ot yer tike me for--eh?"

Every one was starving. I had managed to fish a lump of bone with a
scrag of tough meat on it from the lukewarm slosh in our "dixie." But
some one who was very hungry and very big came along and snatched it
away before I could get my teeth in it.

We had continually to "fall in" in long rows and answer our names. This
was "roll-call," and roll-call went on morning, noon, and night. Even
when your own particular roll-call was not being called you could hear
some other corporal or sergeant shouting--

"Jones F.--Wiggins, T.--Simons, G.-- Harrison, I...." and so on all day
long.

There were no ground-sheets to the tents. We squatted in the mud, and we
had one blanket each, which was simply crawling.

We were indeed in a far worse condition than many savages. Then came the
rain. We huddled into the tents. There were twenty-two in mine, and,
as a bell-tent is full up with eighteen, you may imagine how thick the
atmosphere became. One old man would smoke his clay-pipe with
choking twist tobacco. Most of the others smoked rank and often damp
"woodbines." The language was thick with grumbling and much swearing. At
first it was not so bad. But some one touched the side of the tent and
the rain began to dribble through. Then we found a tiny stream of wet
slowly trickling along underneath the tent-walls towards the tent-pole,
and by night time we were lying and sitting in a pool of mud.

About a week later when the sergeant-major told us on parade that we
were "going to Tipperary" we all laughed, and no one believed it.

But the next day they marched us down to the Government siding and
locked us all in a train, which took us right away to Fishguard.

Some of the men got some bread-and-cheese before starting, but I, in
company with a good many others, did not.

The boat was waiting when they bundled us out on the quay.

It was a cattle-boat and very small and very smelly. There were no
cabins or accommodation of any sort: only the cattle-stalls down below.
Six hundred of us got aboard. Out of the six hundred, five hundred
were sick. It was a very rough crossing, and we were all starving and
shivering. I had nothing but what I stood up in--shirt, shorts, and
cowboy-hat, and my old haversack, which contained soap, towel and razor,
and also a sketch-book and a small colour-box.

The Irish sea-winds whistled up my shorts--but I preferred the icy wind
to the stinking cattle-stalls and insect-infest