And how were they rewarded for their courage, those who lived on to fight again? It was reported in the journals at home that the men were often drunk, but William knew that they were very much more often hungry, and cold besides. Illustrations in Punch or the Illustrated London News showed men in fur caps and great sealskin coats standing before little wooden huts, warming their hands by merry braziers. In truth there was often no wood to get up for building shelters, nor even for a fire to heat a pot: the men lived on biscuit, the officers on ham. When there was a fire, there were not enough mess-tins to go round, for most of the men had thrown their camp-kettles away on the march after the battle of the Alma River, supposing more would be sent out. They slept on, or more generally in, the wet ground, some – like Gale – in bell tents, others in holes in the ground, lined with sailcloth. Men’s toes came off from frostbite; even their very feet. When at last came hay and oats for the horses, vegetables and provisions for the men, all lay rotting in the mud close to the harbour: the mules to fetch up stores were all dead, the ways impassable from constant freezing rain. A consignment of much-needed boots were all in too small a size to fit the men. Accordingly, no man nor officer was ever buried with his boots on, their seniors looking away while the men removed the boots from the dead. The Government sent out not the tea which all desired, but coffee: unroasted beans which they had no fire to make good. The pallid beans could no more be made into a reviving drink than could the soil they stood on.