On the Fringe of the Great Fight | Page 6

pitched in a quadrangle
formed by four rows of trees and scrub, which had evidently been
planted around the site of a former house and served to break the high
winds. Each officer had a tent with a wooden floor. Mine was carpeted
with an extra blanket to exclude draughts and make it feel comfortable
under one's bare feet in the morning. The tent was heated by an oil
stove which was kept burning night and day; and at night I slept snug
and warm in the interior of a Jaeger sleeping blanket in a Wolseley kit.
My batman, Karner, had made a table from some boxes and boards
which he had picked up, I know not where. It is unwise to ask your
batman too many foolish questions as to the origin of things,--take what
he gives you and be thankful.
This table covered with another blanket, served to support a splendid
brass lamp with a green silk shade, for which I had paid a fabulous sum
in Salisbury town. It also held some books, brushes, and other
necessaries. A shelf underneath displayed a little brass kettle and other
paraphernalia for making tea, while my other books were arranged in a
neat row beneath.
The tents were wet all the time, and the clothes and blankets of the men
soon became water soaked and remained so for weeks at a stretch for
they had no stoves or other facilities for drying them. But Tommy, the
resourceful, learned that he could get warm by the simple process of
wrapping himself up in wet blankets and steaming as he would in a
Turkish bath,--with himself as the heater. He also discovered that a pair
of wet socks, well wrung out and placed next his chest at night would
be half dry in the morning. He had to sleep in a bell tent with seven
others, radiating like spokes of a wheel from the centre tent pole. He
had nothing to give him any comfort whatever.
It was impossible to do any work, even route marching, and, having
nothing to do but lie around and think of himself, Tommy began to
grouse. Each camp had become a morass with mud a foot deep, and
Tommy looked out upon it and behold it was not good, and he cursed
both loud and long whoever he thought might be responsible for the
conditions, and particularly Emperor Bill the cause of it all. The

Canadian contingent had begun a process of mildewing.
One felt sorry for the poor horses. Picketed in the open plain or in the
partial shelter of the occasional "spinneys," they stood with ears
drooping and tails to the wind, pictures of dejection. No doubt they, too,
cursed the Kaiser. Their feet became soft from standing idly in the mud,
and in a good many cases had become diseased; in general they went
off badly in condition. Standing orders prohibited the cutting down of a
bush or tree on Salisbury Plain, but in the night time we could
sometimes hear the familiar sound of an axe meeting standing timber,
and one could guess that Tommy, in his desire for wood to build a fire,
and regardless of rules, had grown desperate. As one of them said to
Rudyard Kipling when he was down visiting them, "What were trees
for if they were not to be cut down?"
Towards the middle of December, one evening there was a sharp tap on
the tent of Capt. Haywood, Medical Officer of the third (Toronto)
Battalion.
"Come in" he cried.
The laces were undone and Sergeant Kipple stepped into the tent. The
Sergeant was a good man--an old soldier and reliable as the proverbial
watch.
"Well, what is it?" said the M.O.
"I want you to give me somethink to buck me up" said the Sergeant in a
tearful voice.
"But what is the matter?" said the M.O. "Have you a cold?"
"No, I aint got no cold" he said, "I just wants somethink to buck me up;
some qui-nine or somethink."
"But what's the matter?" persisted the M.O. "What do you want it for?"
"Nothing's wrong with me" said the sergeant, "I jist want somethink to

buck me up; this rine is getting on me nerves. It rines all day, and me
clothes 'aven't been dry for a month--if I go out I get more wet. All day
long I 'ave to splash about in the blinkin' mud and rine. At night I cawnt
go to sleep. Me clothes are wet; me blankets are soaked. I 'ears the
bl---- rine coming down on the bl---- tent which leaks all over; it makes
a 'ell of a noise on the tent and I cawnt sleep. I gets up in the morning
and 'ave to do me work and