Part 11 (2/2)

The first stretchers are laid on the floor

There I have stood so often, pouring the tea behind the table, watching that littered floor, the single gas-la the shadows about the roohts, hypnotized

But last night, for the first time, I was in the ward For the first tilass door, see what becaed froallants in the ward don't like a convoy; it unsexes us

Nine o'clockten o'clock Another biscuit Both Germans are asleep now

At last a noise in the corridor, a tramp on the stairs Only walkers?

No, there's a stretcher--and another!

Now reflection ends, in to move, my hands to undo bootlaces, flick down therallants play bridge without looking up I aainst theet them

For I am without convictions, antipathies, prejudices, reflections I only work and watch, watch

Our ward is divided: half of it is neat and white and orderly; the other half has khaki tumbled all over it--”Sam Brownes,” boots, caps, mud, the caked mud from the ”other side”

But the neat beds are e questions Only the gallants play their bridge un off Their turn will cory, under a heavy utters What a strange and penetrating s snow is uncovering soarden a blackbird , and I'ht that a hospital ward is, above all, a serene place, in spite of pain and blood and dressings Gravity rules it and order and a quiet procession of duties

Last night I ood company to make beds with; she is quiet unless I rouse her, and when I talk she smiles with her eyes I like to walk slowly round the ward, stooping and rising over the white beds, flicking the sheetsthe ivesis too s the eldest Sister said to me:

”I am worried about your throat Is it no better?”

And froh me I have learnt the value of such remarks

In every bed there is some one whose throat is at least h I am not one of those fierce VAD's who scoff at sore throats and look for wounds, yet I didn't knoas so easy to give pleasure

The strange, disarht beside the youngest Sister, and she looked up suddenly with her absent stare and said, ”You're not so nice as you used to be!”

I was dumbfounded Had I been ”nice”? And now different