of timber which had been used by
the C.O. in his headquarters during the last spell in the line. This
wood had been got with some difficulty from the engineers and was very
precious. Once he had it in his possession, however, he seemed to forget
the use it was really intended for, and finding that the beams were much
too long to support the canvas roof, instead of considering some means
of raising the roof or lowering the beams into the ground, promptly
sawed them in half and was perfectly satisfied with the result, which
was really excellent as far as the other members of the mess were
concerned. Very shortly after the mess had been finished, however, the
C.O. came round to pay a visit, and was horrified, to say the least of
it, to see the destruction that had been carried out on the borrowed
beams. Captain Fyfe, however, had a ready answer and the trouble was
smoothed over.

For some time past we had had signs that the hot weather was not going
to continue and we had frequent showers of rain. One afternoon clouds
began to gather from the south, and just as it was beginning to get dark
we realised we were in for a pretty severe thunderstorm. With thunder we
knew to expect rain and made hurried preparations, but no preparations
we possibly could have made would have saved us from the deluge that
came that evening. It rained steadily, in a way that few of us had ever
experienced before, for several hours, and dug-outs soon filled up with
water. It was impossible to go to bed, and a weary miserable night was
passed by everyone praying for the rain to go off. An unfortunate
feature was that the Quartermaster the day before received from Ordnance
the Battalion's winter clothing, and had issued it that morning. It had
been issued by companies to the men in the afternoon and by night it
was sodden with rain. It was impossible to keep anything dry, and all we
could hope for was some sunshine to follow after the storm. In the early
morning the rain went off and when day broke there were some very funny
sights. Few will forget the figure of Dow fishing in a deep pool of
water for various articles of clothing with a stick, while his empty
valise floated about on the surface. Fortunately the day was bright and
warm and, as it is possible in a climate like that, we got blankets and
clothing dried.

To add to our other troubles an epidemic of jaundice had broken out
about this time, which accounted for a great many officers and me