week's mails
when we do get them. Lovely blue sky to-day. Had a walk with Sister B.
round the town, and now this afternoon we are on the way to Poperinghe,
in a beaten country, where we haven't been for three months. French
class due at 3 P.M. if we haven't got there by then.

We have just passed a graveyard absolutely packed with little wooden
crosses.

_Ash Wednesday, February 17th_, 6 A.M.--We took on a very bad load of
wounded at Poperinghe, more like what used to happen three months ago in
the same place; they were only wounded the night before, and some the
same day. The Clearing Hospital had to be cleared immediately.

We have just got to B., and are going to unload here at 8.30 A.M.

Must stop. Hope to get a week's mails to-day.

A brisk air battle between one British and one French and two Taubes was
going on when we got there, and a perfect sky for it. Very high up.

A wounded major on the train was talking about the men. "It's not a case
of our leading the men; we have a job to keep up with them."

It was a pretty sad business getting them off the train this morning;
there were so many compound fractures, and no amount of contriving
seemed to come between them and the jolting of the train all night. And,
to add to the difficulties, it was pouring in torrents and icy cold, and
the railway people refused to move the train under cover, so they went
out of a warm train on to damp stretchers in an icy rain. They were
nearly all in thin pyjamas, as we'd had to cut off their soaking khaki:
they were practically straight from the trenches. But once clear of
trains, stretchers, and motor ambulances they will be warmed, washed,
fed, bedded, and their fractures set under an anaesthetic. One man had
his arm blown to pieces on Monday afternoon, had it amputated on Monday
night, and was put into one of our wards on Tuesday, and admitted to
Base Hospital on Wednesday. But that is ticklish work.

One boy, a stretcher-bearer, with both legs severely wounded, very
nearly bled to death. He was pulled round somehow. About midnight, when
he was packed up in wool and hot-water bottles, &c., when I asked him
how he was feeling, he said gaily, "Quite well, delightfully warm, thank
you!" We got him taken to hospital directly the train got in at 4 A.M.
The others were unloaded at 9 A.M.

We are now--5 P.M.--on our way to Etaples, probably to clear the G.H.
there, either to-night or to-morrow morning. It hasn't stopped pouri