secure houses or lodgings
in the bleak and inhospitable environs of their new station; while
a rapidly ageing Mess President concludes yet another demoralising
bargain with a ruthless and omnipotent caterer. Then--this is the
cream of the joke--the day before we expect to move, the Practical
Joke Department puts out a playful hand and sweeps us all into some
half-completed huts at D, somewhere at the other end of the Ordnance
map, and leaves us there, with a happy chuckle, to sink or swim in an
Atlantic of mud.

So far as one is able to follow the scoring of the game, some of
the squares in the chessboard are of higher value than others. For
instance, if you are dumped down into comparatively modern barracks
at Aldershot, which, although they contain no furniture, are at least
weatherproof and within reach of shops, the Practical Joke Department
scores one point. Barracks condemned as unsafe and insanitary before
the war, but now reckoned highly eligible, count three points;
rat-ridden billets count five. But if you can manoeuvre your helpless
pawns into Mudsplosh Camp, you receive ten whole points, with a bonus
of two points thrown in if you can effect the move without previous
notice of any kind.

We are in Mudsplosh Camp to-day. In transferring us here the
Department secured full points, including bonus.

Let it not be supposed, however, that we are decrying our present
quarters. Mudsplosh Camp is--or is going to be--a nobly planned and
admirably equipped military centre. At present it consists of some
three hundred wooden huts, in all stages of construction, covering
about twenty acres of high moorland. The huts are heated with stoves,
and will be delightfully warm when we get some coal. They are lit
by--or rather wired for--electric light. Meanwhile a candle-end does
well enough for a room only a hundred feet long. There are numerous
other adjuncts to our comfort--wash-houses, for instance. These will
be invaluable, when the water is laid on. For the present, there is a
capital standpipe not a hundred yards away; and all you have to do, if
you want an invigorating scrub, is to wait your turn for one of the
two tin basins supplied to each fifty men, and then splash to your
heart's content. There is a spacious dining-hall; and as soon as the
roof is on, our successors, or their successors, will make merry
therein. Meanwhile, there are worse places to eat one's dinner than
the floor--the mud outside, for instance.