a dirty dinner-tin. But he and I had
some small passages concerning "specials" (separate diets ordered for
patients requiring delicacies). Sometimes the necessary forms for the
specials had been incorrectly made out by a Sister with no head for army
accuracy in minor clerical details. Thereafter it was my unlucky place
to see the sergeant, and put the matter straight with him. I have
survived those encounters. I have survived them with an enhanced respect
for the sergeant and the organisation of his large and by no means
simple department. There were moments, nevertheless, when I approached
his presence with a sinking heart. For if I failed to "get round" him in
the matter of coaxing another special for a patient, there was Sister to
placate on my return to the ward; and it was quite impossible to
persuade Sister that she could have made a mistake with her diet sheets,
or, if she had, that it was of any consequence.

The dinner-tin was somewhat larger than the sink in which I was supposed
to wash it. It was also very heavy. When full of food, and its false
bottom charged with hot water, I could only just lift it, and my
progress down the ward, carrying it from the trolley in the corridor to
the ward-kitchen, was a perilous and perspiring shuffle. As soon as all
the patients had been served I placed any left-over slices of meat in
the larder: these would be eaten at tea. Then I drained out the hot
water from the false bottom. Then (but only after experience had given
me wisdom) I ran hot water from the geyser tap into the now empty meat,
vegetable and duff compartments, and gave them a hurried swill: this to
rid them of the pestilent dregs of fatty material which would otherwise
have dried and glued themselves to the floor of the tin. The latter had
now to be put on one side, for I must be back in the ward attending to
my diners. Only when they had finished their meal, and their bed-tables
had been removed, folded up and placed neatly behind each bed, could I
tackle the tin in earnest.

I abhor dabbling in grease; but life is full of abhorrent dilemmas which
must be endured; and the interior of that dinner-tin somehow got itself
cleaned, every day, in the long run. During the early part of any given
week I was almost happy over the job. For Monday was "Dry Store" day. On
Monday, and on Monday only--and you were helpless for the remainder of
the week if you forgot the rule--you could obtain, on presentation of a
chit, bl