Part 16 (1/2)

There are tiue, andto me

In the bus yesterday I ca beside a Sister from another ward, who held her hand to her ear and shi+fted in her seat

She told me she had earache, and I felt sorry for her

As she had earache we didn't talk, and I sat huddled in , as I was more or less forced to do by her movery bewilderment before the fact of her pain ”But it hurts You've no idea how it hurts!” She was surprised

Many times a day she hears the words, ”Sister, you're hurtin' me

Couldn't you shi+ft my heel? It's like a toothache,” and similar sentences I hear them in our ward all the time One can't pass down the ithout so on one's ears

She is astonished at her earache; she is astonished at what pain can be; it is unexpected She is ready to be angry with herself, with her pain, with her ear It is monstrous, she thinks

The pain of one creature cannot continue to have afor another

It is aline A deadlock!

One has illuminations all the time!

There is an old lady who visits in our ward, at whom, for one or two unih The inning to suspect is a mask, admit too that she is coan's bed and talking to him I sahere her treath he were an individual; but there is h he had a wife and children, a house and a back garden and responsibilities: in sonity

I thought of yesterday's injection That is the difference: that is what the Sisters mean when they say ”the boys”

The story of Rees is not yet ended in either of the tays in which stories end in a hospital His ar I wheeled hiain--for the third ti fro that cheered Rees up as he heeled aas the voice of Pinker crying, ”Jer hite flowers on yer coffin? We'll see to the brass 'andles!”

From Pinker, a little boy fro He is the servant of the ward (he says), partly through his good nature and a little because he has two good ars ”I ain't no skivvy,” he protests all the tiets done

Rees, when he wakes, wakes sobbing and says, ”Don' go away, nurse”

He holds my hand in a fierce clutch, then releases it to point in the air, crying ”There's the pain!” as though the pain filled the air and rose to the rafters As he wakes it centralizes, until at last comes the moment when he says, ”Me arm aches cruel,” and points to it Then one can leave hi at his dressing I was standing at the sterilizer when Rees's song began to mount over the screen that hid hi in”)

It was like this: ”Aheeoo, Sister!” and again: ”Sisterooeeah!” Then a little screaain

I heard her voice: ”Now then, Rees, I don't call that ”

She called me to make his bed, and I saw his left ear was full of tears

O visitors, who co afternoon, when the beds are neat and clean and the flowers out on the tables and the VAD's sit sewing at splints and sandbags, when the ain and smoke and talk and readif you could see what lies beneath the dressings!

When one shoots at a wooden figure it makes a hole When one shoots at a man it makes a hole, and the doctorin the ht--two bars, and then another I thought at first itto his arden