me--and we accordingly fall in. The men are carrying picks and
shovels, and make no attempt to look pleased at the circumstance. They
realise that they are in for a morning's hard digging, and very likely
for an evening's field operations as well. When we began, company
training a few weeks ago, entrenching was rather popular. More than
half of us are miners or tillers of the soil, and the pick and shovel
gave us a home-like sensation. Here was a chance, too, of showing
regular soldiers how a job should be properly accomplished. So we dug
with great enthusiasm.

But A Company have got over that now. They have developed into
sufficiently old soldiers to have acquired the correct military
attitude towards manual labour. Trench-digging is a "fatigue," to
be classed with, coal-carrying, floor-scrubbing, and other civilian
pursuits. The word "fatigue" is a shibboleth with, the British
private. Persuade him that a task is part of his duty as a soldier,
and he will perform it with tolerable cheerfulness; but once allow
him to regard that task as a "fatigue," and he will shirk it whenever
possible, and regard himself as a deeply injured individual when
called upon to undertake it. Our battalion has now reached a
sufficient state of maturity to be constantly on the _qui vive_ for
cunningly disguised fatigues. The other day, when kilts were issued
for the first time, Private Tosh, gloomily surveying his newly
unveiled extremities, was heard to remark with a sigh--

"Anither fatigue! Knees tae wash, noo!"

Presently Captain Blaikie arrives upon the scene; the senior subaltern
reports all present, and we tramp off through the mud to our training
area.

We are more or less in possession of our proper equipment now. That
is to say, our wearing apparel and the appurtenances thereof are no
longer held in position with string. The men have belts, pouches, and
slings in which to carry their greatcoats. The greatcoats were the
last to materialise. Since their arrival we have lost in decorative
effect what we have gained in martial appearance. For a month or two
each man wore over his uniform during wet weather--in other words,
all day--a garment which the Army Ordnance Department described
as--"Greatcoat, Civilian, one." An Old Testament writer would have
termed it "a coat of many colours." A tailor would have said that it
was a "superb vicuna raglan sack." You and I would have called it,
quite simply, a reach-me-down. Anyhow, the co