It was useless now to bother about trying to keep dry, as I was seeping wet through, so I stood and watched the liquid mass swirling around me and the water flapping at my knees. I could see dimly by the light of a sputtering electric light at one corner of the car. Slowly the time passed till I heard in the distance very faintly the bugles at headquarters sounding "Reveille." This is one of the most impressive things I have ever heard--the reveille at dawn and the last post at night. Away in the distance the first notes would steal faintly across the plain, each succeeding camp would take it up, until it reached us, then our own massed bugles would blare it out in one swelling din. From us it would pass to the next camp, until it died away as faintly as it had begun. Thus were fifty thousand men awakened from their slumbers, or hurried to them, during the winter of 1914. Heaving a deep sigh of mingled appreciation of the music and disgust at my physical discomfort, I turned once more to studying the quagmire. Suddenly I was aroused by a gruff voice in a Cockney accent. It was a man of the big crowd of civilians, chiefly men unfit for the army, who worked at different occupations in and around the camp. By the light I saw a little weazened-up man holding two coal scuttles. "I say, mate, could I 'ave a couple of scuttles of coal?" "No, you can't," I replied, "beat it." The little man stood his ground and I was glad of it, because here was someone to quarrel with, and I would gladly have quarreled with my own father at that moment after my night of shivering. However, there was to be no scrap. Just as I came within striking distance he opened his coat and displayed a flat bottle: "Loike a drink, guv?" I eyed the bottle for a second. "How much is in it?" I asked. "She's full." Alas poor, frail humanity; my mind was made up in an instant. "You can take the bloomin' car if you'll give me the bottle." "Righto," said he; "I only want a couple of scuttles-full, but yer can 'ave the bottle." My stomach was empty, my clothes were soaked, I was wet and chilled through and through, but when my relief came I was supremely content with my lot. The sergeant sniffed suspiciously, but I held my tongue and bottle both.