Picture to yourselves the dawn after a bitter cold night in the trenches. Weary soldiers wet to the skin, working all night in a most dangerous place, probably expecting an immediate attack from the enemy, dirty, vermin covered, muddy, and without one single comfort. If rum helps under these conditions who can say nay. Some people have the idea that the men are liberally dosed with rum before they go over the top. This may be true in some instances, but as far as I know, no British troops ever need that kind of Dutch courage to go over the top. All the rum I ever got during my whole term of service in Flanders would not make a man drunk, and it is a question whether the amount I had for three months in the summer would make a seasoned toper unsteady. All that a man gets is about the third part of a small cup every night and morning. The following from the London _Winning Post_ just about expresses my thoughts in this regard: I suppose we're a lot of heathens, Don't live on the angel plan, But we're sticking it here in the trenches, And doing the best we can. When preachers over in Blighty, Who talk about Kingdom Come, Ain't pleased with our performance, And are wanting to stop our rum, Water, they say, would be better; Water! Great God, out here? Why, we're up to our knees in water-- Do you think we're standing in beer? Oh, it sounds all right from the pulpit, When you sit in a cushioned pew; But try four days in the trenches, And see what water will do. Some of the coffin-faced Blighters I think must be German-bred; It's time that they called in the doctor, For it's water they have in the head. That nip of rum put hope into my heart once more, and I bit my lips and stifled my agony as well as I could. Dawn broke, and just as the first streaks crept into the sky, the firing died down and that mystery which broods over the wonder of night turning into day pervaded outraged nature and even warring man. As I watched, the details of my watery retreat became plainer and plainer; I grew ashamed of my cowardice, and I did my best to stifle my groans.