on to go in that capacity.

Tom Hammond was the most willing of servants, but his abilities were
by no means equal to his good-will. His ideas of cooking were of the
vaguest kind. The salt junk was either scarcely warm through, or was
boiled into a soup. The preserved potatoes were sometimes burned from
his neglect of putting sufficient water, or he had forgotten to soak
them beforehand, and they resembled bits of gravel rather than
vegetables. Sometimes the boys laughed, sometimes they stormed, and
Tom was more than once obliged to beat a rapid retreat to escape a
volley of boots and other missiles.

At first the tent was pitched in the usual way on the ground; but one
of the boys, in a ramble through the camp, had seen an officer's tent
prepared in a way which added greatly to its comfort, and this they at
once adopted. Tom Hammond was set to dig a hole of eighteen inches
smaller diameter than the circle of the tent. It was three feet in
depth, with perpendicular sides. At nine inches from the edge a trench
a foot deep was dug. In the centre was an old flour barrel filled with
earth. Upon this stood the tent-pole. The tent was brought down so as
to extend six inches into the ditch, the nine-inch rim of earth
standing inside serving as a shelf on which to put odds and ends. A
wall of sods, two feet high, was erected round the outside of the
little ditch. Thus a comfortable habitation was formed. The additional
three feet of height added greatly to the size of the tent, as the
occupants could now stand near the edges instead of in the centre
only. It was much warmer than before at night, and all draught was
excluded by the tent overlapping the ditch, and by the wall outside. A
short ladder at the entrance enabled them to get in and out.

Tom Hammond had grumbled at first at the labor which this freak of his
masters entailed. But as the work went on and he saw how snug and
comfortable was the result, he took a pride in it, and the time was
not far off when its utility was to become manifest. Indeed, later on
in the winter the greater portion of the tents were got up in this
manner.

The camp of the Light Division was not far from that of the sailors,
and the two brothers were often together. Fortunately both of them had
so far escaped the illnesses which had already decimated the army.

CHAPTER VIII.

BALAKLAVA

On the morning of the 25th Harry ran into Jack's tent.

"Wake up, Jack, there is a row down