9:30
`` After a cup of coffee I fell in with a lot of our fellows , and was told off for fatigue-duty . Worked away till 7:30 . Then breakfast . After that I had to clear up the mess ; then got ready for inspection parade at 9:30 , after which I had to scrub belts , and clean up generally . Dinner over , I was warned to go on night-guard ; but , for some reason which was not stated to me , that was changed , and I 'm not sorry for it , because the heat has taken a good deal out of me , and I prefer lying here beside you , Willie , to standing sentry , blinking at the desert , and fancying every bush and stone to be a dusky skirmisher of Osman Digna . By the way , if that mountain range where the enemy lies is twelve or fourteen miles distant from the town , they have a long way to come when they take a fancy to attack us -- which is pretty often too . They say he has got two hundred thousand men with him .