Life on the "Agamemnon" was quiet enough. There were days of rolling and pitching, when even Death Valley at its worst seemed preferable to this strength-sapping waste of waters. The chief annoyance of the voyage was that not unimportant feature, mess. There were nearly five thousand men on board, and they were all fed at the same time. Promptly at mess-call, all the outfits on the boat lined up and those on the upper deck started through the line: "A" Battery was unfortunate enough to be the last to go through; we lined up at mess-call, we waited anywhere from one to two hours. Inch by inch we edged along the deck, finally reaching a door amid­ ships. Here there was another wait, while the head of the line started down, six at a time. From the door one went down two flights of stairs, through a corridor, down another flight, directly into the serving room. Here one emerged into a Babel of howling voices, urging speed and still more speed; passed between the serving-tables, where the food was deftly slung into the mess-kits; and started up a steep flight of stairs, slippery with the spillings from the mess- kits of those who had gone before. No mean feat to ascend those steps on a rough day. Arriving at the top, a fresh difficulty presented itself, for a precisely similar flight, but more slippery, led down into the dining-room. Assuming that the passage was safely negotiated, the unfortunate diner stumbled over to the tables, mere wooden trays, suspended from the ceiling, row after row. Nothing could be more exhilarating than a venture into this "madhouse", as we called it, on a rough day. The trays swayed and

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