n
obtaining the coveted water for all. But order was soon restored, and
every one served.

"Shall we go on to Tokar to-night, do you think?" Tom Strachan asked
his captain.

"I hope not," replied Fitzgerald; "I want something to eat, don't you?
Glory is all very well, but one cannot dine off it. Besides, it is
absurd to cram too much of it into one day. If four hours' fighting,
part of which was as severe as Association football playing, is not
enough for one day, I should like to know what General Graham would
have."

The general was not unreasonable, or he thought it better to hold the
wells. At any rate, the troops remained in the position lately held by
the enemy, strengthening it in parts, after the men had had a rest, and
bivouacking there for the night. Provisions came up from Fort Baker,
and the officers of the First Blankshire had a good mess--tinned beef,
chicken and ham, sardines, and other delicacies, with biscuit and tea,
with just a taste of rum apiece to top up with.

A really useful invention is that of preserving fresh meat in tins. The
man who found that out, and he who discovered chloroform, ought to go up
to the head of the Inventors' Class, in my humble opinion. I hope they
made their fortunes. You may despise tinned food at home, when you can
get fresh-killed meat and poultry not so overcooked. But go a long
voyage, or even on a yachting tour, travel in wild countries for
exploration, or to shoot big game, and then say.

And when they lit their pipes and lay round the bivouac fire, talking
over the events of the day, what a time that was! The First Blankshire
had not come off scathless as regarded men or officers. There was a
captain lying yonder with his cloak over his face who would never hear
the cheery bugle call again; a lieutenant was in the ambulance tent with
a bullet in his leg, forcing himself to bear the pain without moaning.
And of those present, several bore gashes which would have been thought
nasty at home, though after being dressed by the surgeon they were
accounted scratches of no signification, beyond a certain smarting and
throbbing. Green had a bandage under his chin, and going up on each
side till his helmet covered it.

"No," he said, when asked if it was binding his self-inflicted cut of
the morning; "it's the other ear. Curiously enough, a bit of a shell or
a bullet, or something, has taken the lobe off; and as it would not stop
bleeding, and the flies