"Reveillé—breakfast at 5 o'clock, parade at 5.30 with haversack rations."
I started up in dismay and shouted:
"It's an hour too early! What's the matter?"
The Corporal answered resentfully:
"Never mind what's the matter—show a leg, and get a move on!"
He passed on to the next tent and repeated his order, and then to the next, and so on, until his voice grew faint in the distance.
I was full of vexation at being deprived of the extra hour of sleep. I could not understand why reveillé should be so early, unless it was my watch that was wrong.
The other men in the tent began to stir. They sat up and groaned and yawned and stretched out their arms, or turned round impatiently and went to sleep again. One of them looked at his wrist-watch:
"Gorblimy, 'tain't 'alf-past four—what the bleed'n' 'ell d'they want to wake us this time of a mornin' for? Some bloody fatigue, I bet yer!"
"Wha', ain't it 'ah'-past five?"