through his lungs had first of all come through the body of a comrade
on his back.

Chum Shrimp's size was the joke of the ship--he must have weighed three
hundred pounds. He could only pass through a door sideways, and the
"Binghis" (natives of New Guinea), when they saw him, blamed him for a
recent tidal wave, saying that he had fallen overboard. He was the
most active man I have ever known, and on rough days would board the
schooner by catching the dinghee boom with one hand as it dipped toward
the launch, and swing himself hand over hand inboard. I never expected
the schooner to complete the opposite roll until Chum was "playing
plum" in the centre.

Chum's parentage was romantic--his father a government official and his
mother an island princess--he himself being one of the whitest men I
have ever been privileged to call friend. We never thought he would
get into the army, for though he was as strong as any two of us, he
would require the cloth of three men's suits for his uniform, and he
would always have to be the blank file in a column of fours, as four of
his size would spread across the street, and to "cover off" the four
behind them would just march in the rear of their spinal columns,
having a driveway between each of them.

He was determined to enlist, and a wise government solved the problem
by making him quartermaster, thus insuring in the only way possible
that Chum would have a sufficient supply of "grub." This job was also
right in his hands, because he possessed considerable business
instinct; and you remember Lord Kitchener said of the quartermaster
that he was the only man in the army whose salary he did not know!