I feel no animosity to any one.  Infantry, no doubt, get the lust of battle, but I don’t for my part experience anything like it, though gunners tell me they do, which is natural.  One feels one is taking part in a game of skill at a dignified distance, and any feeling of hostility is very impersonal and detached, even when concrete signs of an enemy’s ill-will are paying us noisy visits.  The fact is—­and I fancy this applies to all sorts and conditions of private soldiers—­in our life in the field, fighting plays a relatively small part.  I doubt if people at home realize how much in the background are its dangers and difficulties.  The really absorbing things are questions of material welfare—­sordid, physical, unromantic details, which touch you at every turn.  Shall we camp in time to dry my blankets?  Biscuit ration raised from three to three and a half!  How can I fill my water-bottle?  Rum to-night!  Is there time for a snooze at this halt?  Dare I take my boots off to-night?  Is it going to rain?  There are always the thousand little details connected with the care of horses and harness, and all along the ever-present problem of the next meal, and how to make it meet the demands of your hunger.  I don’t mean that one is always worrying about such things.  They generally have a most humorous side, and are a source of great amusement; on the other hand, they sometimes seem overwhelmingly important.  Chiefly one realizes the enormous importance of food to a soldier.  Shortage of sleep, over-marching, severe fighting, sink into insignificance beside an empty stomach.  Any infantry soldier will tell you this; and it is on them, who form the bulk of a field force, that the strain really tells.  Mounted men are better able to fend for themselves. (I should say, that an artillery driver has in the field the least tiring work of all, physically; at home, probably the heaviest.) It is the foot-soldier who is the measure of all things out here.  In the field he is always at the extreme strain, and any defect of organization tells acutely and directly on him.  Knowing what it is to be hungry and tired myself, I can’t sufficiently admire these Cork and Yorkshire comrades of ours, in their cheerful, steady marching.

By the way, the General was giving orders close to me this morning.  He said to our Major, “Your guns are the best—­longest range; go up there.”  So the Lord Mayor is justified; but the special ammunition is a great difficulty.  This, however, is only a matter of organization.  As to the guns themselves, we have always understood that the pattern was refused by the War Office some years ago; it would be interesting to know on what grounds.  They are very simple, and have some features which are obvious improvements on the 15-pr.

There was a serious alarm of fire just now.  There is a high wind, and the grass is unusually long.  A fire started due to windward, and came rushing and roaring towards us.  We drivers took the horses out of reach, and the gunners and infantry attacked it with sacks, etc.  But nothing could stop it, though by great efforts they confined its width, so that it only reached one of our waggons and the watercart, which I don’t think are damaged.  No sooner well past than fellows began cooking on the hot embers.—­Stayed here all day, and unharnessed and picketed in the evening.