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At about eleven o'clock, an orderly came along the field with a mackintosh ground-sheet over his head, and told me the Colonel wished to see me. "Where is he?" I asked. "In that little cottage place at the far corner of the field, near the road, sir." I rose up and thus spoilt our human tripod. "Where are you going 'B.B.?" asked my St. Yvon friend. "Colonel's sent for me," I replied.
He came over slowly and took the provision sack from the tree, fumbling in its mysterious depths, and then emptying the entire contents upon the ground-sheet at his feet. "Hurry up!" I cried; "it's boiling." The Swede burst out into a roar of laughter that startled me. It was forced laughter, not artificial exactly, but mirthless. "There's nothing here!" he shouted, holding his sides.
"I think your groom's here, sir," he said, and the trees were so close set that my shoulder brushed the hindquarters of a row of mules as he piloted me along. "Are you there, Morgan?" he shouted, pulling open a waterproof ground-sheet that was fastened over a hole in the ground. "No go away," called a voice angrily. "Where's Morgan sleep? Mr wants him," persevered the piquet.
Jerome, in Three Men in a Boat, speaks amusingly of his efforts at putting up a tent; by the same token, his description as an onlooker of the efforts of sixteen sleepy but infuriated soldiers, indifferently protected by a ground-sheet against the cold blast and the pouring rain, struggling to erect a tent in ankle-deep mud would have been deliriously comic.
Perhaps he has radiographic eyes, and sees through the opaque integument of a ground-sheet at one glance. Also the Medical Officer at the Base Depôt had endorsed the "Marching Out States," after scrutinising, more or less intimately, each man's naked body, with the aid of a tallow candle stuck in an empty bottle.
Tethering his pony by means of a long hide-rope for out of consideration for the animal he forbore to hobble it, since there was a possibility that he might not be able to return to it, Wilmshurst fastened the rolled ground-sheet over his shoulder after the manner of a bandolier, and holding his rifle ready for instant action began his seven-mile trek.
Dudley slept for a solid four hours, to awake considerably refreshed to find that some one had spread a double ground-sheet above him, so as to form a tent, for the sun was now directly overhead. "Hullo, Rupert!" he exclaimed, upon seeing his brother. "How goes it?" "Feeling quite my old self," was the reply.
"Bread, I mean." "It's gone. There is no bread. They've taken it!" I dropped the long spoon and ran up. Everything the sack had contained lay upon the ground-sheet, but there was no loaf. The whole dead weight of my growing fear fell upon me and shook me. Then I burst out laughing too. It was the only thing to do: and the sound of my laughter also made me understand his.
At seven in the evening, loaded with full pack, bayonet, haversack, ground-sheet, water-bottle, overcoat, and rifle, we would take our way from the town out into the open country.
The stifling heat became unbearable, and at the same time the cold, clammy moisture from the soft sodden mud underneath began to penetrate ground-sheet and blankets. The irritation recommenced. A louse so big that I could feel it crawling along stopped and drew blood. I tried in vain to go to sleep. I heard my neighbour scratching himself steadily.
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