After his bath and change, Lollie wandered round and had a talk to different officers, to his orderly-room sergeant, and the officers’ mess cook, inspected the kitchen arrangements with interest, and discussed current issue of rations and meals. “Glad you’re back, sir,” said the mess cook. “I did the best I could, but the messing never seems to run just right when you’re away. I never can properly remember the different things some of them don’t like.”
The same compliment to his mess-catering abilities was paid him at dinner that night. “Ha, dinner,” said the Padre; “we can look for a return to our good living again now that you’re ho—back again, Lollie.”
Lollie laughed. “Nearly caught you that time, Padre,” he said. “You almost said ‘home again,’ didn’t you?” And the Padre had to confess he nearly did.
They had a very pleasant little dinner, and, even if the curry was mostly bully beef and the wine was the thin, sharp claret of local purchase, Lollie enjoyed every mouthful and every minute of the meal. Several of the other officers of the battalion dropped in after dinner on one excuse or another, but, as Lollie suspected, mainly to shake hands with him and hear any of the latest from the other side.
“There’s a rum ration to-night,” said the Second, about ten. “What about a rum punch, Lollie?”
“I tell you this is good,” said Lollie contentedly a quarter of an hour later, as they sat sipping the hot rum. “’Pon my word, it’s worth going away, if it’s only for the pleasure of coming back.”
The others laughed at him. “Coming back home, eh?” scoffed the Second.
“Yes, but look here, ’pon my word, it is home,” said Lollie earnestly. “I tell you it’s like going to a foreign country, going to the other side now. There’s so many rules and regulations you can’t keep up with them. You always seem to want a drink, or meet a pal you’d like a drink with, just in the no-drink hours. In uniform you can’t even get food after some silly hour like nine or ten o’clock. Why, after the theatre one night, when I was with three people in civvies, we went to a restaurant, and I had to sit hungry and watch them eat. They could get food, and I couldn’t. And one day a pal didn’t turn up that I was lunching at the Emperor’s, and I found I couldn’t have any of the things I wanted most, because it cost more than 3s. 6d. I’d set my heart on a dozen natives and a bit of grilled chicken—you know how you do get hankering for certain things after a spell out here—but I had to feed off poached eggs or some idiotic thing like that.”
“But isn’t there some sense in that rule?” said the Padre. “Isn’t the idea to prevent young officers being made to pay more than they can afford?”
Lollie snorted. “Does it prevent it?” he said. “My lunch cost me over fifteen bob rather than under it, what with a bottle of decent Burgundy, and coffee and liqueur, and tip to the waiter, and so on. And, anyhow, who but an utter ass would go to the Emperor’s if he couldn’t afford a stiff price for a meal? But it isn’t only these rules and things over there that makes it ‘coming home’ to come back here. In England you’re made to feel an outsider. D’you know I had a military police fellow pull me up for not carrying gloves in the first hour of my leave?”