or that of coroner, Mucklewame
held the trophy aloft, and delivered his verdict--

"There, boys! That's what comes of eating your iron ration without
authority!"

III

Here is an average billet, and its personnel.

The central feature of our residence is the refuse-pit, which fills
practically the whole of the rectangular farmyard, and resembles
(in size and shape _only_) an open-air swimming bath. Its abundant
contents are apparently the sole asset of the household; for if you
proceed, in the interests of health, to spread a decent mantle of
honest earth thereover, you do so to the accompaniment of a harmonised
chorus of lamentation, very creditably rendered by the entire family,
who are grouped _en masse_ about the spot where the high diving-board
ought to be.

Round this perverted place of ablution runs a stone ledge, some four
feet wide, and round that again run the farm buildings--the house at
the top end, a great barn down one side, and the cowhouse, together
with certain darksome piggeries and fowl-houses, down the other. These
latter residences are occupied only at night, their tenants preferring
to spend the golden hours of day in profitable occupation upon the
happy hunting ground in the middle.

Within the precincts of this already overcrowded establishment are
lodged some two hundred British soldiers and their officers. The
men sleep in the barn, their meals being prepared for them upon the
Company cooker, which stands in the muddy road outside, and resembles
the humble vehicle employed by Urban District Councils for the
preparation of tar for road-mending purposes. The officers occupy any
room which may be available within the farmhouse itself. The Company
Commander has the best bedroom--a low-roofed, stone-floored apartment,
with a very small window and a very large bed. The subalterns sleep
where they can--usually in the _grenier_, a loft under the tiles,
devoted to the storage of onions and the drying, during the winter
months, of the family washing, which is suspended from innumerable
strings stretched from wall to wall.

For a Mess, there is usually a spare apartment of some kind. If not,
you put your pride in your pocket and take your meals at the kitchen
table, at such hours as the family are not sitting humped round the
same with their hats on, partaking of soup or coffee. (This appears
to be their sole sustenance.) A farm-kitchen in northern France is a
scrupulously clean place--the who