Читать книгу By-ways on Service: Notes from an Australian Journal онлайн

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The men sleep in bell-tents—some in the sand; others, more flush of piastres, on a species of matting supplied by the native weavers. Sand may be warm and comfortable enough in itself, but it breeds vermin prolifically, specialising in fleas. And at midnight you will see an unhappy infested fellow squatting, roused from sleep because of their importunity, conducting a search by candle-light, engaged in much the same business as his Simian ancestors; the difference is that whereas they were too strong-minded to be disturbed in their sleep by any such trifle, his search is mostly nocturnal—though not exclusively so; and, moreover, in place of their merely impatient gibbering, he speaks with eloquence and consecutiveness, often in quite sustained periods, logically constructed and glowing with purple patches.... The Medical Officer has got a paragraph inserted in camp routine orders about a bathing parade on Fridays, compelling a complete ablution. But what avails cold water, once a week? Most men, however, have been known to bathe more often.