ggest I have ever been on; we are in the
cabins, and the wards and operating-theatres are all equipped for
patients, but at the moment she is being used as a transport for us. We
are supposed to be going to St Nazaire, the port for Nantes. They can't
possibly be going to dump No.--, No.--, No.--, No.--, and No.-- all down
at the new base, so I suppose one or two of the hospitals will be sent
up the new lines of communication.

Poor Havre is very desolate. All the flags came down when the British
left, and the people looked very sad. Paris refugees are crowding in,
and sleeping on the floors of the hotels, and camping out in their motor
cars, and many crossing to England. There is a Proclamation up all over
the town telling the people to pull themselves together whatever
happens, and to forget everything that is not La Patrie. Also another
about the military necessity for the Government to leave Paris, and
that they mustn't be afraid of anything that may happen, because we
shall win in the end, &c., &c.

We don't start till to-morrow, I believe; meanwhile, cleanliness and
privacy and sheets, and cool, quick meals and sea breeze, are cheering
after the grime and the pigging and the squash and the awful heat of the
last fortnight. I have picked up a bad cold from the foul dust-heaps and
drainless condition of the smelly Havre streets, but it will soon
disappear now.

I wish I could tell you the extraordinary beauty of yesterday evening
from the ship. There was a flaming sunset below a pale-green sky, and
then the thousand lights of the ships and the town came out reflected in
the water, and then a brilliant moon. A big American cruiser was
alongside of us.

We shall get no more letters till we land. I have a "State-room" all to
myself on the top deck; the waiters and stewards are English, very
polite to us, and the crew are mostly West African negroes, who talk
good English. The ship is very becoming to the white, grey, and red of
our uniforms, or else our uniforms are becoming to the ship, and her
many decks; but why, oh why, are we not all in hospital somewhere?

_Saturday, September 5th._--Had a perfect voyage--getting in to Nantes
to-night--after that no one knows. Shouldn't be surprised if we are sent
home.

LA BAULE, NEAR NANTES.

_Monday, September 7th._--The latest wave of this erratic sea has tossed
us up on to two little French seaside places north of St Nazaire, the
port of Nantes. There are over _5