Our Despatches from the Front (No. 107).
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How and Where M.T., A.S.C., Men Sleep.
In the past, on sundry occasions, rather slack discipline of the A.S.C., M.T., has been hinted fit in the " CAI." Although this may have been justified, I.think it can be said that the discipline in the M.T. branch is now about as strict and well maintained as in other branches of the Service. Probably M.T. men have more opportunities for getting "on the peg" than most soldiers, the number of errors of commission or omission connected with our vehicles being reckoned by the score.
Unsuitable Accessories for Solidtired Vehicles.
Perhaps those who regard our job as a sinecure will allow the following to modify their view. All drivers on active service carry, or are supposed to carry, a. useful book of rules for their guidance, which book, with the omission of the purely military details, might with advantage be distributed largely amongst civilian drivers at home. It is said to be a soldier's privilege to grouse, and I think lorry drivers out here have legitimate grounds for grousing about the unsuitable accessories that are provided for use on solid-tired vehicles. I have seen, and have been supplied 'with, side. head and tail lamps only
suitable for cars with pneumatic tires and the best spring suspension ever devised, while some of them have not been fit for use on any type of road vehicle, much less a heavy lorry subject to intense vibration on war-worn roads. The same applies to horns and tools.
A Few Words on Lamps.
One supposes that this is due to the relatively small number of accessory makers who, before the war, specialized in really suitable lamps and horns for solid-tired vehicles. For lorries the acetylene lamps should preferably have separate generators, the great fault with self-contained lamps being the difficulty of keeping the generating chambers gas-tight, apart from which these lamps are seldom properly understood or used by the average driver.
Substantial Accessories Needed.
The most reliable generators are those of the plunger type, i.e., those in which the vessel containing the carbide is immersed in water. All lamp brackets should have round pegs with nuts on them for properly securing the lamps. Dashboard lamps are useless without double sockets so that the lamps can be secured to forked brackets. Knurled head set-screws should be abandoned for screws with hexagon or square heads. Suggested Improvements.
In the case of cast aluminium lamps, the sockets might with advantage be bushed with steel or bronze so as to avoid the rapid wear of the sockets which at present occurs when a lamp is not kept perfectly tight on its bracket. The oil vessels of paraffin lamps are best entirely enclosed in the body of the lamp and firmly held by springs so as to avoid loss or wear of these essential parts.
A Good Word for "Dependence" Lamps.
In this respect the " Dependence " side and tail lamps are distinctly good. I have not found the lamps with spring brackets satisfactory because of wear of the joints and spring breakages. Lorry lamps and horns must be made from heavy-gauge brass or steel and substantial rivets. The simplest horns, short and free from twists and curls, are strongest. Ordinary car accessories are of no use on lorries.
TUNNELLING CO., B.E.F.,"
September, 1916.
The larger number of A.S.C., M.T., men sleep on their lorries, and one comes across all• sorts of devices which are intended to render more comfortable the hours of sleep. A simple style of bed for a lorry, crew, or civilian motor caravanners, and one which has much to recommend it, can be made from two 9-in. by 1-in, boards and an eighth of a foot of canvas.
The Construction of a Simple Style of Lorry Bed.
The boards should be the same length as the inside width of the lorry body, and the canvas about the same width. The ends of the canvas are nailed to the boards which are to form the head and foot ends respectively of the bed. One board is then screwed to the partition at the back of the driver's seat. Four wooden fillets screwed to the sides of the body, two on each side at a suitable distance from the front, form guides into which the foot-end board of the bed drops. The head-end of the bed is permanently fixed, but the foot-end can be lifted out of the guides and the canvas rolled on to it and stowed snugly out of the way of any load.
The Bed Can Be Prepared at a Moment's Notice.
Blankets can he rolled up in tho canvas if desired, and the bed can be prepared for use at a moment's notice by merely unrolling and dropping the foot-end into the guides.
I slept one night on a bed made as described, a guest of-the drivers who were on guard and therefore slept elsewhere. I found the bed very comfortable ; the canvas sagged a. little but did not touch the floor of the lorry, and conse quently it would not matter if the floor was wet or less clean than it might be. The bed can be fixed at any desired height.from the floor, sr) as to be clear of certain classes of load.
A Varied Assortment of Dormi tories.
One sleeps in all sorts of places on active service. My experience
of dormitories embraces the following :—A workhouse living room, workhouse chapel, workhouse bedroom, lorries of all sorts, barrack rooms, rest huts, tents, anywhere on a troop transport boat, luggage vans on the railway, rail passenger compartments, cinemas, a circus, a
theatre, a town hall, on grass in tilb open, on mud in the open, in factories, in a tile oven, stables, schools and various sorts of dwelling houses.
The Discomfort of the Circus.
Only on two nights during 18 months in France have I slept in ordinary dwelling houses. Once I had the luxury of a civilian billet
and bed, and once I slept in a de. serted house in a half-demolished town. For draughts, rats, cold, dirt and discomfort, the circus will ever live in my memory, although fellows who sleep on a lorry load of frozen meat claim to have experienced the height of discomfort.