By the time we had got them over it was time to bivouac, so we set about the hopeless task of trying to make ourselves comfortable. Our mess, first of all, cut a lot of thick poles, which we placed side by side on the poached, sodden ground, then covered these with small branches of undergrowth and piled on the top a two-foot thickness of wet fern. While we were doing this Pierre and George had lighted a fire. What, a fire in that pitiless downpour? Yes, gentlemen, a fire. First of all Pierre sought out an old miri log, perhaps the hardest wood in the world, so hard it is almost impossible to cross-cut it, but it will split like matchwood and is as inflammable as pitch. Off this log Pierre split very many splinters and pieces, George in the meantime raising a platform of poles some half-foot above the mud. Under cover of his pot Pierre collected some of the inside bark of a tree, and, producing an oily piece of tow used for cleaning his carbine, under cover of George’s bucket, held inverted like an umbrella, a fire is lit on the platform, fed steadily for a time with miri splinters, until it gains heat and power, when larger pieces are added, until eventually the fire gains sufficient heat to withstand the rain for the bucket to be boiled and tea made, for a pannikin of which we were very thankful. As soon as our fire was in full swing others were lit from it, but the incessant rain at last got the best of them and they dwindled away, leaving the camp in inky darkness. I was on guard that night and did my first sentry go, passing two hours crouching in the mud, peering into the black darkness, and listening to the rush of the rain and the chattering of my own teeth. I was but little better off when relieved, as all I could do was to throw myself down on a heap of soaked fern and cover myself with my drenched blanket. Worn out by the unaccustomed labour, aching in every limb of my body and suffering great pain from my hands, I got but little sleep, yet felt thankful when the dim daylight announced another day. Not that it would bring us much comfort, for the moment our sopping blankets were rolled up and we had swallowed a mouthful of soaked mouldy biscuit and putrid pork, the word was given to turn to, and again we started the endless chopping. My hands, however, were in such a state as to preclude my doing my work, and I was very nervous of being ragged by my comrades, as but little sympathy is ever shown in a corps such as ours to a man who is unable to do his share of work unless he is incapacitated by the steel or lead of the enemy, and I was quite prepared to hear myself sneered at as a kid-gloved new chum, or to be growled at as a waster who shirked his work and shoved his bit on his mates. In a crowd like ours men were not over-delicate in their satire, nor particularly considerate for the feelings of others.