Here you can see a candle supplying our light, and both of us smoking. Iexpect the air would have been foul, as would we have been. You will notehe is smiling, he hadn't been there long. I on the other hand look totallydepressed. At a guess I would say 95% of line soldiers smoked, helped calmthe nerves no doubt. We had a pack of 20 American fags in our combatrations each day, dating back to the early 40s when they were prepared forthe GIs fighting in WW2. As well, Lord Nuffield a wealthy and patrioticBrit, paid for each Commonwealth soldier to be given a tin of 50 Englishfags per week; very kind of him we thought. Oh yes, a razor blade as well.

When on R&R in Japan, you could always pick the line men from the rearechelon lot, by the palm of their hand. Strange you may think, but not so.During the night the line men had to light their fags under cover, thensmoke them cupped in the palms of their hands to shade the glow. Even onoutpost we addicts would crouch in the bottom of the pit, and under coverof a poncho light up. Then smoke carefully with the glowing end firmlyheld and hidden between our palms. Thus after a while at this caper, youended up with two lovely brown palms from the nicotine; a dead giveawayfor the line men. No brown palm was rear echelon naturally.