How many painful misunderstandings this "All passes
stopped" law has given rise to, one shudders to guess.
But indeed no war-hospital orderly ever arranges any appointment without
the proviso that he is liable to break it. The folk who imagine that the
hospital orderly enjoys a "cushy job" (to use the appropriate
vernacular) seldom make sufficient allowance for this painful aspect of
it. The ordinary soldier in training in an English camp has his evenings
free, and certain other free times, which are nearly as sure as the
sun's rising. The hospital orderly is _never_--in theory at any
rate--off duty. His free moments are regarded not as a right but as a
favour: no freedom, at any time, can be guaranteed. He is liable to be
called on in the middle of the night, or at the instant when he is going
off duty, or when at a meal, or when resting, or when on the point of
walking out in pursuance of the gentle art of courtship. And he must
respond, instanter, or he will find that he has earned the C.B.--which
in this instance means not Companion of the Bath, but Confined to
Barracks, a punishment as hard to bear as the cruel "keeping in" of our
school-days.
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