There are those who would deny Tommy his three spoonfuls of rum in the trenches; those who declare that a man soaked to the skin, covered with mud, and bitterly cold, is better with a cayenne pepper lozenge. Let such people take any ordinary night of sentry duty on the Western front in mid-winter, and their ideas will change. There are not one, but numberless occasions, on which a tot of rum has saved a man from sickness, possibly from a serious illness. Many a life-long teetotaler has conformed to S.R.D. and taken the first drink of his life on the battle-fields of France, not because he wanted to, but because he had to. Only those who have suffered from bitter cold and wet, only those who have been actually “all-in” know what a debt of gratitude is owing to those wise men who ordered a small ration of rum for every soldier--officer, N.C.O., and man--on the Western front in winter. The effect of rum is wonderful, morally as well as physically. In the pelting rain, through acres of mud, a working-party of fifty men plough their weary way to the Engineers’ dump, and get shovels and picks. In single file they trudge several kilometres to the work in hand, possibly the clearing out of a fallen-in trench, which is mud literally to the knees. They work in the mud, slosh, and rain, for at least four hours. Four hours of misery--during which any self-respecting Italian labourer would lose his job rather than work--and then they traipse back again to a damp, musty billet, distant five or six kilometres. To them, that little tot of rum is not simply alcohol. It is a God-send. Promise it to them before they set out, and those men will work like Trojans. Deny it to them, and more than half will parade sick in the morning. It is no use, if the rum ration is short, to water it down. The men know it is watered, and their remarks are “frequent and painful, and free!” Woe betide the officer who, through innocence or intentionally, looks too freely on the rum when it is brown! His reputation is gone for ever. If he became intoxicated on beer, champagne, or whisky, he would only be envied by the majority of his men, but should he drink too much rum--that is an unpardonable offence! As a rule, one of the hardest things in the world to do is to awaken men once they have gone to sleep at night. For no matter what purpose, it will take a company a good half-hour to pull itself together and stand to. But murmur softly to the orderly Sergeant that there will be a rum issue in ten minutes, and though it be 1 A.M. or the darkest hour before dawn, when the roll is called hardly a man will be absent! That little word of three letters will rouse the most soporific from their stupor!