but any one who has seen a
man die of tetanus is not likely to complain. On an inoculation day the
doctor had his chance, and we tried to establish cordial relations with
the medical department as soon as orders for the debacle appeared. The
ceremony was always the same. The men were paraded by companies with
their pay books, and shepherded into alphabetical order. Officers went
first, in order, as they thought, to set the men a good example, and as
the men thought, not to have to stand waiting in the sun. At the tent
door--for a tent was usually borrowed from somewhere to give decency and
privacy to the rites--an acolyte dabbed a large yellow patch of iodine
on the victim's arm. Moving into the superheated shrine, he assisted
Sergt. Lyon to tick off his name on the nominal roll, and then
approached the M.O. Some doctors were bland and cheerful, others
humorous, others strictly businesslike, but they all knew that this was
their chance to pay off old scores. By using the sharp needle or the
blunt one, and varying the angle of the stick in, they could adapt their
onslaught to their personal opinion of the victim, and as a final insult
in very bad cases, could observe as they pushed it home, "What a thick
skin you have got."

Constant small drafts had increased our strength and the Battalion
numbered about 30 officers and 800 other ranks when it was relieved by
part of the 54th Division and started on a further advance to the east.
These perpetual moves were far more complicated than the ordinary shifts
from reserve to trenches in France, where convenient dumps and exchanges
of tools and ammunition with the relieved troops, greatly decreased the
labour, while wheeled transport and motor lorries enabled one to retain
many of the appliances of civilised life. The soldier on service, even
in a desert, has a wonderful way of acquiring possessions, and every
time we moved we were faced with the total loss of our dearest
treasures. A heavy parcel mail usually arrived the day before, and we
had to overeat ourselves or dump. Each company mess cherished a few bits
of straw matting and some poles, found or stolen, with which they rigged
up a precarious shelter wherein to eat their meals, sitting in state on
sand-bag seats at a table of sand covered with a waterproof sheet. Must
these be abandoned and the bereaved officers feed in the open? A
thousand times no. But there were no extra camels--the company camel
would already be over-