Observations of an Orderly | Page 8

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 consume in the years that are ahead.
The dinner-tin was a rectangular box some three feet long, twenty
inches wide and six inches deep. It was made of solid metal, was fitted
with a false bottom to contain hot water, and was divided internally
into three compartments to hold meat, vegetables and duff. These
viands were loaded into the tin at the hospital's central kitchen. I had
naught to do with the cookery--which I may mention always seemed to
me to be excellent. My sole concern was with the helping-out of the
food to the patients and the restoration of the dinner-tin to its shelf in
the central kitchen. For unless I restored that tin in a faultless state of
cleanliness, the sergeant in charge of the central kitchen would require

my blood. The tin's number would betray me. The sergeant needed not
to know my name: all he had to do, on discovering the questionable tin,
was to glance at its number and then send for the orderly of the ward
with a corresponding number.
He was a sergeant whose aspect could be very daunting. I never had to
come before him on the subject of a dirty dinner-tin. But he and I had
some small passages concerning "specials" (separate diets ordered for
patients requiring delicacies). Sometimes the necessary forms for the
specials had been incorrectly made out by a Sister with no head for
army accuracy in minor clerical details. Thereafter it was my unlucky
place to see the sergeant, and put the matter straight with him. I have
survived those encounters. I have survived them with an enhanced
respect for the sergeant and the organisation of his large and by no
means simple department. There were moments, nevertheless, when I
approached his presence with a sinking heart. For if I failed to "get
round" him in the matter of coaxing another special for a patient, there
was Sister to placate on my return to the ward; and it was quite
impossible to persuade Sister that she could have made a mistake with
her diet sheets, or, if she had, that it was of any consequence.
The dinner-tin was somewhat larger than the sink in which I was
supposed to wash it. It was also very heavy. When full of food, and its
false bottom charged with hot water, I could only just lift it, and my
progress down the ward, carrying it from the trolley in the corridor to
the ward-kitchen, was a perilous and perspiring shuffle. As soon as all
the patients had been served I placed any left-over slices of meat in the
larder: these would be eaten at tea. Then I drained out the hot water
from the false bottom. Then (but only after experience had given me
wisdom) I ran hot water from the geyser tap into the now empty meat,
vegetable and duff compartments, and gave them a hurried swill: this to
rid them of the pestilent dregs of fatty material which would otherwise
have dried and glued themselves to the floor of the tin. The latter had
now to be put on one side, for I must be back in the ward attending to
my diners. Only when they had finished their meal, and their bed-tables
had been removed, folded up and placed neatly behind each bed, could
I tackle the tin in earnest.

I abhor dabbling in grease; but life is full of abhorrent dilemmas which
must be endured; and the interior of that dinner-tin somehow got itself
cleaned, every day, in the long run. During the early part of any given
week I was almost happy over the job. For Monday was "Dry Store"
day. On Monday, and on Monday only--and you were helpless for the
remainder of the week if you forgot the rule--you could obtain, on
presentation of a chit, blacklead for the stoves, metal-polish for the
brass, rags for cleaning the floor, floor-polish, one box of matches,
bath-brick, soft soap, and--soda. It is an extraordinary chemical, soda.
Before I became a ward orderly I had no idea of the remarkable
properties of soda. A handful of soda in boiling water, and behold the
grease dissolve meekly from the nastiest dinner-tin! It was miraculous.
When a pitying scrub-lady first showed me the trick I thought that all