have Uncle Sam in the balance?

A question to daunt even the scientific brain of a Kaiser, of a Hindenburg,
of a Von Bernstorff.

The folks back home are always wondering and inquiring how it is possible
to feed the troops under such terrible and awful conditions. The folks back
home are the only ones who worry. We do not. Tommy Atkins is much more sure
of getting his rations to-morrow than he is of living until to-morrow to
eat them.

Right here I would pay a sincere tribute to two departments of our British
Army. The Commissary Department which supplies every want of the soldier,
from a high explosive shell to a button. It is as near to the one hundred
per cent. mark of efficiency as it is possible for a human organization to
become. It is not too much to say that it is perfect.

The other department is that of the Medical Corps, the R.A.M.C., or the Red
Cross. It is all the same. It is all run with the precision of clockwork.
Its whole aim for the comfort and succor of Tommy. Of this department I
speak in a later chapter.

The food for the millions of men in France is concentrated at what we may
call the Great Base, and from there it is distributed to the different army
corps. In each army corps there are two or more divisions. In a division
there are three infantry and three artillery brigades, three field
companies of engineers, three field ambulances and details. In each
infantry brigade are four battalions and in each artillery four batteries.
To one company are four platoons, and about seventy men to a platoon.