never by any chance dreamt of rising until five to six. These gentry had
reduced the ritual of dressing, and of rolling up their bedding, to a
speed at which it might almost be compared to expert juggling: the
quickness of the hand deceived the eye. At five 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