I daresay you wonder how we go on about our cooking. When we were in column we had a cook for every sub-section. Every evening, or when we arrived at our billet, rations were drawn. A sub-section of forty men would draw about eight to twelve pounds of cheese, nine or ten pounds of bacon, about one and a half to two pounds of tea, two to three pounds of sugar, and, if there was bread, about sixteen loaves, each weighing about two pounds, or two 56 lb. boxes of biscuits, forty tins of bully beef, or twenty-eight pounds of fresh meat. I cooked for three weeks, and I can assure you it is no joke to be cook to forty men and not know much about the work. I will give an idea of a day’s work as cook. We had as a rule réveillé at 3 A.M. or 4 A.M. I would get up half an hour earlier and start the fire. The water would boil within twenty minutes, and I put the tea and sugar in. The men would afterwards use the fire themselves for frying. Directly breakfast was over I filled the dixies again and kept them ready for dinner. Some of the fellows would come in and would peel potatoes and carrots. I cut the meat up, or, if there was no fresh meat, I opened tins of bully beef as a substitute. I put this on the fire two or three hours before dinner so as to ensure it being done properly. In the afternoon rations were drawn. I had to cut them up, and it wants some judgment to cut a small piece of bacon or cheese for forty hungry men. But it was always done somehow. Tea was ready from four to five o’clock. Milk was got where possible, in addition to eggs and butter. I was fed up with it after three weeks and handed it over. It is different in the battery I am in here. The corporal draws the rations and cuts them up. We generally have bacon for breakfast. We fry it in our saucepan together and soak the bread in the fat; it goes down good: Gunner Southern, Royal Horse Artillery.
Let Down Lightly
One night—there were about ten of us—we were surprised to find a light in an empty farmhouse, and were still more surprised to find sounds of revelry coming out through the window. We peeped in, and there were about fifty Germans all over the shop, drinking, and eating, and smoking, and generally trying to look as if they were having a jolly old time. It was a dare-devil of an Irishman who suggested that we ought to give the Germans a little surprise, and we were all in with him. Doing our best to look fierce, and create the impression that we had at least a brigade behind us, we flung open the door without any ceremony. Our first rush was for the passage where most of the Germans had stacked their rifles, and from there we were able to cover the largest party in any one room. They were so taken aback that they made very little resistance. The only chap who showed any fight at all was a big fellow, who had good reason to fear us, for he had escaped the day before, after being arrested as a spy. He whipped out a revolver, and some of his chums drew swords, but we fired into them, and they threw up their hands, after the little one had sent a revolver bullet through my arm. We fastened them up securely, collected all the smokes and grub they had not touched, and marched them off to the camp. There was a nice how-d’ye-do when we got back, for the sound of firing so close by had alarmed the whole camp, and we were called to account for our behaviour. I think they were inclined to let us down lightly, because of the prisoners, particularly the spy chap; but we had no business to be out of barracks that night, and we’ll probably have some mark of official displeasure chalked up against us: Pte. F. Lewis, 1st South Staffs.
[XIX. MATTERS IN GENERAL]
Come all the world against her,
England yet shall stand.
A. C. Swinburne.
Vain, mightiest fleets of iron framed;