The two other columns need no explanation.
Whenever a trooper failed to be regarded as sick by the Surgeon-major, he was invariably punished with four days' Salle de Police by the Captain commanding the squadron. The Surgeon-major always refused to pass as "sick" troopers who were dirty, and I have seen poor fellows, with awful excoriations, sent back to their work because they were dirty.
A copy of the above-mentioned book was taken by the infirmary Corporal, who wrote down the surgeon's diagnosis of each case.
That day the troopers of our squadron were called in first, and, as I was the sixth or seventh on the list, I watched the proceedings with keen interest.
The first trooper called up was suffering from a boil on the thigh. "What's the matter with you?" said the doctor.
"Well, sir," replied the trooper, a stupid recruit, "I have a sort of a red thing—you know, sir—just there," pointing to the place, "and it hurts me something awful when I ride."
"Well, show it," said the doctor.
The fellow tried to pull up his canvas trousers, but couldn't manage to get them up high enough.
"Why don't you take them off?" said the doctor impatiently.
The recruit hesitated, and the doctor, losing patience, ordered the Corporal to undress him; the boy thereupon, violently blushing, exposed his trouble. "Oh, a boil," said the doctor, handling him pretty roughly; and taking a lancet from his instrument case, he made a deep incision through the swelling. The recruit howled, but the doctor told him to shut up, adding that he would be "exempt from boots" for the next three days. "You will come back in three days' time," he added, and he then ordered the corporal to give him a dose of sulphate of soda.