July 23rd. In spite of the conquest of German South-West Africa and the advance of four hundred yards in Gallipoli, the situation seems as indefinite as ever. Yet in the lull on the West is to be felt the presaging of the advance, in anticipation of which we live on the tip-top of expectation. This time there will be no shortage of ammunition, they tell us; but, as Mr. Asquith says, we must "Wait and see!" In the meantime we are less busy, and able to enjoy exhilarating walks along the hospital-lined shore; or inland, to where that ruined Jesuit monastery that has sheltered so many Indians and figured so often in the papers as the "Ruins of Ypres," to rejoice the heart of an unsuspecting public, rises an impressive pile against the sky.
Everywhere one notes the comparative opulence of our men, drawing from 1s. 2d. to 6s. per day, as compared with the French soldiers, who, less well nurtured, only receive ½ d.!
And if the tremendous wastage that went on during the early months has now ceased; if loaves and meat are no longer buried in large quantities daily, at least one could find quite a number of poverty-stricken French families able to subsist happily on the "leavings" of the camps hard by.
July 29th. I cannot help recalling how surprised everyone looked at home if I spoke of "Blighty," or a friend who was now a T.C.O. (Train Conducting Officer), and another who had been promoted to D.D.M.S. (Deputy Director Medical Supplies). I believe they thought it "swank," though they themselves had added "strafing" and "hating" (in the European-war sense) to their vocabulary.
Let us do ourselves justice! We at the Base are so accustomed to our own "jargon" that it comes as second nature to us.
We are often asked for "a cup of you and me and a wad" (tea and bit of bread and butter), or told that, although a man has spent all his "toot" (money) on "pig's ear" (beer), he would be glad of a pinch of "Lot's wife" (table salt) to eat with a sandwich, as the "shakles" (stew) was so undercooked as to be uneatable; and I defy anyone not to lose reckoning of the rights and wrongs of their own language when every other man states his wants in a terminology of his own. "Five steps to heaven" is, perhaps, the favourite term for Woodbines; "Cape of Good Hope" stands for soap; "jankers," confinement to barracks.
And is not every third office blazoned with hieroglyphics of some sort? Does not every third man wear some kind of distinctive brassard with its distinctive letters?