"Give us pudding then!" someone suggested.
"Oh say! By Hezekiah Slifkins!" cried the cook. "If you fellers want puddin' make it yourselves! I'm through!"
Bob had a sudden inspiration. As he saw the tired, careworn faces of the lads who had just come in from a nerve-racking tour of duty, exposed to death and danger—faces which, in the ordinary course of events, were too young to have such strained looks, Bob wished he could do something to help relieve them. And, from his own experience, he knew that food would do this.
"And there is food—and food," he told himself.
The daily mess of the trench was not very elaborate—in the nature of things it could not be. And one of the great cravings of the fighters was for sweets. That is why there was such a lot of chocolate used.
"Pie! Pie! We want pie!" came the doleful chant again.
"By Theophilus Porkenheimer!" shouted the cook, "if I hear that there word agin, I'll——"
"Say," said Bob, sliding up to him, "have you any bread or crackers?"
"Yes, I've got lots of that, son. Fresh supply jest come in."
"Got any molasses and condensed milk?"