e got some
for you, Sister!" We happened not to be going fast, but there was no
question of stopping. I got some Lent lilies in Rouen, and have some
celandines growing in moss, so it looks like spring in my bunk.

_Thursday, March 11th._--Yesterday we took a long time getting to the
ship from R., and unloaded at 10 P.M. Why we had no warning about the
departure of the train (and so nearly got left behind) was because it
was an emergency call suddenly to clear the hospitals at R. to make room
for 600 more expected from the Front.

We are being rushed up again without being stopped at Rouen for the
first time on record, so I suppose there is a good deal doing. (There
was--at Neuve Chapelle.)

It is a comfort to remember that the men themselves don't grudge or
question what happens to them, and the worse they're wounded the more
they say, "I think I'm lucky; my mate next me got killed."

The birds are singing like anything now, and all the buds are coming
out, and the banks and woods are a mass of primroses.

_Friday, March 12th._--We came straight through Boulogne in the night,
and have been stuck half way to the Front all day; I don't know why.

_Saturday, March 13th._--We woke at the railhead for Bethune this
morning, and cleared there and at the next place, mostly wounded and
some Indians.

It was frightfully interesting up there to-day; we saw the famous German
prisoners taken at Neuve Chapelle being entrained, and we could hear our
great bombardment going on--the biggest ever known in any war. The
feeling of Advance is in the air already, and even the wounded are
exulting in it. The Indians have bucked up like anything. We are on our
way down now, and shall probably unload at B.

No time for more now.

11 P.M.--We unloaded at B. by 10 P.M., and are now on our way up again;
shortest time we've ever waited--one hour after the last patient is off.
A.T.'s have been tearing up empty and back full all day, and are all
being unloaded at B., so that they can go quickly up again. B. has been
emptied before this began.

They were an awfully brave lot of badly woundeds to-day, but they
always are. Just now they don't mind anything--even getting hit by our
artillery by mistake. Some of them who were near enough to see the
effect of our bombardment on the enemy's trenches say they saw men,
legs, and arms shot into the air. And the noise!--they gasp in telling
you about it. "You could never believe it," they say.