Furphy

[2] In his book Memories of a Signaller, Harold Hinckfuss wrote of the "furphies" or rumours of pending movements of troops, while awaiting transfer to the French lines from Egypt.

Scanty scraps of information, often reported to have been told initially in the strictest confidence, were distorted, magnified, losing nothing in the constant retelling; instead, they often branched out into new avenues as they were passed on.

Although generally treated with scant respect, these tales —"Latrine Wireless News" and "Furphies"— quite often did contain an element of truth.

[6](emphasis added) As he then continues: "It was, therefore, not surprising that the 'Latrine Wireless' in the Old Belgian Cavalry Barracks spread the news around that the 2nd Battalion was going right back for another long spell.

Hartnett wrote in a bowdlerised fashion suitable for polite company of the 1920s, so his otherwise-tautological separate specification of "refuse" was actually the then-common euphemism for night soil, further connecting the Furphy carts to (the odour of) the latrines.