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"After feeding and watering, we unloaded the trucks which had begun to come in, ate some bully-beef and bread, and then fell asleep anyhow, in a confused heap in our tents. Mine had thirteen in it, and once we were packed no movement was possible."
That would be a new experience and I'm tired enough." "Yes, that would be better than the four-in-hand in the G.S. waggon that you took to the sports meeting," I added. A Hun 5·9 was firing persistently on a spot 400 yards between Saulcourt and where we stood. For once in a way the dog neglected shells, and searched for bully-beef leavings among the tins thrown aside by the battery drivers.
Besides this, we had our haversack containing emergency rations: tea, sugar, army biscuits, and bully-beef. I put my pack on the scales when I got it all together, and it weighed just one hundred pounds. Our new issue of boots came in for more attention than anything else. I must tell you about them; they were destined to cause us no end of misery in the near future. Such boots!
The afternoon hours dragged drowsily past, until, with the lowering sun, they woke to prepare the evening meal, the largest of the day. Culinary operations were strictly limited by the short supply of water, so that meals were usually confined to bully-beef, biscuits, marmalade, bacon, or Maconochie.
I remember that one day our parson gave as much as five shillings for an empty tar can. Several British convoys fell into our hands, but the food we found on them consisted usually of bully-beef and "clinkers," things which only dire necessity drove us Boers to eat.
I started to kick, but it was no use, so I followed the Sergeant out to where he had a bunch lined up; we were ordered to go down to the commissary tent about five hundred yards distant and draw rations. Well, away we went, and we spent the rest of the night carrying up boxes of jam, butter, bully-beef, and sardines.
We planned to make our "getaway" on the Tuesday of the following week, so we set about collecting provisions for our journey. All our pals were willing to contribute, and they gave us bully-beef and biscuits from their scanty stores. We could hardly wait for the time set for our starting, but at last the night came.
I am on ordinary "camp diet," which means tea, biscuit, and bully-beef or stew. They give us tea at four, and nothing after, so one gets pretty hungry. Some men are on milk diet. August 27. Monday. My foot gets on very slowly. Veldt-sores, as they are called, are very common out here, as though you may be perfectly well, as I am, the absence of fresh food makes any scratch fester.
I doubt if they even found the name of a Chicago packing-house on a bully-beef case, when next day they wandered curiously through the abandoned settlement that for many months had been peopled by the bronzed giants from farthest south. The last men to leave the actual trenches were the remnant of the heroic band that were the first to land.
We had, if I remember rightly, fresh meat and bread for one day, and the remaining two bully-beef and biscuits; in any case we certainly did not starve.
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