"HAVE YOU A FIELD OF CARROTS?

Cromwell Argus, Volume L, Issue 2649, 24 November 1919, Page 7

"HAVE YOU A FIELD OF CARROTS?

ODD-SHOPPING FOR AN ARMY. "R.O."at the Front signified Requisitioning Officer. His work is to do odd-shopping for the division of 20,000 men, making up by local purchase whatever supplies are lacking on the pack-trains arriving daily from the base. The need may be coal or straw, or potatoes and vegetables. Or he may be called upon to buy up trees for firewood, or fields of green forage for 5,000 horses. Whatever it is, it is a hurry-up order by the time it gets to him. In placid smiling country, well behind the Front, the quest for a field of carrots or clover may take him no, farther than across the road. It is when his division is "in the line," in an area ruined and raked over again and again, that the R.O. has got to hustle. Then he will drive from dawn till dark, over villainous byroads, and still not till half his wants.

Nor is he invested with compulsory powers of purchase, as his title suggests. Those are reserved until after the Rhine is behind him. Meanwhile still in the territory of our Allies, he may take nothing that is not freely offered, making prompt payment.

His hunting-grounds are not limitless, either. Each Army has its own allotted area on the map, and the R.O. who goes poaching on another Army's preserves is liable to. be summarily chased off and reported for disciplinary action.

Still, it is an R.O.'s job to know the addresses of every vegetable merchant and grower for thirty miles round, and if poaching is his only chance, he must just take the risk. Sooner or later he will run to earth a man who has a field or a stack to sell, or a dealer with some truckloads expected by rail. The bargain is struck in quick time, for the limit prices are j already fixed by the authorities. Arrangements is made when and where the lorries will collect the spoils, or a fatigue party may have to be sent first to harvest the crop. Cash on delivery is the rule, for divisions have a way of flitting suddenly, and all bills must be settled before it departs. Moreover, the R. O. is usually advance agent on such occasions, with umpteen arrangements to make in the new area before the troops inarch in. So the wise R. O. keeps his wallet well stuffed with notes, and pays as 'he goes.