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I should have liked to have seen these planters' houses a hundred years ago, swarming with guests, whilst the cookhouses smoked bravely as armies of black slaves busied themselves in preparing one of the gigantic repasts described by Lady Nugent.
Into the cookhouses, whence cutlery had vanished, crowded old men in bowlers and bonneted old women, whose bony fingers clutched convulsively at plates of leavings. Everywhere there were groups of miscreants selling mouldy bread at exorbitant prices. The dead in their thousands, over whom there was no time to carry out funeral rites, were borne away to the churches.
The gun positions of my new Battery were situated just outside the little village of Pec, inhabited mostly by Slovene peasantry before the war, now all vanished. The village had been much shelled, first by Italian and then by Austrian guns, and there was not a house remaining undamaged, though several had been patched up as billets and cookhouses by British troops.
There were no fires, no cookhouses, only tents without floorboards. Almost the only thing which could now be done for the comfort of the men was the institution of a Battalion Canteen, at which all the articles bought from the Expeditionary Force Canteen were sold at cost price. The weary interchange between camp and trench went on for nearly another month.
Some of the regiments from the remote Northwest had the Sibley conical tent, which has no wall, but which has a small sheet iron stove. These were more than appreciated during the cold, rainy weather that prevailed at Camp Thomas. The mess tents and cookhouses are about alike in all the arms of the service.
The men imprisoned in Andersonville urge that there were thousands of cords of wood just outside the stockade, miles upon miles of forests all about, that the prisoners could have built their own shanties and hospitals, and cookhouses. To which Wirtz's friends answer that he did not have weapons or Confederate soldiers enough to guard the prisoners on parole.
Cookhouses, horse lines, canteens, and so on were untouched, and one had an eerie feeling in passing at night through these untenanted camping grounds, deserted and lifeless, and a prey to the jackal and pariah dog.
The genial neighbourhood of the oven caused him no inconvenience. They flaunt and forage in the Lines, they inspect the ashpits and cookhouses, they wheel and manoeuvre on the parades, but Slyboots sat serene upon his poker. He had a cookhouse all to himself.... He died. We must all die; but we need not all die of repletion, which I fear, was his case.
There was one advantage about the Beech Hill Schools of Luton, namely, that the whole battalion could assemble in the big room, sit on the floor, and listen in comfort to words of instruction and advice. But day schools were not intended for lodging purposes, and here again was displayed Major Martin's skill in the erection of cookhouses and more wash-tubs and other domestic essentials.
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