uctors.

The men remained in camp for varying periods. No man was kept there
for more than three months. But some men passed through the camp
being marked fit almost as soon as they left hospital. That was the
normal routine; but it happened once while I was there that things
became very abnormal and the organisation of the camp was tested with
the utmost severity.

Just before the Somme offensive began some mischievous devil put it
into the heads of the authorities to close down the only other
convalescent camp in the neighbourhood. Its inmates were sent to us
and we had to make room for them. Our cricket ground was sacrificed.
Paths were run across the pitch. Tents were erected all over it. My
church tent became the home of a harmonium, the only piece of
ecclesiastical salvage from the camp that was closed. Then my church
tent was taken from me, sacrificed like all luxuries to the
accommodation of men. Just as we were beginning to settle down again
came the Somme offensive.

Like every one else in France we had long expected the great push.
Yet when it came it came with startling suddenness. We went out one
morning to find the streets of the town crowded with ambulances. They
followed each other in a long, slow, apparently unending procession
across the bridge which led into the town from the railway station.
They split off into small parties turning to the left and skirting
the sea shore along the broad, glaring parade, or climbed with many
hootings through the narrow streets of the old town. Staring after
them as they passed us we saw inside figures of men very still, very
silent, bandaged, swathed.

All the morning, hour after hour, the long procession went on. The
ambulances, cleared of their burdens at the various hospitals, turned
at once and drove furiously back to the station. The hospitals were
filled and overfilled and overflowing. Men who could stand more
travelling were hurried to the hospital ships. Stretcher-bearers
toiled and sweated. The steamers, laden to their utmost capacity,
slipped from the quay side and crept out into the Channel. One
hospital was filled and cleared three times in twenty-four hours. The
strain on doctors and nurses must have been terrific.

For one day we in the Con. Camp remained untouched by the rushing
torrent. Then our turn came. The number of lightly wounded men was
very great. Many of them could walk and take care of themselves. A
hospital bed and hospital treatment