s
and was hungry and thirsty and half dead when I stumbled on a Y. M. C.
A. hut. They could not guide me in the right way, but they gave me a
cup of hot tea, and no nectar of the gods could be as welcome. The Y.
M. C. A. is welcome to all the boosting I can give, for they were my
salvation that night, and at other times were a comfort and
resting-place. When I found our camp at two o'clock in the morning I
found the men in a worse plight than I was, for their transport had not
arrived, and none had had anything to eat or drink.

In this huge camp which was within range of the German guns there were
tens of thousands of camp-fires blazing in the open in utter contempt
of Fritz and his works. We took the road again that same morning for
our position in reserve at Montauban. I said we took the road--well,
we were on it sometimes, whenever we could shove the horses toward the
centre to enable us to squeeze past--otherwise we had to plough along
above our knees in the soft mud. Even on the road the slush was up to
our ankles, but it was metalled underneath. We discovered our
transport in the jam of the traffic--they had taken twenty-four hours
to go the four miles but our tongues blistered with the names we called
them, and we threatened them with eternal damnation if they were not at
the next camp with a hot meal when we arrived.

Where Montauban had once been we went into camp. We had no tents, but
made ourselves comfortable in shell-holes, with a bitter-cold rain
falling, by stretching tarpaulins over them. The engineers were
putting up Nissen huts at the rate of twenty a day, but as soon as the
last bolt was screwed home, forty shelterless men crowded each one to
capacity. It was some days before our turn came and we waited lying
half-covered with mud and slush. When we did get a hut allotted to us
it was as if we had been transferred to a palace. These huts look like
half of a round galvanized-iron tank, and were floored and lined. They
were carried in numbered sections and could be put together in a few
minutes. They were very comfortable. You could stand up in the
centre, and there was plenty of room to sleep along the sides. I
believe the inventor, Mr. Nissen, is an American and here's my hand to
him as an ally who maybe saved me from rheumatism, and I am sure
thousands of boys from the other side of the world bless his name
continually.

The whole brigade was practically bogged when we came to mov