Apart from the amusements and distractions offered, the men seem to appreciate the Y.M.C.A. so much, because within the shelter of its walls they can forget for the moment the stringent military discipline under which they live.
July 2nd. In my hotel are quartered the latest "Lena Ashwell Concert Party," whose good humour keeps the whole place alive. The place is so noisy that it is impossible to sleep. Said the humorist of the party, "That reminds one of the tale of the man in an hotel who was greatly disturbed by someone walking about in the room above. The second night things were no better; the third, the place shook as if he were jumping the house down. Going upstairs he tapped at the door and said, 'I say, old fellow, do you mind letting me get a little sleep? You've kept me awake three nights with your noise.'
"'Am I disturbing you?' came the rejoinder. 'I'm so sorry. You see, I'm under doctor's orders, and he's given me some medicine and told me to take it two nights running and skip the third!'"
July 3rd. It is no easy matter now to get a photograph taken, even of so harmless a thing as a grave. Nevertheless, in reply to a request from a woman whose son is buried here, we resolved to leave no stone unturned to obtain the necessary permits. And, as we waited for the signing and countersigning of the valuable documents at the Commandant's office, whilst outside the "Caterpillars" rumbled past, taking their heavy guns up to the front, we wondered whether the same stringent regulations apply to the many "neutral" seamen, whose business, on cargo steamers, brings them into the port.
July 9th. By the evening the usual septic throat had claimed me victim, and in spite of strenuous efforts to attribute it to imagination, it is necessary to bow to the verdict that quarantines one as a "Query Diphtheria" case.
Faced with the idea of being isolated in a bathing-box ward and nursed by orderlies, there is nothing left for it but to take the landladies' advice and pray. Really, their faith is wonderful. They pray for everything; and seeing old Madame has a very short memory, and is always losing things for which she proceeds to pray without making the least effort to find them, St. Antony must be getting rather tired of this house!
Blinding rain in a jerry-built summer villa is not exactly cheerful, in spite of the Madonna lilies with which it is possible to adorn one's attic.
July 15th. The finishing touches are being put to the new building. My "Query Diphtheria" throat proved to be a false alarm, and now, having toiled for nine hours, behold me taking a moment's rest on the veranda, whilst thirty men—voluntary fatigue parties, who came in response to a hint that their assistance would be appreciated—are at work on different jobs.
Ten are darkening the table legs with permanganate of potash. Some are cleaning windows and others pasting on our "Dutch" frieze, whilst a little Scotty, who has been lent us as an orderly to help over these first days, and whose dialect is so broad that even his own compatriots sometimes fail to interpret, is watering and hanging geraniums we have had out from England. Yes, there is a breath of home about our hut. Bright English pottery adorns the shelves, bright curtains relieve the Mediterranean blue of the walls, and, as I said before, our plants, straight from Covent Garden, make the veranda as unwarlike as it is possible to make it.
July 16th. Our hut certainly opened with éclat! In spite of the fact that at midday the place was still full of French painters and workmen, we managed to be superficially in order by four o'clock when the D.D.M.S. declared the building open.