I used to say to my friend, the chaplain, when at night we had retired to our straw beds and were reading by the light of candles stuck on bully beef tins, that the lion and the lamb were lying down together.

We could never agree as to which of the animals each of us represented.

At the head of my heap of straw there was an entrance to the cellar.

The ladies of the family, who were shod in wooden shoes, used to clatter round our slumbers in the early morning getting provisions from below.

Life under such conditions was peculiarly unpleasant.