business on a
typewriter that will only do a small number at a time, and is wanted for
other things. It also caused a great delay before indents could
materialise. You wished, say, to order a truss for a patient. Out there,
owing to the heat, articles of this nature perished quickly. You
reported the measurements to the quartermaster. He made a copy of the
indent in triplicate, as well as an office copy. The indents went to the
Assistant Director of Medical Services for approval. They were then sent
back to the quartermaster. He then sent them to the Base Medical Depot,
who acknowledged their receipt and said they would be sent to India as
soon as possible. In India they passed through other complicated
machinery and the weeks went by. A truss, I suppose, is worth a few
shillings.

There were three other factors that added to the difficulties, apart
from distance. One was the bar at the mouth of the river, which made it
impossible for deeply laden vessels coming up the Persian Gulf and
drawing many feet of water to pass without unloading in part into
another vessel. The other was that strip of river between Kurna and
Amara known as the Narrows, where river boats with supplies stuck
constantly, especially when the floods fell and the water was low. One
boat sticking here would hold up all traffic.

The third factor was the effect of the excessive heat. This effect,
rather subtle in itself, might be called the psychological factor of the
situation, for there is not the slightest doubt that it produced a kind
of cussedness in everyone, from the highest to the lowest, and sapped
energy and made changes unwelcome. For excessive and prolonged heat--and
the hot season lasted seven or eight months--rouses a defensive
mechanism of inertia whose aim is to preserve life. You saw that in the
earliest cases of incipient heat-stroke. A man felt suddenly all the
power go out of his legs. He wanted to lie down, and this was the best
thing he could do.

Mental exertion became almost impossible. Reading was not easy, writing
was a burden, and thinking a matter of extreme difficulty. Your interest
lay in watching the simplest thing. A Japanese fly-trap with its
slowly-turning, sticky surfaces was fascinating. There was a spice of
oriental cruelty in the way it slowly entrapped the fly, and it was
exactly that which made the appeal. You soon understood how it comes
about that the Eastern takes all the natural facts of life for granted,