worse than he thought, and
he didn't get back.

I turned to and inspected the position. It was pretty hopeless.
There really wasn't much to consolidate. The whole works was
knocked about and was only fit for a temporary defence. There were
about a dozen German dead, and we searched them but found nothing
of value. So we strengthened our cross-trench barricade and waited
for the relief. It never came.

When it began to get light, the place looked even more
discouraging. There was little or no cover. We knew that unless we
got some sort of concealment, the airplanes would spot us, and
that we would get a shell or two. So we got out the entrenching
tools and dug into the side of the best part of the shallow
traverse. We finally got a slight overhang scraped out. We didn't
dare go very far under for fear that it would cave. We got some
sandbags up on the sides and three of us crawled into the shelter.
The other man made a similar place for himself a little distance
off.

The day dawned clear and bright and gave promise of being hot.
Along about seven we began to get hungry. A Tommy is always hungry,
whether he is in danger or not. When we took account of stock and
found that none of us had brought along "iron rations", we
discovered that we were all nearly starved. Killing is hungry work.

We had only ourselves to blame. We had been told repeatedly never
to go anywhere without "iron rations", but Tommy is a good deal of
a child and unless you show him the immediate reason for a thing he
is likely to disregard instructions. I rather blamed myself in this
case for not seeing that the men had their emergency food. In
fact, it was my duty to see that they had. But I had overlooked it.
And I hadn't brought any myself.

The "iron ration" consists of a pound of "bully beef", a small tin
containing tea and sugar enough for two doses, some Oxo cubes, and
a few biscuits made of reinforced concrete. They are issued for
just such an emergency as we were in as we lay in our isolated
dug-out. The soldier is apt to get into that sort of situation
almost any time, and it is folly ever to be without the ration.

Well, we didn't have ours, and we knew we wouldn't get any before
night, if we did then. One thing we had too much of. That was rum.
The night before a bunch of us had been out on a ration party, and
we had come across a Brigade Dump. This is a station where rations
are left for the various companies to come and draw their