Like all literary men, he was a Bohemian at heart.
Routine wearied him; discipline galled him; the sight of work made
him feel faint. After a month or two in the ranks he seized the first
opportunity of escaping from the toils of his company, by volunteering
for service as a Scout. A single experience of night operations in
a dark wood, previously described, decided him to seek some milder
employment. Observing that the regimental cooks appeared to be
absolved, by virtue of their office, not only from all regimental
parades, but from all obligations on the subject of correct attire and
personal cleanliness, he volunteered for service in the kitchen. Here
for a space--clad in shirt, trousers, and canvas shoes, unutterably
greasy and waxing fat--he prospered exceedingly. But one sad day he
was detected by the cook-sergeant, having just finished cleaning a
flue, in the act of washing his hands in ten gallons of B Company's
soup. Once more our versatile hero found himself turned adrift with
brutal and agonising suddenness, and bidden to exercise his talents
elsewhere.
After a fortnight's uneventful dreariness with his platoon, Dunshie
joined the machine-gunners, because he had heard rumours that these
were conveyed to and from their labours in limbered waggons. But he
had been misinformed. It was the guns that were carried; the gunners
invariably walked, sometimes carrying the guns and the appurtenances
thereof.
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