Page:Ambulance 464 by Julien Bryan.djvu/257

 August 13th, 1917. I get along pretty well as mess-boy in the routine work, but now and then I pull some terrible "boner." I've carried dinner up to the captain's cabin when the wind was so strong I had to crawl up the stairs backwards, sitting for a moment on each step; and I have washed dishes when the roll of the boat almost threw them out of the sink into the rag in my hand; but this noon my luck changed. Knowles, the deposed first cook, was helping Mike in the kitchen. It was just five minutes before lunch and I had given him the soup tureen to fill, so that I could have it ready in the pantry. The stuff was boiling and I had barely lifted the full kettle off the floor when Marty came strutting past to get the key to the ice box, and knocked the whole pail out of my hand. Poor Knowles' feet happened to be in the way and were badly burned before we could pull off his socks, and rub flour and oil on them. He went to bed and I guess they can't use him any more this trip.

Fenton showed me the payroll this afternoon. There are fifteen nationalities represented among