And once at Mont St. Eloi when Jimmy Newing and the Jaunty formed the chief actors in a pretty little farce, The Chaplain was at his place, the Jaunty had herded the Flock into the pen which was the Mess Deck, but had forgotten the pianist, our friend Jimmy Newing the motor cyclist. Jimmy had been “blowing” to his pals all the morning as to what he was going to say if theJaunty asked him to play for a Non-conformist Parson. (Jimmy was Church of England himself and he was going to refuse on the
ground of conscientious objections.) Now the Jaunty was not a person whom one would describe as a pious man, but he intended to get this Service going - and the Jaunty knew how to get things done, no man more so. He sent for Jimmy. Jimmy came up from the transport tent with an “I’ll see him blowed first” expression on his face. The Jaunty guessed what was in the wind, and before Jimmy Newing could get half a word out, the Jaunty, standing right outside the place of worship, bullied and bellowed in his very finest style, cursing Jimmy for keeping the Service waiting and shouting in a voice of thunder “In yer go! In yer go!" The Jaunty opened the door of the old French hut where the worshippers and the Parson waited, and literally blew poor Jimmy in, slammed the door, smiled broadly at me as I stood watching the farce, and in his great rolling way rolled complacently to the door of his own hut conscious of a duty performed, rolled right on to his bunk, and slept soundly through the Service.
WORKING DAYS
Though Jack‘s the boy for work, Jack’s also the boy for play. On the lower deck we could work as hard as we could play. That we played hard the bruises of the rugger and soccer football was sufficient evidence. Freddy Power broke the bridge of his nose at rugger and another had his teeth knocked down his throat - mere incidents in the game.
Judging by the casualties on the lower deck we seemed to be exposed to more risks in our play than in our work. We took up baseball, bought a baseball set and tried to emulate the murderous pitching and smashing of the Canadian players - and I hear once again the sound of that thud when the hard ball, flying from a mighty smash, hit one of the spectators (not a player this time) on the forehead.
The worst real casualty I remember was when at Serny the travelling kitchen - a top-heavy vehicle over-weighted one side with a cooking range - fell over while being moved, pinning “Bernard” Shaw beneath it. Or again when an unfortunate mechanic, endeavouring to swing a sticky propeller, held it a second too long as the back-fire occurred and, being pulled off his balance,
