Then there was that unpopular job, the
piling of one's bedding outside the tent, and the rolling up of the
tent curtains. But these unpleasant duties came to an end at last, and
signs of breakfast began to appear.
Breakfast gave Kennedy his first insight into life in camp. He
happened to be tent-orderly that day, and it therefore fell to his lot
to join the orderlies from the other tents in their search for the
Eckleton rations. He returned with a cargo of bread (obtained from the
quartermaster), and, later, with a great tin of meat, which the
cook-house had supplied, and felt that this was life. Hitherto
breakfast had been to him a thing of white cloths, tables, and food
that appeared from nowhere. This was the first time he had ever
tracked his food to its source, so to speak, and brought it back with
him. After breakfast, when he was informed that, as tent-orderly for
the day, it was his business to wash up, he began to feel as if he
were on a desert island. He had never quite realised before what
washing-up implied, and he was conscious of a feeling of respect for
the servants at Blackburn's, who did it every day as a matter of
course, without complaint. He had had no idea before this of the
intense stickiness of a jammy plate.
One day at camp is much like another. The schools opened the day with
parade drill at about eight o'clock, and, after an instruction series
of "changing direction half-left in column of double companies", and
other pleasant movements of a similar nature, adjourned for lunch.
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