llowed to
snooze without interruption. The _blesses_ were deposited in Hospital
and the car, once rid of its wounded load, sped through the night back
to Lamarck, and I wondered sleepily if my first visit to the trenches
was a reality or only a dream.

CHAPTER VI

THE TYPHOID WARDS

When I first came to Hospital I had been put as V.A.D. in Ward I, on the
surgical side, and at ten o'clock had heard "shop" (which by the way was
strictly debarred, but nevertheless formed the one and only topic of
conversation), from nurses and sisters in the Typhoid Wards, but had
never actually been there myself. As previously explained the three
Typhoid Wards--rooms leading one out of the other on the ground
floor--were in a separate building joined only by some outhouses to the
main portion, thus forming three sides of the paved yard.

The east end of the Cathedral with its beautiful windows completed the
square, and in the evenings it was very restful to hear the muffled
sounds of the old organ floating up through the darkness.

Sister Wicks asked me one day to go through these wards with her. It
must be remembered that at this early period there were no regular
typhoid hospitals; and in fact ours was the only hospital in the place
that would take them in, the others having refused. Our beds were
therefore always full, and the typhoid staff was looked on as the
hardest worked in the Hospital, and always tried to make us feel that
they were the only ones who did any real work!

It was difficult to imagine these hollow-cheeked men with glittering
eyes and claw-like hands were the men who had stemmed the German rush at
Liege. Some were delirious, others merely plucking at the sheets with
their wasted fingers, and everywhere the sisters and nurses were
hurrying to and fro to alleviate their sufferings as much as possible. I
shall always see the man in bed sixteen to this day. He was extremely
fair, with blue eyes and a light beard. I started when I first saw him,
he looked so like some of the pictures of Christ one sees; and there was
an unearthly light in his eyes. He was delirious and seemed very ill.
The sister told me he had come down with a splendid fighting record, and
was one of the worst cases of pneumonic typhoid in the ward. My heart
ached for him, and instinctively I shivered, for somehow he did not seem
to belong to this world any longer. We passed on to Ward III, where I
was presented to "Le Petit Sergent," a li