d had munchers of the
star-like (removable) variety. No. 2, unfortunately, struck out in his
sleep, awakening the other to the fact that his teeth were promenading
about at the top of his throat. He struggled to a sitting posture with a
gasp, felt frenziedly for his "adjustables" and looked round upon the
mixture of dirty, frowsy figures. He stirred Nobby into wakefulness by
the simple expedient of tickling him beneath the chin with a grimy big
toe protruding from a rent in an obsolete and far from odourless sock.

"'Ere," he said, "got any change."

"Any wha'," sleepily, "any, phew, wot a bloomin' niff. Put them blessed
feet of your out of the winder. Change, wot of?"

"This yere trouser button."

"Funny, ain't it, like your face? 'It ole Wiffles there over the 'ead
wid your rifle an' tell 'im breakfus' is up." This kindly action having
succeeded, the victim looked around.

"Breakfus', where? What is it?"

"Oh, tin of Brasso; what d'you expect, 'am an' eggs or a filleted
sausage."

VI

MARCOING--MASNIERES

The Ten Hundred awoke, gazed about and laughed until the echoes rang
from rafter to rafter as the eye took in each black-featured, bearded
and grubby individual. Stumpy was requested to "leave that foot of
fungus on his face, as it hid what for weeks had been an infliction,"
and to which he cuttingly replied that the other gentleman had features
that would make a bomb burst.

But there could be detected in these rallies an undercurrent of strong
mutual respect, of which they had all hitherto had no cognisance. They
were each one intensely proud of what had been so efficiently carried
out; although very little WAR was spoken they were keenly alive to the
fact that personally and collectively the Ten Hundred had opened the
innings with an abundance of "runs" as far as the enemy was concerned.

Rations came up fairly regularly in the advanced areas unless the
ration-party becomes lost, drops a portion or makes an appointment with
a 9.2. There is a constant daily issue of hard-wearing substance
camouflaged as "biscuit," intended originally for the heel of concrete
ships and for bomb-proof blockhouses. It can be further utilised as a
body-shield, for paving roadways, or with the aid of a hammer and three
chisels (why three? In case the first two break) this "biscuit" could
be, and was, eaten.

Tea and sugar, enclosed in one tin, were soaked in water: boiled over a
small round tin of a form of solid