o me. As there was more light in my room, he came and
had a look. "Ah!" said he, "I thought last time it might have been
that: you've got scabies. You must leave here for X---- in the
morning, and have all your bed-clothes sent round to me before you
leave."

[Illustration: XXIV. _The Receiving-room: 42nd Stationary Hospital._]

In the morning I broke the news gently to Madame that I was a "dirty
dog," and that my bed must go for a bit to be purged, and went round
to the A.P.M. to say good-bye. When I told him where I was being sent,
he said, "That place! Don't you do it. I was waiting there the other
day to see someone, and I counted ten bugs on the wall." That put the
wind up me, so I wrote to the M.O. and said I had an important (p. 059)
meeting at Amiens that evening at 6 p.m., and that I would report at
the X---- hospital immediately after that. He seemed rather hurt at my
getting out of his reach, but he let me go (as I mentioned having to
see the C.-in-C. on the way. It was wonderful what the mention of the
C.-in-C. did for one!). He gave me my slip for the hospital:

"Herewith Major Orpen, suffering from scabies. Please...."

and with this I departed for Amiens, where I reported to the Colonel
of the X---- Hospital. Over a whisky-and-soda I gave him the "slip,"
and he looked at my arm and said, "Yes, scabies," and I was put into
the isolation ward and treated for this disease. How more people did
not die in that hospital beats me. I personally never got any sleep,
and left in a fortnight nearly dead. Lights were out at 10 p.m. This
sounds good, but there were about eight of us in the ward. I had to
have my foot treated every three hours. The man in the next bed to
mine was treated for something every two hours; and nearly all the
other beds were treated three or four times during the night. For all
these treatments the lights blazed about twenty times each night, and
some of the treatments were very noisy. At 6.30 a.m., in the dark, the
nurse came round, and anyone who was not dying was turned out of bed.
Why, I know not: there was no heat in the place. If you were well
enough you went off to a soaking sort of scullery and heated some
water over a gas-jet and shaved. If you were not well enough, you sat
in your dressing-gown on a chair. You were not allowed to sit on your
bed. At 8 a.m. you were given an extraordinarily bad breakfast--porridge
with no milk, tea with no sugar, bread with--most days