could to leave the world a little better than he found it. These good
mission-folk looked after our physical as well as our spiritual
necessities. They had annexed a small house and garden just opposite
their tent, and here we could buy an excellent cup of tea or lemonade
for one penny, as well as a variety of delectable buns, much in request.
So pressing was the demand for these light and cheap refreshments that
the supply of cups and glasses gave out, and the lemonade was usually
served out in old salmon or jam tins. Very often, after a couple of
hymns and, perhaps, a prayer, we went across and finished up the evening
with a couple of buns and a cup of tea. One of my ambulance comrades,
an ex-baker from Johannesburg, was extremely good in helping on the
success of the refreshment bar, and frequently stood for hours together
at the receipt of custom. The returns were very large. One day, I
remember, they amounted to £22 in pennies: this would mean, I think, on
a low estimate, that something like 1,500 soldiers used the temperance
canteen on that evening. Apart from this enterprising work, private
gifts in the way of fruit occasionally arrived on the scene, and I well
remember one day when almost every "Tommy" one met carried a pine apple
in his hands. In addition to such pleasures of realised satisfaction we
enjoyed the pleasures of anticipation; for was not her Gracious
Majesty's chocolate _en route_ for South Africa? The amount of interest
exhibited in the arrival of these chocolate boxes was amazing. Men
continually discussed them, and a stranger would have thought that
chocolate was some essential factor in a soldier's life, from which we
had, by the exigencies of camp life, been long deprived! As a matter of
fact, portable forms of cocoa are extremely valuable in cases where
normal supplies of food are cut off. Every soldier on a campaign carries
in his haversack a small tin labelled "emergency rations". This cannot
be opened unless by order from a commanding officer and any infraction
of the rule is severely punished. At one end of the oblong tin are "beef