Captain Saunders pushed away his plate and wiped his hands on his napkin. 'And I've got good news for you too, Major,' he said. 'Twelve more cases of mumps this morning. Three in B
Company, four in C and five in D. Making a grand total of eighty-one—all ORs, no officers—excluding those in A, the whereabouts of which an informed guess would now place in Colembert, between Boulogne and St Omer, I agree. So I have commandeered a bus and despatched the new cases to the base hospital at Boulogne, in charge of Corporal Potts, who was one of yesterday's cases. Bringing our total fighting strength—if that, is the appropriate term ... which I doubt...
to three hundred and thirty-five. Before long we'll probably have more officers than other ranks.'
Audley regarded the Medical Officer with interest. 'You're sending cases of mumps to the Base Hospital, Doc? But I thought mumps was a ... a childish disease? I mean—a few days in bed, and then up again and at 'em?'
'In young children—yes, Nigel. But in the case of adults . . .
alas! Corporal Potts is—or was—a failed first-year medical student, and he has incontinently passed on his knowledge of Orchitis to the rest of the battalion, I'm afraid. So I've sent the sick to Boulogne to keep up the morale of the healthy.'
'Orchitis?'
dummy4
'The Black Death would have been preferable to Orchitis.'
Captain Saunders swung from Audley to Major Tetley-Robinson. 'Orchitis is an adult complication of mumps which inflames the testicles and can cause sterility. As a result of which the men are scared stiff for fear of having their balls swell up like melons, and then deflate for ever.. . And when Corporal Potts gets back from the Base Hospital I'll have his stripes off him if it's the last thing I do.'
One of the newest subalterns, a boy so new that Bastable couldn't even place his face, never mind think of his name, coughed politely.
'Sir . . . Sir, you said—or you implied, sir—that it's the ORs who are getting it ... the mumps . . . not the officers. Why is that, sir?'
Captain Saunders stared at the child for a moment or two.
'Where were you a year ago, Mr—Mr—'
'Chichester, sir.'
'You were at Chichester?'
'No, sir. I was at King's, Canterbury.'
'Ah-hah! And King's, Canterbury, is a public school, I take it, Mr Chichester?'
'Yes, sir.'
'Just so! Boarding cheek-by-jowl with other little boys —
living in a perfect breeding ground for contagious and infectious diseases. So you have had mumps, Mr Chichester
—'
dummy4
'Yes, sir—'
'And measles, and German measles, and chicken-pox —you may well have braved scarlet fever and diptheria and cholera and heaven only knows what other foul contagions,' As Captain Saunders leaned across the table towards the astonished Mr Chichester, Captain Bastable picked up the strong aroma of brandy. He had not hitherto tagged the MO
as a drinking man, but then (to be fair) the delivery of a French man-child, at least after the event, would not have been an abstemious event, he reasoned.
'You, Mr Chichester—' the MO stabbed a finger at the subaltern,'— are a product of natural selection. And the same almost certainly holds true for the rest of you—you are all inoculated by privilege and good fortune, unlike the other ranks of this exclusive unit.'
It was not the moment for the Adjutant to reappear, but the Adjutant had a knack of appearing when he was not wanted.
The MO swung round towards him as the door banged.
'I bet you've had mumps, Percy,' said the MO.
Captain Harbottle had no answer to that.
'They've got a problem with the Boysh anti-tank rattle, too,'
said the MO. He turned back to Major Audley. 'Just what is your problem, Nigel? You're the only one here who ever talks straight—except Willis there, and he talks too much.
Whereas you don't talk enough.'
Major Audley grinned at the MO. 'I think you could say that dummy4
our anti-tank weapons have contracted Orchitis, Doc,' he said.
The MO frowned at him. 'They've—
'They've got no live ammunition,' said Audley. 'Twenty-four magazines of soft-nosed aluminium practice rounds between us—no armour piercing. If we meet any German tanks we might as well throw snowballs at them.'
Captain Harbottle decided to cut his losses. 'Company Commanders to Headquarters at once,' he said. And then, to be merciful to everyone else, 'We've got two staff officers from GHQ. They say everything's going well.'
