Observations of an Orderly | Page 7

minutes to six you
would see the juggler asleep on his pillow, in blissful innocence; at six
he would be on parade, as correctly attired as you were yourself, and
having left behind him, in the hut, a bed as neatly folded as yours. The
world is sprinkled with people who can do this kind of thing--and our
hut was blessed with its due leaven of them. But I would not assert that
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 Réveillé.
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 séance, "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