Walter,
Of course ! How do you secure a tent in sand ? - silly me ! I'll take your word for it (many wouldn't) that the "studies in still life" were just itching to haul a guy rope, "lift that bar" or "tote that bale", as might be required of them.
Whatever else a M.O. had to contend with in India, constipation was not one of them ! (Curry can cover a multitude of culinary sins). It would have been nice to have had some beer (whatever the result), but it was not to be (in wartime, that is). Why hadn't canned beer been invented ?
...to take in the waist to 32 (inches)...
Them were the days !
...I still possess a once-smart khaki desert jacket with a distinctive Desert appearance...
Same as our "Bush Jacket", I would suppose. Right at the end of my time out there, our khaki was supplemented by the issue of dark green "Jungle" Drill and cellular cloth. Known as "Bottle Green Battledress" (or "Battle Green Bottledress"), it was popular, but I didn't buy any, as I was fully kitted up with Indian khaki drill, and that lasts forever, no matter what the
dhobi-wallah does to it.
Danny.