nced work
killing bullocks for our supply. I think scarcely a drop of blood was
wasted, for even that was caught in our kettles and boiled and eaten,
and was found to be very good. Each sergeant had to send in his return
for the meat required for his company, at the rate of two pounds for
each man; and when he had received it, the cooking immediately
commenced.

This was the last cooking that my fellow-corporal Burke, whom I have
referred to before, ever took part in. But before relating how that
happened I may as well mention that the butchers were entitled as a
sort of perquisite to the bullocks' heels, which they sometimes sold.
Burke bought two of these at this place for fifteenpence, and began
cooking them in a somewhat peculiar manner, being either too hungry or
too impatient to cook them properly by boiling. What he did was to put
them on the fire to fizzle just as they came from the butcher, not
even cleaning them, or taking any of the hair off; and every now and
then he would gnaw the portion off that he thought was done, in order
to get the underdone part closer to the fire. In this way he finished
both the hocks, and for a time seemed satisfied, evidently thinking he
had had a good supper.

But he had not counted on his digestion, for having eaten so much on
an empty stomach, and that too almost raw and mixed with a fair amount
of soot, for the fire was not altogether clear, it was not long before
he felt it begin to disagree with him, and he commenced to writhe
about and was in fearful agonies all night. The doctor of the regiment
was sent for, but he could do nothing for the man, and in the morning
he was no better. We were then ordered to follow up the enemy, so that
he had either to march on in this state or be left behind. He chose
the former, so I got him along by helping him for about a mile, when
he suddenly without saying a word to any one fell out of the ranks,
lay down on a bank by the roadside, and expired in a few minutes. I
was very much hurt at this, for he was one of my best comrades, but
there was no help for it, and we had to leave him and march on.

We did not come in contact with the enemy at all that day, and
encamped for the night, as we thought, but it afterwards proved to be
for nearly a fortnight. Towards the end of that time, our captain, who
was my best friend in the whole regiment, rejoined us, having been
left behind owing to a slight wound which he had received while on
the m