Observations of an Orderly | Page 7

they never had to put some finishing touches, either to their dress or to their hut equipment foldings, before the Company Officer's tour of inspection at 8.30. It sufficed that they would pass muster at 6 o'clock, when appearances are less minutely important. And the man who never rises till 5.55 detests an alarm-clock that whirrs at 5.15. The hour at which the alarm-clock should be set to detonate was one of our few acrimonious subjects of argument: I have even known it upset a discussion on Woman. But the early risers had their way, and the clock continued to be set for half an hour in front of R��veill��.
The harsh vibration of the alarm at one end of the day, and the expiry of the Lights-Out talks at the other--these events marked the chief time-divisions in our hut life. While we were absent at work, our interests were many and scattered; but the hut was a nucleus for communal bonds of union which evoked no little loyalty and affection from us all. On the May morning when I first beheld that corrugated-iron abode I thought it looked inviting enough; but I did not guess how fond I was to grow of its barn-like interior and of the sportive crew who shared its mathematically-allotted floor-space. "Next war," one optimist suggested during a typical Lights-Out s��ance, "let's all enlist together again." There were protests against the implied prophecy, but none against the proposition as such. That is the spirit of hut comradeship ... a spirit which no alarm-clock controversies can do aught to impair; for though 5.15 a.m. is an hour to test the temper of a troop of twenty-one saints, 10.15 p.m. will bring geniality and garrulousness to twenty-one sinners.

III
WASHING-UP
The following substances (to which I had previously been almost a stranger) absorbed much of my interest during my first months as a hospital orderly:
Coagulated pudding, mutton fat and beef fat, cold gravy, treacle, congealed cocoa, suet duff, skins of once hot milk:
Plates, cups, frying-pans and other utensils smeared with the above:
Knives, forks and spoons, ditto.
I am fated to go through life, in the future, not merely with an exalted opinion of scullery-maids--this I should not regret--but also with an only too clear picture, when at the dinner table, of the adventures of each dish of broken meats on its exit from view. I have been behind the scenes at the business of eating, or rather, at the dreadful repairs which must be instituted when the business of eating is concluded in order that the business of eating may recommence.
There were days when the ward-kitchen was to me a battlefield and I seemed to be fighting on the losing side. This was when our scrub-lady was ill or had "got the sack" and it fell to me, the orderly, to do the washing-up single-handed. Those patients who were well enough to be on their feet were supposed to help. (I speak of a men's ward, of course, not an officers'.) They did help, and that right willingly. Sometimes I was blessed by the presence of a patient with a passion for cleaning things. When there were no dishes to clean he would clean taps. When the taps shone like gold he would clean the hooks on the dresser. When all our kitchen gear was clean he would invade, with a kind of fury, the sink-room and clean the apparatus there. When this was done he would clean the ward's windows and door handles. Between-times he would clean his boots and shave patients in bed. The new army is thickly sown with men like that. They are the salt of the earth. I would place them at the summit of the commonwealth's salary list, the bank clerk second, and the business man, the artist and the politician at the bottom. At all events these were my sentiments when a patient of this type, convalescing, began to be able to help me with my kitchen chores. But it occasionally chanced that every single patient in the ward was confined to bed. It was then that I made my most intimate acquaintance with the catalogue of horrors I have cited.
You behold me, with my shirt-sleeves rolled up, faced by a heap of twenty plates, twenty forks, twenty knives and twenty spoons, all urgently requiring washing. Were these my whole task I should not shrink. They would be nicely polished-off long ere one-fifteen arrived--the time when I should (but probably shall not be able to) leave for my own meal in the orderlies' mess. But there are two far more serious opponents waiting to be subdued--the dinner-tin and the pudding-basin. This pair are hateful beyond words. Their memory will for ever haunt me, a spectral disillusionment to spoil the relish of every repast I may