Ablutions, 1928 (oil on canvas)

In the centre, an orderly is painting a soldier's side with iodine in a scene reminiscent of Christ being lowered from the cross with the gaping wound produced by the Holy Lance; behind him another soldier pulls on his braces, but similarly holds his arms in the position appropriate for a crucifixion, while others wash, dry and dress. Three men in the lower left foreground are drying themselves with towels, partially shrouding their naked bodies. All the pathos of military hospital life is summed up in the dedicated manner in which a second orderly is polishing the basin taps. Spencer regarded the mundane activities with a sense of religious ritual and the hospital pictures symbolize a quotation from St Augustine's Confessions: '...ever busy at rest, gathering yet never needing; bearing; filling; guarding; creating; nourishing; perfecting.'