It is at this point that somebody crawls out of bed, slips into a
dressing-gown, passes through the swing door at the end of the ward
and sets the bath-water running. The sound of it is ecstatic.
Very soon others follow his example. They're chaps without legs, with
an arm gone, a hand gone, back wounds, stomach wounds, holes in the
head. They start chaffing one another. There's no hint of tragedy. A
gale of laughter sweeps the ward from end to end. An Anzac captain is
called on for a speech. I discover that he is our professional comic
man and is called on to make speeches twenty times a day. They always
start with, "Gentlemen, I will say this--" and end with a flourish in
praise of Australia. Soon the ward is made perilous by wheel-chairs,
in which unskilful pilots steer themselves out into the green
adventure of the garden. Birds are singing out there; the guns had
done for the birds in the places where we came from. Through open
doors we can see the glow of flowers, dew-laden and sparkling, lazily
unfolding their petals in the early sun.
When the sister's back is turned, a one-legged officer nips out of bed
and hops like a crow to the gramophone. The song that follows is a
favourite. Curious that it should be, for it paints a dream which to
many of these mutilated men--Canadians, Australians, South Africans,
Imperials--will have to remain only a dream, so long as life
lasts. Girls don't marry fellows without arms and legs--at least they
didn't in peace days before the world became heroic.
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