"Necessaries; but not half what I shall need. Has my kit arrived?"
"My dear chap, you will never see your kit up here; and what is more, you will have to leave most of those things you have brought with you behind, before you go up the front line. Dump your things out here, and I will tell you what to take."
We emptied his pack and haversack. I have never in all my life seen such a lot of rubbish in the war kit of a soldier. There seemed to be nothing there he would really need; but a curious mixture of strange articles which would fill a fancy bazaar. There were hair-brushes with ebony backs and silver monograms, silk handkerchiefs with fancy borders, a pinky tooth-paste, oozing out of a leaden tube; and crushed between a comb and a pair of silk socks, a large bottle of reddish tooth-wash, sufficient to last him three years; and half of which had leaked through the cork to the destruction of about a dozen silk handkerchiefs, spotted and bordered in fanciful shades. There was a box of cigars, a heavy china pot of massage-cream, a pot of hair-pomade, a leather writing-case, a large ivory-backed mirror, which had lost its usefulness for ever, a bottle of fountain-pen ink, two suits of silk pajamas, one striped with pink and the other blue, a huge bath-towel, a case containing seven razors, one for each day in the week, and a sponge as big as his head. Poor Septimus! in his simplicity and ignorance, for the first time in his life he had packed his own kit.
CHAPTER XI[ToC]
DEATH VALLEY
MOVING OVER BATTLE-FIELDS. —— BATTALION, LONDON REGIMENT, IN POSSESSION. THE MYSTERY TRENCH. FALFEMONT FARM
The final preparations completed, the first platoon began to move off; other platoons followed at intervals, the column slowly wending its way through the Valley of Death to its mysterious destination.