many far worse than I was, who would sit there
waiting their turn to be examined, and then walk out again to the
ambulance that carried them on to the next hospital.

Next morning I was carried out to a motor-ambulance and started on the
most painful trip of my life. The driver took reasonable care, but
could not go too slow, for another load was waiting for him as soon as
he could return, but I am sure that I felt every stone in that road. I
got the attendant to wedge me in with pillows, but only by holding
myself off from the wall with both my hands could I ease the bump, and
then I would wait with dread for the next one. I don't know if the
other three fellows lying in the ambulance with me were as sore as I
was, but I picture to-day the hours that those ambulances travel with
wounded men as being added together and totalling a century of pain.
Perhaps after the war is ended, when it is too late, some one may
invent a motor ambulance on easy springs that will not multiply
unnecessarily the pain of torn flesh and the grating edges of bones.

Now comes the night in the casualty clearing-station at Heilly.
Straight on to another operating-table, but one in a sea of many--ten
operations going on at once. Then began the probing for pieces of
metal in my wounds. "Good God!" remarked the surgeon, "the best thing
we can do is to run a magnet over you. We'll never find them all
otherwise." Nor did they, for I carry some of them still in my body as
permanent souvenirs of the few words I had with Fritz. There was a
nurse in the theatre with smiling face, laughing blue eyes, and tumbled
curls falling beneath her cap, and a brief acquaintance of one day was
formed on the spot. She was attending another case, and a wink and a
smile served for introduction. She came and visited me in the ward
that night and we chatted a brief hour, then she was gone, and I know
not even her name. So ships meet, dip their flag, and pass into the
night.

In the bed opposite me in this hospital there was a German officer and
he bellowed like a bull all night. We got pretty sick of his noise and
told the medical officer in charge of the ward when he came on his
rounds in the morning that if he did not chloroform or do something to
silence the hound, we would. I suggested that he go and tell him that
if he did not shut up he would be sent into the ward with his own
privates. He did so and there was not another squeak from him.

After