And I wear them when we have a "C.O.'s Parade"--an
occasion on which naught but officially-provided attire is allowable. It
would take a century of C.O.'s parades, however, to damage boots put on
five minutes before the event and taken off five minutes after: the
parade itself necessitating no sturdier pedestrianism than is involved
in walking less than a hundred yards to the ground and there standing
stock-still at attention.
I do not say that hospital orderlies never go for a march: only that
marching bulks relatively so small in our programme that any special
equipment for the purpose sounds a little ironical. The issue of
ward-shoes, now, was a real boon. Not that all the pairs with which our
unit was suddenly flooded by the authorities proved as silent as they
were intended to be. Some of them squeaked; and the peregrinations of
the orderly thus afflicted were perhaps more vexatious to the ear of a
nervous patient at night than even the clatter of honest hobnails. And
the soles were thin. A pair of ward-shoes lasted me on the average one
month. If only worn within the ward they might have lasted
longer--though not so very much longer.
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