98. Sat Feb. 6. ]
8.10! He could quite well have made it two lectures or alternatively he could have bucked up his delivery a lot. He could easily have said it all in half the time! The men stood it awfully well: we had 150 -200 there, which isn't bad out of an available 380 or so.
I heard an interesting item from the Major to-day. Last year the 91st drank 169 something gallons of beer in Jan. (i.e. 4 figures) excluding the Sergeants. Our return for last month is 193 gallons! Our contractor is some sick! The joke of it is that the C.O. of the 91st told the contractor that the Territorials would have plenty of money to spend as most of them would still be getting their civilian pay as well as this Army pay, so all these contractor men were very keen on getting the contract & put up their bids accordingly! Now they complain that they are lucky to sell 2 pints of beer in the Canteen at night!
Sun. Feb. 7.
Owing to the rain in the middle of last week the C.O ordered Musketry to continue to-day as on weekdays consequently A & B with a total parade strength of only about 7' between them represented the 9th Middx at Church Parade this morning.
As the Padre is still away at Calcutta (there was no Early service this morning) & Lionel Hewlett took the Parade Service. We had a total choir of 5 including the organist - all "A" Co. - so it was rather a scratch service. However all went