RATION SCALE.
Get all you can but don't take less.
It is all right to claim as much as you think you can get and to get all you really can, but in case of argument it may be just as well to have this little list stuck inside your helmet. You may know some way of getting more than this—striking the A.S.C. when it is badly rushed, or very sleepy—but if you reach the issue depôt when it is too wide-awake for you, here is the list, just to make sure you'll not take less than regulations give you.
One man, one day:—Biscuits, 1 lb.; fresh bread, 1-1/2 lb.; preserved meat, 1 lb.; fresh meat, 1-1/4 lb.; coffee, 2/3 oz., or tea 1/3 oz., or 1/2 oz. of each; pepper, 1/36 oz.; salt, 1/2 oz.; sugar, 3 ozs. (including sugar for lime-juice); compressed vegetables, 1 oz.; fresh vegetables, 8 oz. (when available); rice, 2 oz. (in lieu of vegetables); cheese, 2 oz. (in lieu of 4 oz. of meat); jam, 1/4 lb. (three times a week); rum, 1/64 of gallon—when ordered; lime juice, 1/320 of a gallon, if certified to be necessary by the medical officer; candles, 1 per officer; office authorised canteen.
Meal or flour for natives 1 lb. a day, which may be increased to 1-1/4 lb. when supplies are plentiful; natives receive the same ration as soldiers with the exception of vegetables. Meal or flour is usually substituted for bread.
Indians enjoy a special scale of rations.
Forage:—English horses: oats, 9 lbs.; oat-hay, 7 lbs.; bran, 3 lbs.; chaff, 2 lbs.
Colonial horses: Mealies, 8 lbs.; oat-hay, 4 lbs.; bran, 2 lbs.; chaff, 2 lbs.
Mules: Mealies, 5 lbs.; bran or chaff, 2 lbs.
To officers.—If you countersign a claim for any more than this you had better be sure it is in the hands of a very "trustworthy" man, who can bluff it through, and get the A.S.C. men mixed up. If he doesn't know his way about they'll catch him up and send him back.