At this moment, Private Graham, who had been slumbering peacefully until Lamontagne, in his excitement, put a foot in the midst of his anatomy, added his quota to the discussion. Private Graham wore the King and Queen’s South African medal and also the Somaliland. Before drink reduced him, he had been a company Q.M.S. in a crack regiment. His words were usually respected. “Strike me pink if you Saturday night soldiers don’t give me the guts-ache,” he remarked with some acerbity. “In Afriky you’d ha’ bin dead an’ buried months ago, judgin’ by the way you talks! There it was march, march, march, an’ no fallin’ out. Little water, a ’an’ful o’ flour, an’ a tin of bully wot was fly-blowed two minutes after you opened it, unless you ’ad eat it a’ready. An’ you talks about food! S’elp me if it ain’t a crime. Rations! W’y, never in the ’ole ’istory of the world ’as a Army bin better fed nor we are. You young soldiers sh’d learn a thing or two afore you starts talkin’ abaht yer elders an’ betters. Lord, in th’ old days a hofficers’ mess was somethin’ to dream abaht. Nowadays they can’t ’old a candle to it. Wot d’yer expec’? D’yer think a horficer is goin’ to deny ’is stummick if ’e can buy food ter put in it? ’E ain’t so blame stark starin’ mad as all that. You makes me sick, you do!” “Dat’s what _I_ say,” commented Lamontagne! From afar came a voice crying, “Turn out for your rations.” In thirty seconds the dug-out was empty! OUR SCOUT OFFICER We have a certain admiration for our scout officer; not so much for his sleuth-hound propensities, as for his completely _dégagé_ air. He is a Holmes-Watson individual, in whom the Holmes is usually subservient to the Watson. Without a map--he either has several dozen or none at all--he is purely Watson. With a map he is transformed into a Sherlock, instanter. The effect of a _new_ map on him is like that of a new build of aeroplane on an aviator. He pores over it, he reverses the north and south gear, and gets the magnetic differential on the move; with a sweep of the eye he climbs up hills and goes down into valleys, he encircles a wood with a pencil-marked forefinger--and asks in an almost pained way for nail-scissors. Finally, he sends out his Scout Corporal and two men, armed to the teeth with spy-glasses and compasses (magnetic, mark VIII), to reconnoitre. When they come back (having walked seventeen kilometres to get to a point six miles away) and report, he says, wagging his head sagely: “Ah! I knew it. According to this map, 81×D (parts of), 82 GN, south-west (parts of), 32 B^1, N.W. (parts of), and 19 CF, East (parts of), the only available route is the main road, marked quite clearly on the map, and running due east-north-east by east from Bn. H.Q.”