l compass on board ship, they had
plenty of opportunity for stretching their limbs and getting their
muscles into full play.

The sailors, for the most part, brought the cargoes ashore, and the way
they worked was marvellous. They bundled bales and boxes into the boats
as if the ship were on fire and they had only a few minutes to save them
in; they rowed them to the strand as if they were racing in a regatta,
and they got them out on the jetties before dockyard hands at home would
have quite made up their minds what bale they should begin with.

And they laughed and chaffed, and seemed to think it the best fun out.
Such energy was infectious, and "Tommy Atkins," without coat or braces,
and with his shirt sleeves rolled up above his elbows, tried to emulate
"Jack." Some of the goods they had to pile up on the shore; some to
carry to the commissariat stores; and some, again, to the ordnance
department. If free perspiration was the best thing for health and
vigour, they were going the right way to work to obtain those blessings.

There was a lad in Fitzgerald's company, that in which Strachan was
lieutenant, upon whom these new duties fell very hard. His name was
James Gubbins, and he enlisted because he found it hard to obtain any
other employment. And no wonder, for never was there such an awkward
mortal. He broke the hearts of corporals and sergeants, and the
officers of his company would fain have got rid of him. But he was
perfectly able-bodied, and the surgeon was bound to pass him. Neither
would the colonel help them; the man was well conducted, healthy, and
tried his best. "He would make a good soldier in time," he said.
Perhaps so, but the process was tedious. One lad, who joined as a
recruit a month after Gubbins, learned his drill, went to his duty, was
made a lance-corporal, and had the drilling of the squad in which
Gubbins was still toiling at the rudiments.

He got perfect in the manual exercise, and was dismissed from recruit
drill at last however, and even learned to shoot, after he had once
taken in the part of the back-sight of his rifle which was to be aligned
with the fore-sight, haziness about which nearly caused several bad
accidents, as his bullets went wandering dangerously near the butts to
the right and left of that where he was supposed to be firing.

By the time he passed muster he was indeed a valuable soldier, if the
value of a thing depends upon the trouble taken to manufactur