Never let anyone kid you into trying to
take the black off the kitchen pans
Delightfully brief and entertaining job, that of removing the black from ash cans that are used to cook soup in. Our Mess Sergeant, the pirate, noticed that for about three seconds during this afternoon I wasn’t doing anything in particular, so he gave me a cake of sapolio and a mop and told me to get busy and shine up the outside of the pots and pans and get all the black off. I went to it and stuck—until our Jap cook, the slant-eyed angel, came in about two hours later and told me the honourable ash cans always got blacked up again so what’s the use; and anyhow he wanted to use the mop. I almost kissed him.
Thank goodness the coal shovelling is all over with. Finished it yesterday. To-day during my moments of leisure I split a few cords of kindling wood and carried it into the kitchen, but I like splitting wood better than heaving coal when it comes to making a choice.
I’ve been very popular with “Local Board No. 163,” since I’ve been in the kitchen. Honestly, if that dog had intelligence enough, I could almost believe that he induced that flea to start this dirty work, for he’s the only one in the whole company who has benefited by it. He hangs around the galley all the time and is waxing fat, prosperous and greasy; greasy because he got in the way of some dishwater that was being emptied out the back door. And now I’ll have to give him another scrubbing before we turn in, or he’ll be crawling in under my blankets again.
Strange I haven’t received any letters yet. Some chaps are lucky. Letters seem to make a big difference in things, even if it’s only listening in on some other fellow’s. Every one reads letters out loud so that we can all enjoy them, for letters, no matter whom they are from, are real events here and one always gets a sinking feeling when he discovers there aren’t any for him.
Thursday:
Real luck at last. No more kitchen policing, thank goodness. It all happened thus: