Part 19 (2/2)

There is really not much to hope for; the leave is so short, the home-life so disrupted that it cannot be taken up with content Perhaps it isn't possible to let one's thoughts play round a life about which one canfor the minute--their present hope for the cup of tea, for the visiting day, for the concert; their future hope for the drying of the wound, for the day when the Sister's fingersscar

Isn't it curious to wish so passionately for the day whichfor health is a siic

Yet soht now he has watched for the post ”Parcel come for me, Sister? Small parcel?”

Or he will meet the postman in the corridor ”Got my eye yet?” he asks

”What will it be like, Scutts?” we ask ”Can you move it? Can you sleep in it? Did he match your other carefully?”

”You'll see,” he says confidently ”It's grand”

”When I gethich he says ”When I get into civies”

Scutts is not one of those whose life is stopped; he has et into civies and walk out of here” His plans for six months' holiday ”are all writ down in me notebook”

”But what shall you do, Scutts? Go to London?”

”London! No towns ferto do Secretly I believe it is soht himself a fool to carry out when he was ahis eleven wounds he has two crippled ar France), ”till it fetches h life were really a respite from death

I had a day on the river yesterday

”_I_ seed yer with yer bit of erdy-furdy roun' yer neck an' yer little attachy-case,” said Pinker

”A nurse's life is one roun' of pleasure,” said Pinker to the ward

We had two operations yesterday--one on a sergeant who has won the DCM and has a certificate written in gold which hangs above his bed, telling of his courage and of one particular deed; the other on a Welsh private

I wonder what the sergeant was like before he won his DCM

There is soe hero He has a way of saying, ”Now,to volunteer to fetch the dinners?” which is like an invitation to go over the top

The o on with their cards It is like a joke

Before his operation he was full of partially concealed boastings as to hoould bear it, hoould ”coet up! I can walk”

I felt a sneaking wish that he should be undone and show unusual weakness