His Water-Bottle, His Food,
Which, With The Soldier, Is Generally Carried In A Haversack, And His
Cooking Kit.
Preston has succeeded most ingeniously in combining the
water-bottle and the cooking kit, and I believe by cutting his water-
bottle in half, he can make room in his coffee-pot for the food.
If
he will do this, he will solve the problem of carrying water, food,
and the utensils for cooking the food and for boiling the water in
one receptacle, which can be carried from the shoulder by a single
strap. The alteration I have made for my own use in Captain
Preston's water-bottle enables me to carry in the coffee-pot one
day's rations of bacon, coffee, and biscuit.
In Tokio, before leaving for Manchuria, General Fukushima asked me to
bring my entire outfit to the office of the General Staff. I spread
it out on the floor, and with unerring accuracy he selected from it
the three articles of greatest value. They were the Gold Medal cot,
the Elliott chair, and Preston's water-bottle. He asked if he could
borrow these, and, understanding that he wanted to copy them for his
own use, and supposing that if he used them, he would, of course,
make some restitution to the officers who had invented them, I
foolishly loaned them to him. Later, he issued them in numbers to
the General Staff. As I felt, in a manner, responsible, I wrote to
the Secretary of War, saying I was sure the Japanese army did not
wish to benefit by these inventions without making some
acknowledgment or return to the inventors.
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