glimpse that makes
you gasp, of a black night crossed with bladed searchlights, of a moon
behind a crooked tree.

The lifting of the blind is a miracle; I do not believe in the wind.

A new Sister on to-night ... very severe. We had to make the beds like
white cardboard. I wonder what she thinks of me.

Mr. Pettitt (who really is going to-morrow) wandered up into the ward
and limped near me. "Sister...." he began. He _will_ call me "Sister." I
frowned at him. The new Sister glanced at him and blinked.

He was very persistent. "Sister," he said again, "do you think I can
have a word with you?"

"Not now," I whispered as I hurried past him.

"Oh, is that so?" he said, as though I had made an interesting
statement, and limped away, looking backwards at me. I suppose he wants
to say good-bye.

He sat beside Mr. Wicks's bed (Mr. Wicks who is paralysed) and looked
at me from time to time with that stare of his which contains so little
offence.

It is curious to think that I once saw Mr. Wicks on a tennis-lawn,
walking across the grass.... Mr. Wicks, who will never put his foot on
grass again, but, lying in his bed, continues to say, as all Tommies
say, "I feel well in meself."

So he does; he feels well in himself. But he isn't going to live, all
the same.

Still his routine goes on: he plays his game of cards, he has his joke:
"Lemonade, please, nurse; but it's not from choice!"

When I go to clear his ash-tray at night I always say, "Well, now I've
got something worth clearing at last!"

And he chuckles and answers, "Thought you'd be pleased. It's the others
gets round my bed and leaves their bits."

He was once a sergeant: he got his commission a year ago.

My ruined charms cry aloud for help.

The cap wears away my front hair; my feet are widening from the
everlasting boards; my hands won't take my rings.

I was advised last night on the telephone to marry immediately before it
was too late.

A desperate remedy. I will try cold cream and hair tonics first.

There is a tuberculosis ward across the landing. They call it the T.B.
ward.

It is a den of coughs and harrowing noises.

One night I saw a negro standing in the doorway with his long hair done
up in hairpins. He is the pet of the T.B. ward; they call him Henry.

Henry came in to help us with our Christmas decorations on Christmas
Eve, and as he cleverly made wreaths my Sister whispered to me, "He's
never spitting ... in the ward!"