I admitted that I had.

“You see,” I added engagingly, “I began with trying to shovel her up hill, but the old stuff kept on rolling down on me, so I drew the natural conclusion that I’d better shovel her down hill.  It seemed more reasonable and—­”

“Easier,” suggested the P.O.

“Yes,” I agreed.

There was a faraway expression in his eyes when he next spoke.  “I’d recommend you for an ineptitude discharge,” he said, “if it wasn’t for the fact that I have more consideration for the civilian population.  I’d gladly put you in the brig for life if I could feel sure you wouldn’t injure it in some way.  The only thing left for me to do is to make you promise that you’ll keep away from our coal pile and swear never to lay violent hands on it again.  You’ll spoil it.”

I gazed up at the monumental mass of coal rearing itself like a dark-town Matterhorn above my head and swore fervently never to molest it again.

“Go back to your outfit and get washed and tell your P.O. for me that you can’t come here no more, and,” he added, as I was about to depart, “take that unusual looking bit of animal life with you—­it’s all wrong.  Police his body or he’ll ruin some of your pals’ white pants and they wouldn’t like that at all.”

I feared they wouldn’t.

“Yes, sir,” I replied in a crumpled voice, “Much obliged, sir.”

“Please go away now,” he said quietly, “or I think I might do you an injury.”  He was fingering the shovel nervously as he spoke.  Thus Fogerty and I departed, banished even from our dusky St. Helena.

July 9th. Working on the theory of opposites, I was next placed as a waiter in the Chief Petty Officer’s Mess over in the First Regiment.  I wasn’t so good here, it seems.  There was something wrong with my technique.  The coal pile had ruined me for delicate work.  I continually kept mistaking the plate in my hand for a shovel, a mistake which led to disastrous results.  I will say this for the chiefs, however—­they were as clean-cut, hard-eating a body of men as I have ever met.  It was a pleasure to feed them, particularly so in the case of one chief, a venerable gentleman, who seemed both by his bearing and the number of stripes on his sleeve to be the dean of the mess.  He ate quietly, composedly and to the point, and after I had spilled a couple of plates of rations on several of the other chiefs’ laps he suggested that I call it a day and be withdrawn in favor of one whose services to his country were not so invaluable as mine.  Appreciating his delicacy I withdrew, but only to be sent out on another job that defies description.  Even here I quickly demonstrated my unfitness and have consequently been incorporated once more into the body of my regiment.