I somehow could not penetrate
lower than the entity of a Division. I lunched, had tea, and dined at
the headquarters of various of these Staffs, with a General as host.
They were all admirably housed, and their outward circumstances
showed a marked similarity. The most memorable thing about them
was their unending industry.
"You have a beautiful garden," I said to one General.
"Yes," he said. "I have never been into it."
He told me that he rose at six and went to bed at midnight.
As soon as coffee is over after dinner, and before cigars are over,
the General will say:
"I don't wish to seem inhospitable, but------"
And a few minutes later you may see a large lighted limousine
moving off into the night, bearing Staff officers to their offices
for the evening seance of work which ends at twelve o'clock or
thereabouts.
The complexity and volume of work which goes on at even a
Divisional Headquarters, having dominion over about twenty
thousand full-grown males, may be imagined; and that the bulk of
such work is of a business nature, including much tiresome routine,
is certain. Of the strictly military labours of Headquarters, that which
most agreeably strikes the civilian is the photography and the map-
work. I saw thousands of maps. I inspected thick files of maps all
showing the same square of country under different military
conditions at different dates.
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