Parkins was an obvious contrast to this modest youth. Pent up in the accidental intimacy of army life, men were usually anxious to exhibit themselves to the best advantage, particularly as regards their civilian antecedents. “I’ll bet he was jolly well-dressed before the war,” was a type of remark frequently made by young platoon commanders. Parkins was about thirty, and often reminded us that he had been to Cambridge; in private life he had been a schoolmaster. Plausible at first, he soon revealed his defects, for the slovenly tedium of that tent brought greed and selfishness to the surface. With his muddy eyes and small dark moustache, he wasn’t a man one took to. But he was self-satisfied, and did his best to amuse us with indecent rhymes and anecdotes. He was also fond of using certain stilted expressions, such as “for the nonce” and “anent.” “I’ve no complaints to make anent this hand,” he would say when playing cards. He posed as a gay dog, chaffing the nurses when they brought in the food, and quoting Omar Khayyám at them—“a jug of wine, a loaf of bread and thou beside me, singing in the Wilderness”—and referring to the tent as “this battered Caravanserai whose portals are alternate Night and Day.” Parkins did not conceal his dislike of the Front Line, and was now in hopes of getting a job as Railway Transport Officer. But he was the sort of man who would get killed in some unutterably wretched attack after doing his best to dodge it.
Young Holt was another second-rate character, plump, smooth-faced and spuriously smart. He had escaped from the Infantry into the Balloon Section, and now fancied himself in a leather overcoat with a fur collar—playing at “being in the Royal Flying Corps.” He felt that R.F.C. officers had a social superiority to the Infantry. Being up in a balloon elevated a man in more ways than one, and he often aired his discrimination in such matters. Speaking of the Artillery, he would say, “Yes, there’s more tone in the R.F.A. —much more tone than you find in the Garrison Gunners!” Holt was a harmless easygoing creature, but we got very tired of his incessant repetition of a stale joke which consisted in saying in a loud voice, I will arise and will go unto my father and will say unto him: Father, stand-at-ease !