THE administrative headquarters of the New Zealand Expeditionary Force in Egypt was situated for the first years of the war on a hill in Maadi Camp. The combatant soldier, goaded by irritating restrictions, and the officer, plagued by frequent demands for statistical returns, have always said hard things about their administrators, and so it was quite natural that this hill came to have a vulgar name, a name which must not sully the august pages of a chaplains' history. It will be referred to as ‘Upper Maadi’, and it deserves mention for it introduces the problems of Departmental organisation, as it was on this hill that the Senior Chaplain had his quarters. Bishop Gerard was here only occasionally, but later it became the permanent home of the Senior Chaplain.

The onerous duties of the Senior Chaplain have already been described, and it will have been appreciated how much administrative pioneering was necessary before the Department could run smoothly. In fact so much of the Senior Chaplain's time was occupied in building a firm foundation for the Department that some important items of routine administration were almost entirely neglected till the end of the war. When the Department had achieved corporate efficiency, and after Headquarters 2nd NZEF had moved to Italy, an experienced chaplain was sent back to look after affairs in Maadi Camp, which had now become a training ground for reinforcements and a transit camp. This chaplain, Padre Underhill, had time to examine some of the less urgent matters of administration and to try a few experiments.