to the "dumping ground" to
fetch ammunition, I was astonished to hear the familiar strains of
"Gilbert the Filbert" coming from this desolate ruin. The singer had a
fine voice, and he gave forth his chant as happily as though he were
safe at home in England, with no cares or troubles in the world. With a
sergeant, I set out to explore; as our boots clattered on the
cobble-stones of the farmyard, there was a noise in the cellar, a head
poked up in the entrance, and I was greeted with a cheery "Good morning,
sir."

We crawled down the steps into the hovel to learn the singer's story. He
was a man from another regiment, who had come down from his support
dug-out to "nose around after a spud or two." The German sniper had
"bagged" him in the ankle and he had crawled into the cellar--still with
his sandbag of "spuds"--to wait until someone came by. "I 'adn't got
nothing to do but wait," he concluded, "and if I'd got to wait, I might
jest as well play at bein' a bloomin' canary as 'owl like a kid what's
'ad it put acrost 'im."

We got a little water from the creaky old pump and took off his "first
field dressing" that he had wound anyhow round his leg. To my
surprise--for he was so cheerful that I thought he had only a scratch--I
found that his ankle was badly smashed, and that part of his boot and
sock had been driven right into the wound.

"Yes, it did 'urt a bit when I tried to walk," he said, as I expressed
surprise. "That's jest the best part of it. I don't care if it 'urts
like 'ell, for it's sure to mean 'Blighty' and comfort for me."

And that is just the spirit of the hospitals--the joy of comfort and
rest overbalances the pain and the operation. To think that there are
still people who imagine that hospitals are of necessity sad and
depressing! Why, even the children's wards of the London Hospital are
not that, for, as you look down the rows of beds, you see surprise and
happiness on the poor little pinched faces--surprise that everything is
clean and white, and that they are lying between proper sheets;
happiness that they are treated kindly, and that there are no harsh
words. As for a military hospital, while war lays waste the world, there
is no place where there is more peace and contentment.

Hospital, for example, is the happiest place to spend Christmas. About a
week before the day there are mysterious whispers in the corners, and
furtive writing in a notebook, and the clinking of coppers. Then, next
da