There was no hurry as far as I was concerned. From an island in the mud I looked round; and when it was time to move forward, I went no farther than the quartermaster’s tent, where the crowd of men and the heaps of stores made progress a matter of tactics. True, my goal was the Brigade Office, and in time I arrived there and stood waiting my turn. It was not long before the clerk beckoned me inside, and for the second time I was before the Colonel. I looked for my acquaintance Sands, who had not put in an appearance. The Colonel spoke a few words; but business soon took his attention, and I stood, baggage in hand, while an orderly went for Captain Knight. Knight was a long time arriving, and finally arrived in a hurry. I found out he commanded the ammunition column. He was quite friendly and talked outside the tent several minutes. He ended by saying, “From now you become Gunner Lake,” and then it seemed he recollected a forgotten affair, for he broke off with, “Come on, I’ll hand you over to the sergeant-major.”
On his heels he turned, and away we went towards the column office, he leading, I following. We passed the cook-house on the way, where a long row of iron pots sat astride the fire. A rickety shed, furnished with a chopping block, basins, and other things, was the only protection from the weather the cooks boasted. A man in a jersey and dungaree trousers peeled potatoes, and a second big fat man chopped up vegetables. That was all there was to see.
The sergeant-major sat in the office, and took charge of me. I waited a long time while he went through business with a clerk; in truth I was bored to death before he pushed the writing things away and got up. “Come on,” he said, and went outside.
In the mud we slipped and slid by men in all dresses and all stages of hurry. The horse-lines were impassable. The stout sergeant-major took matters calmly, trailing me in his wake, with my baggage knocking round my knees. We came in the end to a tent somewhere near the middle of a row and stopped there.
“Corporal Black!” the sergeant-major called out.
A long, nervous-looking man came out of the tent, and stood to attention, staring at us rather stupidly at the same time.
“Corporal,” the sergeant-major said, twisting his moustache ends, “this man is going into your tent. His belongings are with him, and you can fix him up with the other things. Start him to-morrow. His name is—what’s your name?—Lake.”
The corporal introduced himself to me pleasantly enough, and the pair of them fell to talking on other subjects—that is, the sergeant-major talked and the corporal agreed. When the sergeant-major tired and moved away, I was invited into the tent. Black showed me where to sleep, and made me drop my kit there. There were bundles of blankets placed tidily before the tent, and several articles of clothing and equipment hanging from the pole in the centre; but none of the owners were present. The corporal sat on a packing case and I sat down opposite. He looked me all over, twitched his eyelids and began a talk of the camp in general, describing everything as upside down, but telling me I was lucky in my tent, as all the members were good fellows. He did not interest me much, and I passed the time watching events outside. Did I look at him at all, his eyelids started to twitch. Presently he tired of talking, so that a lull fell between us, until he remembered I had not been issued with the regulation blankets and eating utensils. He got up saying we would go to the quartermaster’s store, which was close at hand. Out we went. A crowd was about the place; but we got the quartermaster’s ear, and quite soon I was loaded up with a waterproof sheet, a pair of blankets, and a knife, fork, spoon, and pannikin.
Back at the tent again, the corporal told me I could do what I liked until twelve o’clock, when the horses went to water. So I started a journey of exploration within the artillery lines, looking at horses, guns, waggons, and everything else. Work had slackened off—men washed at the watertaps, cleaned their leggings, or wrote letters. Behind the ammunition column lines were three batteries. The watering troughs were in a far corner, and the whole camp, appropriately enough, overlooked a cemetery. I was not too exact over the tour, because of the mud, and finding the quartermaster’s tent again, I rested on a bagful of harness. Sitting there I saw a sight surely not equalled since Noah organised the march into the ark.