The soldiers' last meal is generally served out about five o'clock in the afternoon, sometimes earlier; and a stretch of fourteen hours intervenes between then and breakfast. About nine o'clock in the evening those who cannot afford to pay for extras feel their waist-belts slacken, and go supperless to bed. And tea is not a very substantial meal; the rations served out for the day have decreased in bulk, bread has wasted to microscopic proportions, and the cheese has diminished sadly in size. A regimental song, pent with soldierly woes, bitterly bemoans the drawbacks of Tommy's tea: "Bread and cheese for breakfast, For dinner Army stew, But when it comes to tea-time There's dough and rind for you, So you and me Won't wait for tea-- We're jolly big fools if we do." But those who do not live in billets, and whose worldly wealth fails to exceed a shilling a day, must be content with Army rations, with the tea tasting of coom, and seldom sweetened, with the pebble-studded putty potato coated in clay, with the cheese that runs to rind at last parade, and, above all, with the knowledge that they are merely inconvenienced at home so that they may endure the better abroad. There is another school of theorists that states that an army moves, not upon its stomach, but upon its feet, the care of which is of vital importance. This, too, finds confirmation in the official pamphlet, which tells the soldier to "Remember that a dirty foot is an unsound foot. See that feet are washed if no other part of the body is," etc. My right foot had troubled me for days; a pain settled in the arch of the instep, and caused me intense agony when resuming the march after a short halt; at night I would suddenly awake from sleep to experience the sensation of being stabbed by innumerable pins in ankle and toes. Marching in future, I felt, would be a monstrous futility, and I decided that my case was one for the medical officer.