“Dearie, be sure to keep your hat on at all times. Egypt, I hear, is awfully hot about Christmas-time. The doctor was telling me the other day that he could hardly sit on the veranda of Shepheard’s in the middle of the day. Keep your hat on, even when at Shepheard’s. The climate is so treacherous. Doc. says he recommends this hotel. Shall we send letters to you there? Iced drinks and heavy meals are dangerous, doc. says.”
This was more than flesh and blood could stand. “Am I having my leg pulled?” he asked. He looked at the envelope, and found it had been posted in Sydney thirteen months ago. He swore roundly at the expense of the postal people, and as all the rest of the letter was hopelessly out of date, he turned his attention to the next item of his very belated mail. It was another letter from Jessie. She again rambled on about Egypt, its climatic horrors and the dangers of Cairo’s attractions.
He bit his lip and smiled sourly when he came across a passage which related to the dancing deeds of a male acquaintance of his.
“Frank, as you know, has not enlisted yet,” she wrote. “He is not sure of a commission, because chaps are called upon to pass a beastly exam. He says it’s rot to ask him to sit for an examination, and he would just hate to serve in the ranks. In his case, ‘it would be super-patriotic,’ he says, to do so. I don’t understand what he means by this, but no doubt you will.”
Hughie knew that the man referred to was big enough to push all the Turks off the Peninsula; and Jessie proved a Job’s comforter when, later on, she told him that Frank only attended dances given for patriotic purposes.
The next item was a parcel containing hair-oil, twenty-five costly cigars, a cigar-holder, a suit of pyjamas, and a booklet given away by a firm of tobacconists, explaining to would-be-recruits that “Henry Clays” would be forwarded to any part of the Australasian front free of carriage. The parcel was addressed to Gallipoli.
“Darling,” wrote Jessie, in the letter that accompanied the parcel, “keep these things in your tent.[20] It must be a fag getting the oil you liked so much. I suppose you have to walk some distance from the firing-line to the nearest shops. No doubt the cigars will be acceptable after dinner, and, later on, the pyjamas. Don’t think me forward in sending the latter. But I know fellows do wear them. I’ve seen them advertised in the Herald. I am sending these things for use in Turkey.
“I have read all about the charge you chaps made on the 25th of April, and hope you were allowed to get well up in the front. It would just suit you. I know it is dangerous, but Frank says if it is dangerous for the men, how much more dangerous must it be for the officers. He says he will insist upon leading his men in all charges. Between you and me though, Hughie, I don’t think he will enlist. He has several pairs of lovely socks to hand by to-day’s delivery from David Jones’s, and if they are not for the yachting that is to start next week, then I’m slow. Frank and I are going to Randwick Races on Saturday, and if we see anything in your battalion colours we will back it and buy something for you with what we collect. Frank says he is sure you would like us to do this.
“Please don’t get shot, dear. We intend to send you lots of nice things for Christmas.”
Hughie, a gay dog in the good old ante-bellum days, who occupied a cosy job and circulated his sovereigns, tramped back to his dug-out through the saps, revolving wicked thoughts about Frank. Always a philosopher, he cleaned his rifle with the hair-oil, cut up the pyjamas to make pull-throughs, and to newly arrived reinforcements distributed the cigars. He and the old hands had lost any appetite they ever had for such comforts.