Men, Women and Guns by H.C. McNeile

But the grey period for Jim was drawing to a close. To-day it's the man over the road that tops the bill; to-morrow it's you, as I said before: and a change of caste was imminent in our friend's performance. One does not seek these things -- they occur; and then they're over, and one waits for the next. There is no programme laid down, no book of the words printed. Things just happen -- sometimes they lead to a near acquaintance with iodine, and a kind woman in a grey dress who takes your temperature and washes your face; and at others to a dinner with much good wine where the laughter is merry and the revelry great. Of course there are many other alternatives: you may never reach the hospital -- you may never get the dinner; you may get a cold in the nose, and go to the Riviera -- or you may get a bad corn and get blood-poisoning from using a rusty jack knife to operate. The caprice of the spirit of Topsy Turvy is quite wonderful.

For instance, on the very morning that the Staff Officer came back to his job, and Jim returned to his battalion, his company commander asked him to go to a general bomb store in a house just up the road, and see that the men who were working there were getting on all right. The regiment was for the support trenches that night, and preparing bombs was the order of the day.