Alexander diary, 1917-1918 / Roy Alexander - Page 206
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[Page 206]
Fortnightly! In a place like this! We certainly do begin to distribute perfumes quite unlike those of Araby about the 13th day.
The bath resembles sheep-dipping. One files past a Russian doctor (who examines one's shirt for lice) into a dressing room usually packed with with Russians.
(The Russian peasant is interesting to meet in the pages of Dostieffski and Turgienev, but as a stable-companion - ! Even to have him existing within some few hundred yards of one is an ever-present insult to ones eyes and nose.) Clutching one's boots one then passes into the "bath-room" – a concrete trench with some 30 showers. After the space under each shower is occupied the water is turned on in regulated periods. Water for 10 seconds – one then has waterless leisure to "soap" for about a minute. Then another shower – another draught – and a final half minute of plenty. Ugh! Mac. adjusted his pince-nez with determination and vowed to remain one of the Great Unwashed.