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Page 4
Sometimes a haunch of roast beef was doled out almost raw, and
potatoes were generally boiled into pulp; these when served up looked
like lumps of wet putty. Two potatoes, unwashed and embossed with
particles of gravel, were allowed to each man; all could help
themselves by sticking their fingers into the doughy substance and
lifting out a handful, which they placed along with the raw "roast" on
the lid of their mess-tin. This constituted dinner, but often rations
were doled out so badly that several men only got half the necessary
allowance for their meals.
Tea was seldom sufficiently sweetened, and the men had to pay for
milk. After a time we became accustomed to the Epsom Salts that a
kindly War Office, solicitous for our well-being, caused to be added,
and some of us may go to our graves insisting on Epsom Salts with tea.
The feeding ground being in many cases a great distance from the fire,
the tea was cold by the time it arrived at the men's quarters. Those
who could afford it, took their food elsewhere: the restaurants in
the vicinity did a roaring trade, and several new ones were opened. A
petition was written; the men signed it, and decided to send it to
the colonel; but the N.C.O.'s stepped in and destroyed the document.
"You'll not do much good at the front," they told us, "if you are
grumbling already."
A week followed the destruction of the petition, and then appeared the
following in Battalion Orders: "From to-morrow until further orders,
rations will be issued at the men's billets." This announcement caused
no little sensation, aroused a great deal of comment, and created a
profound feeling of satisfaction in the battalion. Thenceforth rations
were served out at the billets, and the householders were ordered
to do the cooking. My landlady was delighted. "Not half feeding you;
that's a game," she said. "And you going to fight for your country!
But wait till you see the dishes I'll make out of the rations when
they come."
The rations came. In the early morning a barrow piled with eatables
was dragged through our street, and the "ration fatigue" party, full
of the novelty of a new job, yelled in chorus, "Bring out your dead,
ladies; rations are 'ere!"
"What have you got?" asked my landlady, going to the door. "What are
you supposed to leave for the men? Nothing's too good for them that's
going to fight for their country."
"Dead rats," said the ration-corporal with a grin.
"Don't be funny. What are my men to get?"
"Each man a pound of fresh meat, one and a half pounds of bread, two
taters, two ounces of sugar, and an ounce of tea and three ounces of
cheese. And, besides this, every feller gets a tin of jam once in four
days."
This looks well on paper, but pot and plate make a difference in the
proposition. Army cheese runs to rind rapidly, and a pound of beef is
often easily bitten to the bone: sometimes, in fact, it is all
bone and gristle, and the ravages of cooking minimise its bulk in
a disheartening way. One and a half pound of bread is more than the
third of a big loaf, but minus butter it makes a featureless repast.
Breakfast and tea without butter and milk does not always make a
dainty meal.
Even the distribution of rations leaves much to be desired; the
fatigue party, well-intentioned and sympathetic though it be, often
finds itself short of provisions. This may in many cases be due to
unequal distribution; an ounce of beef too much to each of sixteen men
leaves the seventeenth short of meat. This may easily happen, as the
ration party has never any means of weighing the food: it is nearly
always served out by guesswork. But sometimes the landladies help in
the distribution by bringing out scales and weighing the provisions.
One lady in our street always weighed the men's rations, and saw that
those under her care got the exact allowance. Never would she take any
more than her due, and never less. But a few days ago, when weighing
sugar and tea, a blast of wind upset the scales, and a second
allowance met with a similar fate. Sugar and tea littered the
pavement, and finally the woman supplied her soldiers from the
household stores. She now leaves the work of distribution in the hands
of the ration party, and takes what is given to her without grumbling.
The soldiers' last meal is generally served out about five o'clock
in the afternoon, sometimes earlier; and a stretch of fourteen hours
intervenes between then and breakfast. About nine o'clock in
the evening those who cannot afford to pay for extras feel their
waist-belts slacken, and go supperless to bed. And tea is not a very
substantial meal; the rations served out for the day have decreased in
bulk, bread has wasted to microscopic proportions, and the cheese has
diminished sadly in size. A regimental song, pent with soldierly woes,
bitterly bemoans the drawbacks of Tommy's tea:
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