a shell, having therefrom a stiff neck. On the other side was an
Irish padre, chaplain to an Australian battalion, and, of course, the
life of the ward, and he had a greater fund of good stories than any
other man, not excepting other priests, I have known. In an opposite
bed was a Welshman with one leg who of necessity answered to the name
of "Taffy," while next to him was a Londoner who had a leg that he
would have been better without, for it had borne fourteen operations.
In London we had the world's specialists for every bodily ill, and some
of us who had complications were in the hands of ten doctors at the one
time. There were skin specialists and bone specialists, nerve
specialists and brain specialists, separate authorities on the eye,
ear, nose, and throat, and it is a pity that a man is tied up in one
bag, otherwise they might all have operated at the selfsame moment in
separate rooms on the same man.

There was one sister whom we all loved--I don't think; but she was only
in our ward occasionally. Her real name was unknown to most of us, but
she will be remembered for long as "Gentle Annie." She was so gentle
that I have known only a few mules rougher, and never, after the first
occasion, would I allow her to touch the dressings on my wounds. With
so many to be done it was a painful performance even under kindly,
sympathetic hands. We expressed our feelings toward her by giving her
left-right every time she came into the ward and she would get mad at
the second step. One day she called the matron, so we left-righted her
as well. Then the doctor was brought in and we left-righted him, but
he enjoyed the joke, perhaps realizing his helplessness, for you can't
very well punish wounded men lying in bed except by depriving them of
food, and we were most of us on diets anyway! The fact that we were
Australians was held to be accountable for our misbehavior.

There was a little nurse, mostly on night duty, who was dubbed "Choom,"
for she came from Yorkshire and had a rich brogue. But her heart was
big enough for one twice her size, and she would always tuck us in and
attempt to supply all our wants, however unreasonable.

After an operation which I tell about in another chapter I was able to
sit up and propel myself in a wheel-chair, and soon was having races
with the champion chair-speeders of the other wards. There was a long
inclined plane that was the cause of many accidents, for there was a
sharp