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To resume, then: From 6.30 we have half an hour to pack kits, that is to say, to roll the cloak and strap it on the riding saddle, pack the off saddle with spare boots and rolls made up of a waterproof sheet, blanket, harness-sheets, spare breeches, muzzles, hay-nets, etc., and finally to buckle on filled nose-bags and our mess-tins, and strap horse-blankets under the saddles.
Tom, bolting his last piece of biscuit, hurried away, as he had no fancy for the rope's-ending which would have been bestowed upon him had he delayed obeying the summons. The mess-tins were stowed away, and the watch hastened on deck. The wind by this time had somewhat freshened, and the frigate and her prize were making better progress than before.
Then, with all the pack rigging in neat piles before the picket-line, and the untouched stores covered and piled, the packers came in with their mess-tins and coffee-cups. Bedient had seen the hunger in the eyes of David Cairns, the empty haversack, and noted that he was neither officer nor enlisted man.
A chilly little group gathers sleepily round the embers, watching mess-tins full of nondescript concoctions balanced cunningly in the hot corners, and gossiping of small camp affairs or large strategical movements of which we know nothing. The brigade camp-fires twinkle faintly through the gloom.
Doctor thieves: At Choisy-au-Bac, two army doctors, wearing their brassards, personally sacked the house of a family named Binder. At Chateau-Thierry some doctors were made prisoners: their mess-tins were opened and found to be full of stolen articles. After Morhange, a French doctor of the 20th Corps remained in the German lines to be near his wounded.
Water-bottles, haversacks, mess-tins, and waterproof sheets have been slowly filtering into our possession; and whenever we "mobilise," which we do as a rule about once a fortnight whether owing to invasion scares or as a test of efficiency we do not know we fall in on our alarm-posts in something distinctly resembling 'the full "Christmas-tree" rig.
Rifles were piled against the wall; mess-tins and water-bottles lay even upon the altar. And somehow there seemed nothing incongruous about the spectacle, nothing that would hurt a profoundly religious mind. It was all part of the war. And one night when I was restless, and even the heavy drugging warmth of the dug-out did not dull me to sleep, I climbed up into the open air.
We could tell by the banging of mess-tins, mugs and plates, and by the angry shouts of "Get a move on," that a long queue was still waiting in front of the cook-house. Suddenly the tent-flap bulged inwards and two hands, the one holding a full mug and the other a plate, forced their way through. They were followed by a head and shoulders.
I look at the others since I cannot look at myself, and thus I see myself dimly. Gloomily we eat stew, by the miserable illumination of a candle, in the dull desert of the mess room. Then, our mess-tins cleaned, we go down to the great yard, gray and stagnant. Just as we pour out into it, there is the clash of a closing gate and a tightened chain. An armed sentry goes up and down before the gate.
The men raced along the duckboards or splashed through the mud in a frantic attempt to get served first, pulling their mess-tins and plates out of their haversacks as they ran. It was growing dark and a few snowflakes were floating about in the air. The sky was a murky leaden colour. As I stood waiting in the dinner queue I had an imaginary fight with our Commanding Officer.
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