"No, you _don't_, my lad!" announces the Major. "Not if I can help it!
Take it away! Take your darned liver-pill out of this! Burn, it! Bury
it! Eat it! But not here! Creep away!"
The abashed procession complies. This time they find a section
of trench in charge of a mere corporal. Here, before any one of
sufficient standing can be summoned to deal with the situation, the
Trench Mortar Officer seizes his opportunity, and discharges three
bombs over the parapet. He then retires defiantly to his dug-out.
But it is an Ishmaelitish existence.
III
So much for the alleviations which professional enthusiasm bestows.
Now for a few alleviations proper. These are Sleep, Food, and
Literature.
Sleep is the rarest of these. We seldom get more than a few hours at
a time; but it is astonishing how readily one learns to slumber in
unlikely surroundings--upon damp earth, in cramped positions, amid
ceaseless noise, in clothes and boots that have not been removed for
days. One also acquires the priceless faculty of losing no time in
dropping off.
As for food, we grumble at times, just as people at home are grumbling
at the Savoy, or Lockhart's. It is the Briton's habit so to do. But in
moments of repletion we are fain to confess that the organisation of
our commissariat is wonderful. Of course the quality of the _menu_
varies, according to the immunity of the communication-trenches from
shell fire, or the benevolence of the Quartermaster and the mysterious
powers behind him, or the facilities for cooking offered by the time
and place in which we find ourselves.
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