I had the job of issuing the rations of our platoon, and it nearly
drove me mad. Every morning I would detail a couple of men from our
platoon to be standing mess orderlies for the day. They would fetch
the char and bacon from the field kitchen in the morning and clean
up the "dixies" after breakfast. The "dixie", by the way, is an
iron box or pot, oblong in shape, capacity about four or five
gallons. It fits into the field kitchen and is used for roasts,
stews, char, or anything else. The cover serves to cook bacon in.

Field kitchens are drawn by horses and follow the battalion
everywhere that it is safe to go, and to some places where it
isn't. Two men are detailed from each company to cook, and there is
usually another man who gets the sergeants' mess, besides the
officers' cook, who does not as a rule use the field kitchen, but
prepares the food in the house taken as the officers' mess.

As far as possible, the company cooks are men who were cooks in
civil life, but not always. We drew a plumber and a navvy (road
builder)--and the grub tasted of both trades. The way our company
worked the kitchen problem was to have stew for two platoons one
day and roast dinner for the others, and then reverse the order
next day, so that we didn't have stew all the time. There were not
enough "dixies" for us all to have stew the same day.

Every afternoon I would take my mess orderlies and go to the
quartermaster's stores and get our allowance and carry it back to
the billets in waterproof sheets. Then the stuff that was to be
cooked in the kitchen went there, and the bread and that sort of
material was issued direct to the men. That was where my trouble
started.