. Some rows of huts are straight, others diagonal, as though they had been petrified in the act of performing the evolu

tion, "On the left, form squad." The main road in the camp runs more or less through the centre, but at a little distance from it a second path starts on a parallel course, curves away, and then creeps back to join its more decided partner for good and all, like the mildly errant wife in the type of play made popular by Sutro many years ago. Between these two roads lie various buildings, great among them the post office, greater still "The Hut." As a concession to the ignorance of outsiders, this latter erection is labelled "The Massage Institute"; but for us it is "the" Hut par excellence, compared with which the few score of other huts composing the rest of the camp are what Tommy would describe as a "wash-out." The ground on the other side of the centre path contains the large gymnasium-cum-theatre, in which the convalescent soldier ensues culture, physical and æsthetic. South of this lies the spacious recreation ground, where games recur in their proper seasons, even as the rotation of crops. This reflection leads me to remark that a dashing effort has been made by the camp this summer to cope with the problem of the nation's food supply in wartime, by snatching a rood or so from the soil of the contiguous golf links and planting potatoes therein. Horticulture is a speciality of sick lines, though pursued elsewhere according to taste and ability. A maker of gorgeous flower

beds once guarded his loved pansies from profanation by displaying at their side gnawed mutton-bone with the grim inscription attached: "This is all that is left of the last man who stepped on our garden."

Further prowling in the camp precincts will discover great shiny kitchens, presided over, to the benefit of all concerned, by cooks from the Women's Legion. No one, so an ex-butcher from Suffolk once informed me solemnly, who had not the "heart of a bear" (combined, presumably, with the palate of Lucullus) could possibly complain of the dinners provided in camp. Certainly, judging from the letters written by men turned to the trenches, where lady cooks are dreams of the past, his opinion was shared by the majority of the convalescents.

re

In a far distant corner of Hutland, almost on the shoulder of the down, stand two small houses, side by side, reached by a steep white road which forms one boundary of the camp. Here about dozen masseuses, including myself, reside, the rest occupying two more houses in the town. In summer, the upland billets are ideal; in winter-well, the wind sees to it that you do not contract tuberculosis from lack of oxygen, and that is always one danger the less in a world of peril. Waking early, if I am misguided enough to do so, I can see the camp below me stirring sleepily, while the

early sun spills gold lavishly ever the hillside. Then I may slumber again, since I am no longer in hospital, and my work begins at the comparatively human hour of 9 A.M. Still, any fixed time for rising may be regarded as essentially premature, and that is why those of us who hold this principle are consistently late for breakfast. That meal disposed of, in a wise silence, we drift down the hill to the camp, usually one by one. After the luncheon interval, when the aloofness born of the morning has slipped from us, we return to work in pairs or groups. We even wait for each other, fidgeting on one leg, and orying "Hurry up, there goes defaulters." We dislike this call, apart from its association with the flight of time. It has a vicious, triumphant ring of "I told about it, and on this particular bugle the last note peals sharp, suggesting the plaint of a culprit heard through the snigger of the tale-bearer who has betrayed him to justice.

If, as is frequently the case in this region, it is a morning of cloud and mist, torn here and there by sunlight, we look far over the town's red roofs to where the sea lies barred with black and gold; and as we draw near the huts, the keen scent of wood smoke drifts to us from an openair kitchen by the roadside. Passing by "Sick Lines," we turn off the road down a narrow path, which in wet weather becomes an evil slide

VOL. CCI.-NO. MCCXVI.

of oozing chalk. The doors of the huts on our right are wide open, giving us a glimpse of stripped bedsteads, with plump mattresses doubled on themselves, and vieing pathetically with piles of neatlyfolded folded blankets in mathematical symmetry of aspect. It does not pay to be fat in these strenuous times. From the depths of one hut a raucous bass voice carols forth the scarcely credible statement, "You called me Baby Doll Doll a year ago." Men in blue and men in grey (for suits of the more sombre hue are rapidly becoming common) assemble at the open door of their dwelling, which bears on its its outer wall the piteous legend "Biere fini," and, uncrushed even by this misfortune, give us cheerful greeting as we pass.

Our own sphere of operations once reached, we proceed to change our outdoor uniforms for overalls. In the coming Epio of War the overall of the woman worker should have no small place. It is the honourable (if hideous) badge of the service. Ours are white, the cooks' are yellow, nurses' grey or blue, munition workers' varied, but the ultimate purpose achieved is the same. It is the last word in the democracy of dress-a general levelling of all female forms (divine or otherwise) into ambulating cylinders, differing merely in length and diameter. True, the feet that carry the cylinders cannot all be out to the same pattern, but the danger of soul-disturbing variety in this direction is mini

P

mised by a careful watch for anything like an outbreak of coloured stockings, or shoes more dainty than discreet. Every woman knows that these things spread like measles if they are not taken in time.

As in the days of childhood, we have washed our hands and buttoned our pinafores, and are ready to face the day-long Push. For a Push in miniature it has become since the morning of July 1, 1916, saw a fresh advance undertaken by our troops on the Western Front. The troops press on, but the stream of wounded flows back to us, filling hospital after hospital, which in turn empty themselves, as swiftly as may be, into Convalescent Camps and Command Depôts.

Treatment by electricity goes hand in hand with massage for most of the cases sent to us. To pay adequate attention to twenty patients daily would be sufficient, let us say, to keep any of us from rusting in idleness. Increase this number by 50 per cent, as at the present time, and you provide each masseuse with such crowded hours of glorious life as are not easy to describe to those who have not lived them.

From our dressing-room we pass through a passage lined on either side with benches, whereon our patients sit, like starlings on a railing, waiting our attentions. We cast hasty glances to left or right in search of Я familiar face. When we find it, we send its owner forth to the patients' dressing-room, whence he presently reappears with the in

jured portion of his anatomy draped in a blanket, "like a bloomin' Kaffir," as he expresses it disgustfully.

the

Each man attends Massage Hut at a fixed hour daily. At that time he is, theoretically, to be found in the passage I have described, when "Sister" comes to look for him. This part of the routine alarmed me not a little at first. It is trying to feel yourself the cynosure of some forty pairs of eyes while you call out a name, possibly of Celtic origin, probably wrongly typed on the card you hold, concerning whose correct pronunciation you are doubtful. It is worse when you do not know for whom to shout.

"What do you do if you lose your list of patients?" I asked anxiously of an old hand when I first realised that this misfortune was a not unlikely occurrence.

"You run down here at intervals and say, 'Any one here belonging to me?"" she replied.

"And if nobody answers?" "Then you say, 'Is there any one here who would like to belong to me?' and if nobody answers that you give it up." I did.

We cling indeed to our timetables as to talismans. It is a document whose preparation requires much thought, as will presently be seen. With luck it does not bear the names of more than four patients requiring treatment at the same moment. Some time ago, at a period of extreme activity in the Massage Hut, a Power