missed.

At last we found a pokey little house where the woman agreed to let us
stay the night and get some breakfast next day.

That night was fearful. We had to sleep in a double bed, and it was
full of fleas. The moonlight shone through the window. The shadow of a
barrack-room chimney-pot slid slowly across my face as the hours
dragged on.

We got up about 5.30 A.M., so as to get down to the parade-ground in
time for the "fall in."

We washed in a tiny scullery sink downstairs. There was a Pears'
Annual print of an old fisherman telling a story to a little girl
stuck over the mantelpiece.

We had eggs and bread-and-butter and tea for breakfast, and I think
the woman only charged us three shillings all told.

Once down at the parade-ground we looked about for "Section E" and
found their lines in the hundreds of rows of bell-tents.

Life for the next few days was indeed "hand to mouth." We had to go on
a tent-pitching fatigue under a sergeant who kept up a continual flow
of astoundingly profane oaths.

Food came down our lines but seldom. When it did come you had to fetch
it in a huge "dixie" and grope with your hands at the bits of gristle
and bone which floated in a lot of greasy water. Some one bought a box