midnight
There was the Canteen , of course , and there was the Temperance Room with the second-hand papers in it ; but a man of any profession can not read for eight hours a day in a temperature of 96 deg . or 98 deg . in the shade , running up sometimes to 103 deg . at midnight . Very few men , even though they get a pannikin of flat , stale , muddy beer and hide it under their cots , can continue drinking for six hours a day . One man tried , but he died , and nearly the whole regiment went to his funeral because it gave them something to do . It was too early for the excitement of fever or cholera .