The
hut must be put out of bounds. And when he found half the men had gone
under the tarpaulin shelter he put that out of bounds too.
We were a full hour trying to separate the contacts; but when the
doctor found the cook getting breakfast ready and heard he had been in
the sick man's hut he threw his hand in.
"I won't answer for a single one of you," he said; "the place is
no better than a pest-house. Throw that breakfast away. It's sheer
poison. Clear out, all of you."
It was Chaucer started the panic. I saw him sneaking away up the
slope, so I thought it better to make a move too. I didn't ask the
doctor where we were to go; he'd have had us all sleeping out on the
open grass for a week if I had. So the whole lot of us, half asleep,
trekked back to Ripilly village and turned into our old billets again.
* * * * *
It was my Sergeant-Major who told me next day that Chaucer and his
gang had taken possession of the Riviera--my Riviera. I went there at
once, to find out what it all meant, but they had a sentry at the foot
of the slope, who said the camp was infected and no one was allowed
there; so I climbed the slopes and looked down from above.
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