I thought of flight, and other things, but the hospital was small, and there was no other available room. So I wished them all good morning, and sat on the side of my bed farthest away, and having undressed got into bed as the assistant-surgeon, otherwise apothecary, directed. I had not been there for more than three minutes when the Enigma's Hindoo bearer entered. He became quickly engaged with his master in strenuous argument relating to curry, what time the Enigma ricochetted on and off the bed, and his mouth became the exhaust valve for his pent-up opinions of the world in general and his bearer in particular. I discovered later that malaria and dysentery had between them rendered him temporarily insane. He had been in the hospital for the whole of the siege, but was now slowly recovering. While he was _in extremis_, however, I should say from all accounts that he must have been by far the most interesting person in Kut. For many days it seems his main hobby was in trying to make his bearer precede him through a door which did not exist at the foot of his bed. Another diversion was in seating himself on the window-sill stark naked about 1 a.m. in the night and mimicking, often with ghastly relish, the sounds and noises of various members of the Turkish artillery from Windy Lizzie to Naughty Nellie, the buzzing howitzer. I believe he was quite good at the bullets, and very promising on Frolicsome Fanny, which was easy, and only required an awful noise without warning--for as I have noted Fanny's jokes sometimes held fire for minutes. But in reproducing vocally the aeroplane's 100-pound bombs he is reported as having outdone even the bomb itself. In fact his own nerves could not stand this performance, and he generally wound up the item by taking cover under his bed.