would be gone, and they would have to be content to lie, six in a box,
where a flooring-board was missing through which the rats would make
their nightly explorations. But even this was better than the lower
tiers of the grand stand, as the rats would not always wake you running
across your face, but a husky in military boots stepping on it would
rouse even the deadest in slumber. As he would step on about twenty
others as well, the mutual recriminations would continue for hours, and
as the real culprit would settle down in the dark into his own place
without a word no one would know who it was. There would come from up
above: "Shut up, there!" "What the h---- are you makin' all that row
about?" and the answer: "So would you make a row if a b-- b-- elephant
stepped on your face!" "Go and bag your head! Anyway, there are two
hundred men who didn't step on your face trying to go to sleep, and it
will be reveille in an hour or so."

These grand-stand couches were bad places at the best of times. They
may have been high and dry, but were open to every breeze that blew and
were sheltered only on the side from which the rain never came. The
Bendigo show committee must have faced them that way so that the sun
and weather would be right in the eyes of the onlookers and prevent
them seeing any "crook riding" or "running dead," etc.

The first item on the day's programme was the "gargling parade."
Meningitis had broken out in the camp and every one had to gargle his
throat first thing in the morning with salt water. We would be marched
under our sergeant to each receive our half-pannikin of salt water at
the A. M. C. tent. We would string out along the brick drain and then
began the most horrible conglomeration of sounds that ever offended the
ear. It was like the tuning up of some infernal orchestra. I don't
know why it is, but it is surprising how few men can gargle "like a