THE CHEERFUL SOLDIER

Dominion, Volume 10, Issue 2916, 31 October 1916, Page 5

THE CHEERFUL SOLDIER

FOND OF FATIGUES. "This will suit me, all my days," the cheerful soldier.said. "This is the life. Like it? A man can't help liking irregular hours, < regular exercise, plenty of good food. And then tho sleep! Look here, as a civilian I rarely went to bed before midnight, or got up before eight. And now, why, I'm in hed by halt-past nine nearly every night, and wake before reveille in the morning. And'l'm getting fit. • "Before I came in I was a bit nervous about tho work. Some said it was cruol. Well, at first it's a bit solid, but nothing to cry about. Then it gets easy, oh, dead easy. Fatigues! That's where the laugh comes in. I like fatigues, and there's a reason. Drill starts at 7.30 in the morning; fatigues don't start till 8.30, a.nd nobody worries as long as you attend to your work.

"No, tbanks, I don't want a stripe or a commission, or anything that will stop my getting to the front. I'm meeting all kinds of men. all manner of good sorts, and I'm well and happy like thousands of others in khaki, and my advice to you is to get into it, right away. It is the life, old man."

And the cheerful soldier set bis broom in motion again and resumed his sweeping of the main camp thoroughfare. There are thousands like him in tho camps.