We wheeled into the camp holding our picks and shovels at the trail.  Our Commanding Officer stood still and watched us.  As we passed him the Sergeant yelled out with unaccustomed sharpness:  “Eyes—­Right!” We all turned our heads smartly to the right and he saluted with strained, affected precision.  The Captain touched the peak of his cap in a perfunctory manner.  He hardly seemed to be looking at us at all, but suddenly he spotted a man who was not holding his shovel perfectly horizontally and thundered: 

“Hold your shovel properly, that man there!”

The man was disconcerted for a moment but soon re-adjusted his shovel to the satisfaction of his superior.  The ground was so muddy and uneven that it was sometimes impossible to keep the exact military formation.  Without having noticed it, I was a little more than the regulation distance from the man in front of me.

“Close in there, you with the glasses,” bawled the Captain in a resentful voice, as though my transgression were intended as a personal insult.  But his anger was diverted by another man and he shouted with gathering fury: 

“That tall man over there—­hold your pick properly.  Not like that, damn it ... hold it at the point of balance—­no, no, no, not like that ... here, Sergeant, take that man’s name and number and give it to the Corporal of the Police.  He’ll do half an hour’s extra shovel-drill this evening.”

We halted.  The Sergeant made a note of the offender’s name and then said to us in an awestruck whisper:  “Now mind yer dismiss prop’ly for Christ’s sake!”

We faced to the front and on the command “Dismiss!” we all turned to the right, raised our picks and shovels and transferred them from our right hands to our left, touched the peaks of our caps with our right hands, turning the palms outwards, paused a moment and then broke away.

“Fall in, fall in—­very bad, very bad, absolutely disgraceful!” bawled our infuriated C.O.  “If you don’t do it correctly this time, you’ll get an hour’s extra drill every day for a week!  Now dismiss them again, Sergeant!”

The prospect of extra drill filled us with dismay.  Sore shouldered, stiff, and aching in every limb, oppressed and wearied in mind and body, we only had one intense desire—­to get away, to hide somewhere, to enjoy at least a brief spell of warmth and comfort.

The Sergeant gave the command, and we dismissed a second time.  We went through the absurd performance with anxious punctiliousness, but three men, either through fear, weariness or carelessness, made some slight mistakes and their names were taken for extra drill.

As soon as the men were off the parade ground there was a wild stampede in the direction of the cook-house.

The scramble became a mad hustle.  The men raced along the duckboards or splashed through the mud in a frantic attempt to get served first, pulling their mess-tins and plates out of their haversacks as they ran.