Each camp had become a morass with mud a foot deep, and Tommy
looked out upon it and behold it was not good, and he cursed both loud
and long whoever he thought might be responsible for the conditions,
and particularly Emperor Bill the cause of it all. The Canadian
contingent had begun a process of mildewing.
One felt sorry for the poor horses. Picketed in the open plain or in
the partial shelter of the occasional "spinneys," they stood with ears
drooping and tails to the wind, pictures of dejection. No doubt they,
too, cursed the Kaiser. Their feet became soft from standing idly in
the mud, and in a good many cases had become diseased; in general they
went off badly in condition. Standing orders prohibited the cutting
down of a bush or tree on Salisbury Plain, but in the night time we
could sometimes hear the familiar sound of an axe meeting standing
timber, and one could guess that Tommy, in his desire for wood to
build a fire, and regardless of rules, had grown desperate. As one of
them said to Rudyard Kipling when he was down visiting them, "What
were trees for if they were not to be cut down?"
Towards the middle of December, one evening there was a sharp tap on
the tent of Capt. Haywood, Medical Officer of the third (Toronto)
Battalion.
"Come in" he cried.
The laces were undone and Sergeant Kipple stepped into the tent.
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