After my first trip home, for a few days I went about my work without interest, but when one is in superb physical condition, it is impossible to be depressed long, and soon I was grumbling away again as happy as ever. Still the wretched weather continued. If it did not rain, it snowed; if it did not do one or the other, it did both; if it did not do both, a fog you could take in your hand would hang over the place the whole day long. If the Fates decreed we should have a fine day, we were worked till our bones cried out for rest. In the early morning we would curse the bugles as they blared out their warning for us to be up and doing. Sometimes the temptation grew too strong and one of us would be missing when we fell in shivering for our mornings physical torture. This is the name the Canadians had for physical drill. The tardy one would regret his indifference to "Reveille" before the day had well begun, for he would usually be told off for all fatigues, as well as turning out for the day's work with the battalion. A vigorous trot would set our blood coursing through our veins, and after the torture had loosened up our muscles, we wondered why we had ever wanted to stay in bed at all. Breakfast would follow, and after that we would fall in to be inspected by the officers, tongue-lashed by the Colonel, and finally marched off for instruction in tactics on the field, or other necessary parts of an infantry soldier's training. We might arrive back in time to partake of a noon-day meal, or it would perhaps be in the middle of the afternoon, or again we might stay out the whole twenty-four hours. Night alarms would see us sleepily but frantically struggling to don our equipment so that we would make a record for our company by being first at the assembling post. The language on such occasions was almost the acme of perfection, because our studies in the army in that regard had brought us to a truly wonderful state of efficiency in fluency and the ability to improvise suitable words for all occasions. One may therefore imagine the atmosphere when a buckle of Morgan's equipment would fix itself firmly in some inaccessible part of mine and we would struggle to straighten out the tangle by the dim light of a candle. Usually it would end by one of us inadvertently putting out the candle. After this there would be absolute silence as even our vocabulary was not adequate to the situation. With clenched teeth we would relight the candle, if we were fortunate enough to find it; if not, we finished our dressing by touch, each mentally cursing the other for his clumsiness.