A Yankee in the Trenches

His life is simplified to two principal motives, i.e., keeping alive himself and killing the oth

tion", cheese, bread or biscuit, jam, and tea. He may get some of this hot o

on, and the bully and the Maconochie's come along in the form of stew. Also t

ng field marshal. I found, however, that a corporal is high enough to take responsibility and to get bawled out for anything that goes wrong. He's not high enough to command any consider

r the day. They would fetch the char and bacon from the field kitchen in the morning and clean up the "dixies" after breakfast. The "dixie", by the way, is an iron box or pot,

't. Two men are detailed from each company to cook, and there is usually another man who gets the sergeants' mess, besides th

ub tasted of both trades. The way our company worked the kitchen problem was to have stew for two platoons one day and roast dinner for the others,

carry it back to the billets in waterproof sheets. Then the stuff that was to be cooked in the kitchen went

number of men, and vice versa. There would be eleven loaves of bread to go to a platoon of fifty

r his own. He will bully and browbeat if he can, and he will coax and cajole if he can't. It would be "Hi sye, corporal. They's ten men i

like the A.S.C. (Army Service Corps) been using i

for his onion whether he liked 'em or not. Same way with a bottle of pickles to go among eleven men or a handful of raisins or apricots

in cans and is O.K. if you lik

n imperfect knowledge of cookery and a perverted imagination. Open a can of Maconochie and you find a gooey gob of grease, like rancid lard. Investigate and you find chunks of carrot and other unidentifiable material, and now a

sible those containing raisins or dried fruit. Figs, dates, etc., are good. And, of course, chocolate. Personally, I never did have enough chocolate. Candy is acceptable, if it is of the sort to stan

sed of biscuit, water, condensed milk, raisins, and chocolate. If some of you folks at home would get one look at that con

into mischief. It was at Petite-Saens that I first saw the Divisional Folies. This was a vaudeville show by ten men who had been acto

he soldiers of all armies. The Y.M.C.A.

be able to go into a clean, warm, dry place and sit down to reading or games and to hear good music. Personally I am a little bit sorry that the secretaries are

om thirty-five to fifty. A soldier likes kisses as well as the next. And he takes them when he finds them. And he finds too many. But what h

to see many women of that type in the Y.M.C.A. work. It is one of the great needs of our army that the boys should be amuse

we were in Petite-Saens. Our stop there was hardly typical of the rest in billets. Usually "rest" means

physical drill or bayonet practice. Breakfast. Inspection of ammo and gas masks. One

re about two days. After that he goes smokeless unless he has friends at home to send him a supply. I had friends in London who sent me a

ld Woodbines. This cigarette is composed of glue, cheap paper, and a poor

here'll never be too many. Smoking is one of the soldier's few comforts. Two bits' worth of makin's a week will hel

s not half as bad as it sounds. The drinking was mostly confined to the slu

d to play as children. The backers distribute cards having fifteen numbers, forming what they call a school. Then numbered cardboard squares are drawn from a bag, the numbers being called out. When a number comes out which appear

o come. Usually when you get as close as that and sweat over a number for ten minutes, somebody else gets hi

are "crown and anchor", which is a dice game, and "pontoon", which is a card game similar to "twenty-one" or "seven and a half." Most of these are mildly discouraged by the authorities, "house" being the e

who used to insist upon singing on all occasions. Rolfie would climb on the table in the estaminet and sing numerous unprintable verses of his own, enti

e beggar

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at Petite-Saens came t

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hitting the mark at eighteen miles. The water system of the town depended upon the pumping apparatus of the mines. Every morning early, before the pressure was off, all hands would turn out for

batch and were given four minutes to soap ourselves all over and rinse off. I was in the last lot and had just lathered up good and plenty

owl. The fresh underthings had been boiled and sterilized, but the immortal cootie ha

, the blinkin' thing's as lousy as a cookoo now, an me just a-gittin' rid o' the bloomin' chats on me

Bottomley, which makes a specialty of publishing complaints fro

ion had made me keen for more excitement, and in spite of the comfortable time at Petite-Saens, I was glad to go. I was yet to know the re