The tea was not a comfort. It was a solvent. Water came up to the front line in whatever would hold it, which usually meant petrol cans, and it arrived tasting of petrol. From 1916 it was chlorinated as well, because the alternative was dysentery, and chlorinated water is bitter. So the cooks brewed tea over the top of all of it — and the tea, by most accounts, tasted like a swimming pool. Men drank it anyway, hot when they could get it and cold out of a water bottle when they could not. This mug is not a moment of peace. It is the least bad way to drink.

W. Britain has him walking with his rifle slung and the mug held out level — a man concentrating on not spilling it. Brodie helmet, 1908 webbing, the SMLE muzzle-up over his shoulder, entrenching tool helve and water bottle at his hip. He is the figure that makes a diorama look inhabited rather than staged, because he is running an errand rather than a war: walk him down a trench section to the man on watch. Across the line, the German field kitchen is the same problem solved by other means.

W. Britain model 23051. 1/30 scale (approximately 60mm), matte-painted metal. Single foot figure walking on a sculpted groundwork base. Supplied in a clamshell pack.