BASE REMOUNT DEPOTS IN FRANCE 



73 



matter of only a few minutes for a few hundred horses to be disembarked. 

 They stream of^ loose in Indian tile, each animal being taken by a waiting 

 man as it steps off the " brow " on shore. TIkmi, when all are ashore and 

 numbers checked, they are given the order to nuircli off, and so they thread 

 their way through mazes of coloured labour and locomotion in the docks 

 out into a town bristling with khaki and activity and away to the base depot. 

 Quite pertinently it may be asked what is the order of daily work at a 

 depot such as I am referring to. Obviously, the main thing is to maintain 

 animals for war at the highest possible standard of robust health, and in order 

 to do so it is equally clear that e.xercise and cleanliness are vitally essential. 

 No one realizes this more acutely than those responsible for the direction of 

 the Remount Service. Where horses are congregated in large numbers and 

 where they have been so collected for a long time together, the tendency is 

 to make them more susceptible to disease. The ground has been fouled in 

 spite of the greatest care and, therefore, in order to combat such tendencies 

 the horse-masters of the Remount Service have set exercise and cleanliness 

 before all else. Moreover, until animals are called for, which they may be 

 at any moment, their muscles must not be allowed to relax, but rather to 

 develop and harden from healthy work either in transport or on those ingenious 

 long ropes which have gone far to solve the exercising of remounts with the 









A summer's scene off the road. Grooming healthy and contented mules. 



