riddled.

Sunday, September 23rd.

"Oh, happy man in study quiet,
On data and statistics,
Making copy of our diet,
Please soften our biscuits!"

This afternoon having borrowed a magazine from a Rough, in exchange for
an old one I picked up in the Fife lines, I have in common with the
sharer of my blanket shelter derived infinite entertainment from an
article therein contained, entitled "Feeding the Fighting Man." Of
course, it is illustrated with photographs, the first one depicting a
sleek and stiff Yeomanic-looking, khaki-clad being standing by the side
of a swagger little drawing-table covered with a fringed tablecloth, and
obviously groaning under what we learn are the gentleman's daily
rations. Apart from the article, this picture alone is calculated to
make one's mouth water. The article opens with an extract from that
great book, "The Soldier's Pocket Book." Here it is, "It may be taken as
an accepted fact that the better the men are fed the more you will get
out of them, the better will be their health and strength, the more
contented will they be, and the better will be their discipline," all of
which is gospel truth. The article, as I have already remarked, is very
entertaining. Here is a little extract--"fresh meat and bread have been
issued daily, almost without a single exception, to troops at the
front." We know the fresh meat, good old trek ox! Always delightfully
fresh--and tough. And the bread, yes, the bread, well-er-the bread, yes,
the bread! If I had read this article at home, being somewhat of a
gourmand, I should certainly have rushed off and enlisted directly after
reading as far as the middle, where we learn that every soldier is
allowed daily--oh, the list is too long to give you. There is one little
thing the scribe overlooked, and that is the waggon crowd, the
quartermaster-sergeant and his satellites. It may also be of interest to
you to know that certain non-coms. and men of the A.S.C. have made large
sums of money out here. I have heard of one who made three or four
hundred pounds in a few months, hem! Of course, they are exceptions in a
corps which has, as everyone knows, done grand work. Our running
commentaries as I read the article through, would have made excellent
marginal reading, if such notes could have been added for a future
edition.

Yesterday, a fresh epidemic visited our camp--football. Some person,
evilly disposed I presume, produced a football which af