How I Won the War Read Online Free PDF Page A

fruit, bacon, and the other foodstuffs on the civilian ration list, is one thousand two hundred seventy-two. For these items we are thus receiving issues for one hundred people in error .”
    The R. Q. M. S. got up and bolted his office door.
    “Go on,” he said. “Tell me more.”
    “Fortunately, this error of one hundred is not repeated in the cookhouse figures. The actual rations issued to the cook sergeant are based on the correct strength of one thousand one hundred seventy-two. The one hundred surplus rations should therefore accumulate each day in your main store.”
    “Should they, indeed?”
    “In theory, they should. And assuming the error has persisted for, say, one month, there should now be two Nissen huts full of surplus rations. In practice, however, except for the emergency forty-eight hour stock of corned beef andbiscuits there is no accumulation whatever of civilian rationed foodstuffs anywhere in the store.”
    “Then where is it?”
    “I don’t know, sir. It would appear that the surplus one hundred rations are being removed daily elsewhere so that no accumulation arises.”
    “And do you know who’s doing the removing?”
    “No, sir. But I thought I should report the facts to you.”
    Dibson fanned himself with his hat.
    “Phew! … But you have been a busy little bee, haven’t you.”
    “I try to improve my knowledge all the time, sir.”
    “Very commendable, I’m sure.” He sat me down and put his arm around my shoulder in just the way Sergeant Major Grope had done. “Now you ain’t told nobody about your figures, have you?”
    “No, sir.”
    “Good. Then we’d better just keep this to ourselves until I can get my arrangements made for a proper investigation. If you should breathe one word of this to anybody else and jeopardize those investigations you’d be up for court-martial and in the glasshouse pronto. Understand?”
    “Yes, sir.”
    “Good. I’ll keep in touch with you. But I don’t think it would be wise for you to work in my stores no more. You report up at the officers’ mess tomorrow and tell the corporal I sent you to help him with his books.”
    “Yes, sir. And there’s just one other point I think you ought to know. While I was dusting the gallon rum jars one of them fell over and the cork came out.”
    “Oh! Did any rum get spilt?”
    “No, sir. The jar was full of cold tea. I thought you’d like to know.”
    He unbolted the door for me.
    “You ain’t after a transfer somewhere else are you, son? Wanting to better yourself maybe?”
    “No, sir. Not at the moment, anyway.”
    At first the mess corporal was most grateful for my assistance , but his attitude towards me became strangely cooler on the third day when I showed him my poultry and egganalysis which proved that the bills from his supplier must have been wrongly made out. To have consumed all the poultry items charged for in the past quarter the twenty-two officers would have had to have eaten two chickens and eight eggs each per day. It was while I was explaining my figures to the corporal that a message came for me to dress up and report to the commanding officer.
    “As you probably know, Goodbody,” said the colonel, rubbing his white moustache and muttering behind the active hand, “the country needs officers. One of my jobs is to find ’em. There’s a draft of fifteen recruits selected from previous intakes due to go to 212 O. C. T. U. in two days’ time. One of them has been careless and unpatriotic enough to get German measles. We’ve got to fill his vacancy on the course at short notice. Although you’ve only been with us barely a month you have been strongly recommended for the vacancy .” He riffled through the papers on his desk. “Sergeant Major Grope and R. Q. M. S. Dibson both give you most exemplary recommendations for the earliest possible posting to O. C. T. U. and Corporal Maloney indicates that your abilities are such that you would not profit greatly by any longer