On going back to the trenches a thoughtless sentry may halt the ration party.  I have seen it done.  I have heard the conversation.  I dare not write it.  There goes one of the boys, both arms hugging a miscellaneous assortment of packages.  He slips and struggles and swears and falls, then picks himself up and gathers together the scattered bundles.  But what of the other?  A jug held tightly in both hands, he chooses his steps as would a dainty Coryphee.  He dare not trip.  He dare not fall.  He MUST not spill one drop.  Jugs are hard to replace in France; in fact, it is much easier to get a jug in Nebraska than in France.

The boys finally reach the trench in safety, and next morning the rations are issued at “stand-to.”  “Stand-to” is the name given to the sunrise hour, and again that hour at night when every man stands to the parapet in full equipment and with fixed bayonet.  After morning stand-to bayonets are unfixed, for if the sunlight should glint upon the polished steel our position might be disclosed to some sniper.

To my mind stand-to is more or less a relic of the early days of the war, when these two hours were those most favored by the Germans for attack, and so it has become a custom to be in readiness.

A day’s rations in the trenches consists of quite a variety of commodities.  First thing in the winter morning we have that controversial blind, rum.  We get a “tot” which is about equal to a tablespoonful.  It is not compulsory, and no man need take it unless he wishes.  This is not the time or place to discuss the temperance question, but our commanders and the army surgeons believe that rum as a medicine, as a stimulant, is necessary to the health of the soldier, therefore the rum is issued.

We take this ration as a prescription.  We gulp it down when half frozen, and nearly paralyzed after standing a night in mud and blood and ice, often to the waistline, rarely below the ankle, and it revives us as tea, cocoa or coffee could never do.  We are not made drunkards by our rum ration.  The great majority of us have never tasted medicinal rum before reaching the trenches; there is a rare chance that any of us will ever taste it, or want to taste it, again after leaving the trenches.

The arguments against rum make Mr. Tommy Atkins tired, and I may say in passing that I have never yet seen a chaplain refuse his ration.  And of the salt of the good God’s earth are the chaplains.  There was Major the Reverend John Pringle, of Yukon fame, whose only son Jack was killed in action after he had walked two hundred miles to enlist.  No cant, no smug psalm-singing, mourners’-bench stuff for him.  He believed in his Christianity like a man; he was ready to fight for his belief like a man; he cared for us like a father, and stood beside us in the mornings as we drank our stimulant.  Again, I repeat if a man is found drunk while on active service, he is liable to court martial and death.  A few years’ training of this kind will make the biggest pre-war drunkard come back home a sober man.