A man with knees bent (he said with scroogling them up all winter in the
cold) was put in John Willie's place. The Velika Dete came back, but he
would not speak to "Bent Knees" for weeks.
By this time the Austrian prisoners were very well trained and made
excellent orderlies in the ward. An ex-Carlton waiter was very dexterous
in sidling down the ward: on his five fingers a tray perched high,
containing dressing-bowls and pots bristling with forceps, scissors, and
various other instruments.
His chief talent lay in peppering frostbitten toes with iodoform
powder--a reminiscence of the sugar castor.
Our housemaid was a leather tanner, whom Jo's baby magpie mistook for
its parent, as he fed it at intervals every morning. A Czech in typhus
cloths spent his days down in the disinfecting, operating and bathrooms.
He had been an overseer in a factory and had added to his income by
writing love-stories for the papers. A butcher was installed in the
kitchens. Once a week he became an artist, killing a sheep according to
the best Prague ideals.
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