y belong to either. A 1 lb. jar
is shared among six--when it is not sixteen. Quantity and quality differ
frequently. The variety (Apple and Plum) NEVER. Supper, rice. Less
said....

Hendecourt proved a posh camp; memories of it and of the men who laughed
the heavy days away are pleasant. The Army, despite the grousings that
rise steadily to Tommy's lips, is a fine institution, and those who have
emerged safely from the Great Undertaking cannot but look back with
regretful pleasure upon those great days of the open, of bonne
camaraderie, of willing sacrifice.

Nightly the 29th Divisional troupe performed before an over-crowded
house of the most appreciative audience in the world. A cinema also
threw its ardent cowboy lovers and pig-tailed heroines upon a screen
whose far distant days may have been spotless and white. Tubby awaited
outside the "stage-door" for an hour to interview Tootsie (of the
Troupe) after the first night and found "she" wore Army boots, trousers,
and chewed plug.

Old theatre house of memory! There on Sunday row on row of mute khaki
forms bowed together in unspoken player or sang with quiet, earnest
harmony the hymn that tells home every time on the rough warriors'
heart: "Holy Father, in Thy keeping ... hear our anxious prayer," etc.
God, how they sang it! Some knew, perhaps, what awaited.

The short November days sent the mud-clogged lads into their huts with
the last pale glimmer of a weakly sun. Constructed of sloping corrugated
iron, in which no outlet for fire-smoke had been cut, these huts were
lined at the top with some substance of felt and through which the rain
trickled into puddles and miniature lakes on the ground floor. Clarke
had adjusted a tin like a sword of Damocles over his bed to catch the
drops--and it certainly conveyed, after falling twice when full upon
Stumpy, an apprehension akin to that wrought by the weapon. Over one of
these puddles near--TOO near--his bed Ginger was wont to sit with
melancholy mien, a rifle held out before him and from the muzzle a
string hanging over the water with a mess-tin attached.

"Wot's doin', Gin?"

"Fishin'."

"What for?"

"Me ticket!" (Discharge).

Braziers were rampant in every Company, swelling and overflowing
throughout the entire hutments in belching clouds of noxious smoke that
permeated an atmosphere impenetrable by human eyes with an odour of
smouldering wood, empty milk-tins and tobacco. Those nights!

Those nights of son