Both much depressed to-night; the atmosphere of this camp is like a convict settlement.  The food and arrangements are all right, but nobody knows any one else; all are casual details from every possible regiment and volunteer corps in the Empire.  Nearly all are “fed up;” nearly all want to get home.  A vein of bitter pessimism runs through all conversations; there is a general air of languor and depression.  Fatigues are the only occupation.  I should go melancholy mad here, if I stayed; but I shall apply to return to the Battery.  Even then there is another stage—­the Rest camp—­to be gone through.  We sat up late this night outside the lines, talking of this strange coincidence of our meeting, and trying to plan future ones.  He feels the same about this place, but is still too lame to rejoin his corps.

September 18.—­We washed in a stream some distance off, and then had breakfast.  Then general parade.  There must be some two or three hundred of us, and a wretched, slipshod lot we looked.  A voice said, “Those who want to rejoin their regiments, two paces to the front.”  A few accepted the invitation.  I gave in my name, and was told to parade again at two, with kit packed.  The next moment we were being split up into fatigue parties.  Fatigues are always a nuisance, but I don’t mind them under my own folk, with a definite necessary job to be done.  A fatigue under strange masters and with strange mates is very irksome, especially when, as in this case, there is little really to be done, but they don’t want to leave you idle.  This was a typical case.  I and a dozen others slouched off under a corporal, who showed us to a sergeant, who gave us to a sergeant-major, who pointed to a line of tents (Langman’s Hospital), and bade us clean up the lines.  To the ordinary eye there was nothing to clean up, but to the trained eye there were some minute fragments of paper and cigarette ends.  Now the great thing in a fatigue of this kind is:  (1) To make it last.  No good hurrying, as fresh futilities will be devised for you. (2) To appear to be doing something at all costs. (3) To escape unobtrusively at the first opportunity.  There are some past-masters in the theory and practice of fatigues who will disregard No. 1, and carry on No. 2 till the golden moment when, with inspired audacity, they achieve No. 3, and vanish from the scene.  This requires genius.  The less confident ploddingly fulfil Nos. 1 and 2, and don’t attempt No. 3.  Well, we loitered up and down, and collected a few handfuls, and when we had eked out the job to the uttermost, stood together in a listless knot and waited.  “What shall we do?” we asked the corporal.  “Do any ——­ thing,” he despairingly cried, “but do some ——­ thing!” By this time the sergeant-major too was at his wits’ end as he looked round his spotless lines.  But you can’t easily baffle a sergeant-major.  There was a pump, with a big tub by it, to catch the waste, I suppose.  The artistic possibilities of these simple objects flashed