older Tommies immediately get busy on the recruits, and trade these
for Woodbines or Goldflakes. A recruit only has to be stuck once in
this manner, and then he ceases to be a recruit. There is a reason.
Tommy is a great cigarette smoker. He smokes under all conditions,
except when unconscious or when he is reconnoitering in No Man's Land
at night. Then, for obvious reasons, he does not care to have a
lighted cigarette in his mouth.

Stretcher-bearers carry fags for wounded Tommies. When a
stretcher-bearer arrives alongside of a Tommy who has been hit, the
following conversation usually takes place-Stretcher-bearer, "Want a
fag? Where are you hit?" Tommy looks up and answers, "Yes. In the
leg."

After dismissal from parade, we returned to our billets, and I had to
get busy immediately with the dinner issue. Dinner consisted of stew
made from fresh beef, a couple of spuds, bully beef, Maconochie
rations and water,--plenty of water. There is great competition
among the men to spear with their forks the two lonely potatoes.

After dinner I tried to wash out the dixie with cold water and a rag,
and learned another maxim of the trenches--"It can't be done." I
slyly watched one of the older men from another section, and was
horrified to see him throw into his dixie four or five double handfuls
of mud. Then he poured in some water, and with his hands scoured the
dixie inside and out. I thought he was taking an awful risk. Supposing
the cook should have seen him! After half an hour of unsuccessful
efforts, I returned my dixie to the cook shack, being careful to put
on the cover, and returned to the billet. Pretty soon the cook poked
his head in the door and shouted: "Hey, Yank, come out here and clean