Consequently it happens often
that half a dozen orderlies may be bathing at the same time as half a
dozen patients--and it need not be added that the occasion is one for
pleasant chats and the barter of anecdotes. For this reason, if for no
other, I always elected to use the "old" bathroom: the "new" one, with
its closed cubicles, was less fruitful in conversations.
The "old" bathroom was the exchange (and perhaps the starting-point) of
many of our hospital rumours. I imagine that every war hospital is a
hotbed of rumours. Ours certainly was, and is. Amongst the orderlies
there are incessant rumours about promotions, about the chances of the
unit being sent abroad, about surprise inspections, about the imminent
arrival of impossibly large convoys, about news--received privately by
the Colonel over the telephone--of defeats or victories. Nine times out
of ten the rumour turns out to be groundless. But this does not cause
the output of rumours to diminish. Apparently the army is a prolific
soil for rumours, inasmuch as they have a special name: a rumour is
called a _buzz_. "Only a buzz" ("it's only a rumour") is an expression
often heard on the lips of soldiers.
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