to be within my grasp, was damping. However--! The Sergeant-Major had
told me that I was to go on duty as orderly in Ward W--an officers'
ward--at 2 p.m. prompt. I did not know where Ward W was; I did not know
what a ward-orderly's functions should amount to. And I had no uniform.
I was attired in a light grey lounge suit--appropriate enough to my
normal habit, but quite too flippant, I was certain, for a ward-orderly.
Whatever else a ward-orderly might be, I was sure that he was not the
sort of person to sport a grey lounge suit.

Still, I must hie me to Ward W. I had got my wish. I was in the army at
last. In the army one does not argue. One obeys. So, having been
directed down an interminable corridor, I presented myself at Ward W.

On entering--I had knocked, but no response rewarded this courtesy--I
was requested, by a stern-visaged Sister, to state my business. Her
sternness was excusable. The visiting-hour was not yet, and in my
unprofessional guise she had taken me for a visitor. My explanation
dispelled her frowns. She was expecting me. Her present orderly had been
granted three days' leave. He was preparing to depart. I was to act as
his substitute. Before he went he would initiate me into the secrets of
his craft. She called him. "Private Wood!" Private Wood, in his
shirt-sleeves, appeared. I was handed over to him.

Herein I was fortunate, though I was unaware of it at the time. Private
Wood, who was not too proud to wash dishes (which was what he had at
that moment been doing), is a distinguished sculptor and a man of keen
imagination. At a subsequent period that imagination was to bring forth
the masks-for-facial-disfigurements scheme which gained him his
commission and which has attracted world-wide notice from experts.
Meanwhile his imagination enabled him to understand the exact extent of