rn.

The officers of the headquarter staff were fairly comfortable in
comparison to the others. Our tents were pitched in a quadrangle
formed by four rows of trees and scrub, which had evidently been
planted around the site of a former house and served to break the high
winds. Each officer had a tent with a wooden floor. Mine was carpeted
with an extra blanket to exclude draughts and make it feel comfortable
under one's bare feet in the morning. The tent was heated by an oil
stove which was kept burning night and day; and at night I slept snug
and warm in the interior of a Jaeger sleeping blanket in a Wolseley
kit. My batman, Karner, had made a table from some boxes and boards
which he had picked up, I know not where. It is unwise to ask your
batman too many foolish questions as to the origin of things,--take
what he gives you and be thankful.

This table covered with another blanket, served to support a splendid
brass lamp with a green silk shade, for which I had paid a fabulous
sum in Salisbury town. It also held some books, brushes, and other
necessaries. A shelf underneath displayed a little brass kettle and
other paraphernalia for making tea, while my other books were arranged
in a neat row beneath.

The tents were wet all the time, and the clothes and blankets of the
men soon became water soaked and remained so for weeks at a stretch
for they had no stoves or other facilities for drying them. But Tommy,
the resourceful, learned that he could get warm by the simple process
of wrapping himself up in wet blankets and steaming as he would in a
Turkish bath,--with himself as the heater. He also discovered that a
pair of wet socks, well wrung out and placed next his chest at night
would be half dry in the morning. He had to sleep in a bell tent with
seven others, radiating like spokes of a wheel from the centre tent
pole. He had nothing to give him any comfort whatever.

It was impossible to do any work, even route marching, and, having
nothing to do but lie around and think of himself, Tommy began to
grouse. Each camp had become a morass with mud a foot deep, and Tommy
looked out upon it and behold it was not good, and he cursed both loud
and long whoever he thought might be responsible for the conditions,
and particularly Emperor Bill the cause of it all. The Canadian
contingent had begun a process of mildewing.

One felt sorry for the poor horses. Picketed in the open plain or in
the partial shelter of the occa