windows and the red of cigarette-ends, many of us still had to complete
our undressing. We became adepts at doing this in the dark and so
disposing of the articles of our attire that they could be instantly
retrieved in the morning. Once between the blankets, conversation at
first waxed rather than waned. The Night Wardmaster, whose duty it was
to make the round of the orderlies' huts, disapproved of conversation
after Lights-Out, and was apt to say so, loudly and menacingly, when he
surprised us by popping his head in at the door. But--well--the Night
Wardmaster always departed in the long run.... And then uprose, between
bed and bed, those unconclusive debates in which the masculine soul
delighteth: Theology; Woman; Victuals; Politics; Art; the Press; Sport;
Marriage; Money--and sometimes even The War; likewise the purely local
topics of Sisters and their Absurdities; Our Officers; The Other Huts;
What the Sergeant-Major Said; Why V.A.D.'s can't replace Male Orderlies;
What this Morning's Operations Looked Like; Whether an Officers' Ward or
a Men's Ward is the nicer; Who Deserves Stripes; C.O.'s Parade and its
Terrors; Advantages of Volunteering for Night Duty; The Cushy Job of
being in charge of a Sham Lunacy Case; Other Cushy Jobs less cushy than
They Sounded; and so forth; until at last protests began to be voiced by
the wearier folk who wanted silence.

Silence it was, except for the thunder of occasional passing trains in
the near-by railway cutting. These had little power to disturb. Tucked
in the brown army blankets, which at first sight look so hard and so
prickly, we slumbered, the twenty-one of us, as one man; until, with a
cruel jolt, at 5.15 that wretched alarm-clock crashed forth its summons
for the fastidious few who liked to rise in ample time to bath and shave
before early parade. Sometimes I was of that virtuous band, and
sometimes I wasn't; but, either way, I hated the alarm-clock at
5.15,--though not so virulently as did those members of the hut who