Note: the price of whiskey is 11s. a bottle, on a rising market.
A French Canadian member of the R.C.R. was doing sentry-go one night at Enslin (Graspan). The countersign for the night was "Halifax." Presently there came a strolling soldier whom our gallant Canadian promptly challenged.
"Who go dare?"
"Friend."
"Advance, fren, and pace on—and say 'Haversack'—all is vale."
There were many such sentry stories in circulation in the army. Another one was to the effect that a Yorkshireman having to halt, and demand the countersign of a man he knew very well, acquitted himself of his task in these words: "Halt! who goes there. Say 'Majuba,' and toddle along—isn't it all blooming nonsense?"
Finally, there was this one other paragraph especially full of the local colour of our surroundings—
A captured Free Stater tried to impress a sense of his importance upon his captor by declaring that he was a Field Cornet. "I don't care if you're a field big drum. You're my prisoner, and you'd better be very civil and come on."