Mr.
Pettitt and Captain Matthew, between us, looked down at their plates.

I put my hand to my cap. "Is anything wrong? It ought to be like the
others."

She leant towards me, nodding and smiling with bonhomie, and said
flatteringly, "It's so prettily put on, I thought it was different."

And then (horror): "Don't you think nurse puts her cap on well?" she
asked Captain Matthew, who, looking harder than ever at his plate and
reddening to the ears, mumbled something which did not particularly
commit him since it couldn't be heard.

The usual delighted silence began to creep round the table, and I tried
wildly to divert her attention before our end became a stage and the
rest of the table an audience.

"I think it's so nice to see you sitting down with them all," she cooed;
"it's so cosy for them."

"Is your cup empty?" I said furiously, and held out my hand for it. But
it wasn't, of course; she couldn't even do that for me.

She shook hands with me when she went away and said she hoped to come
again. And she will.

There was once a lady who asked me very loudly whether I "saw many
horrible sights," and "did the V.A.D.'s have to go to the funerals?"

And another who cried out with emotion when she saw the first officer
limp in to Mess, "And can some of them _walk_, then!" Perhaps she
thought they came in to tea on stretchers, with field-bandages on. She
quivered all over, too, as she looked from one to the other, and I feel
sure she went home and broke down, crying, "What an experience ... the
actual wounds!"

Shuffle, shuffle, up the corridor to-night, as I was laying my trays.
Captain Matthew appeared in the circle of light, his arm and hand bound
up and his pipe in his mouth.

He paused by me. "Well...." he said companionably, and lolled against a
pillar.

"You've done well at tea in the way of visitors," I remarked. "Six,
wasn't it?"

"Yes," he said, "and now I've got rid of 'em all, except one."

"Where's the one?"

"In there." He pointed with his pipe to the empty Mess-Room. "He's the
father of a subaltern of mine who was killed."

"He's come to talk to you about it?"

"Yes."

But he seemed in no hurry to go in, waiting against the pillar and
staring at the moving cutlery.

He waited almost three minutes, then he sighed and went in.

Biscuits to put out, cheese to put out. How wet this new cheese is, and
fresh and good the little bits that fall off the edge! I never eat
cheese at home