hoisted into the hospital train. They
looked like men sewed into white sailcloth sacks. Surgeons, with two and
three gold stripes, between which runs the red--blood red, some
say--denoting their department in the Navy, glanced occasionally at the
patients.

"Carry on, there," then came from the R.N.V.R. lieutenant in charge of
the stretcher-bearers, when one of the coaches had received its quota of
sick and wounded. Then the sliding doors of the next coach yawned for
its measure of sick men, who presented an interesting rather than a
pathetic picture, for every bluejacket wore his cap, looking like a
sailor who had gone to bed with his clothes on. That cap travels with
him like his papers. The bluejacket has many important things which he
conceals in it, and the most important of all is his package of
"gaspers," as he terms his particular brand of cigarettes. The cap is
placed firmly on his head, and occasionally a flannelled arm protruded
from the cot. No moan or groan escaped from these plucky patients, for
the sailor always lives up to the traditions of the Royal Navy.

From one of the cots there showed a head covered in bandages with only
two small openings for the patient's eyes. His cap was on his bed. As
this sailor was being hoisted into the train a deep voice came from the
bed:--

"Mind yer eye, Bill, or yer'll get yer feet wet."

Bill was a "sitting case." He had come up on the same ambulance as his
pal. He had been in the same fo'castle and had been hurt in the same
accident. And now they were going aboard the same train to the same
port. Bill paid little heed at that moment to his chum as he picked his
way through the water and mud. His right arm was in a sling and the
comforting cigarette between his teeth. Standing on the last rung of the
little ladder before going into the car, I heard him say to another
sailor:--

"She's over yonder. Bye-bye for the present."

His cap came off as he looked in the direction of the great deep water
where lay the hazy forms of ships. Others looked, but said nothing about
the sailor doffing his cap to his grey-steel sweetheart who had
weathered the fight against odds.

"That makes 110," said the train surgeon. "Six, four, seventy-three,
twenty-seven--what?"

The first two numerals denote officers, sitting and cot cases, and the
latter two those of the men.

"Right-o," quoth the officer of the stretcher-bearers.

Soon the grey train steamed out, with orders to ma