t. Behind her wrinkled old face there was a brain with a
limited outfit of ideas--and the chief of those ideas was _work_.

Our cup of tea was refreshing, but it would be incorrect to convey the
notion that I was allowed to linger over such a luxury. There are few
intervals for leisure in the duty-hours of an orderly in an officers'
ward. Had the Sister and her nurses not been occupied elsewhere, I doubt
whether I should have been free to drink that cup of tea at all--a
circumstance of which perhaps Mrs. Mappin was more aware than I. At any
rate the call of "Orderly!" from a patient summoned me from the kitchen
and into the ward long before I had finished drying Mrs. Mappin's
dishes.

The patient desired some small service performed for him. I performed
it--remembering to address him as "Sir." Various other patients,
observing my presence, took the opportunity to hail me. I found myself
saying "Yes, Sir!" "In a moment, Sir!" and dropping--with a promptitude
on which I rather flattered myself--into the manner of a cross between a
valet and a waiter, with a subtle dash of chambermaid. Soon I was also a
luggage-porter, staggering to a taxi with the ponderous impedimenta of a
juvenile second lieutenant who was bidding the hospital farewell, and
whose trunks contained--at a guess--geological specimens and battlefield
souvenirs in the shape of "dud" German shells. This young gentleman
fumbled with a gratuity, then thought better of it--and was gracious
enough to return my grin. "Bit awkward, tipping, in these days," he
apologised cheerily, depositing himself in his taxi behind ramparts of
holdalls. "Thank you, Sir," seemed the suitable adieu, and having
proffered it I scampered into the ward again. Anon Sister sent me with a
message to the dispensary. Where the dispensary was I knew not. But I
found out, and brought back what she required. Then to the post office.
Another exploration down that terrific corridor. Post office located at
last and duly noted. Then to the linen store to draw attention to an
error in the morning's supply of towels. Linen store eventually
unearthed--likewise the information that its staff disclaimed all
responsibility for mistakes--likewise the first inkling of a profound
maxim, that when a mistake has been made, in hospital, it is always the
orderly, and no one else, who has made it.

Engaged on these errands, and a host of intervening lesser exploits in
the ward, I had to cultivate an unwonted f