tters on it," said Sergeant O'Rorke, "is the beautifullest that
ever was seen. The diamonds on the King's Crown wouldn't be finer."

The star hung on the wall of the canteen opposite the counter. It was
made of cotton wool pasted on cardboard. The wool had been supplied by
a sympathetic nurse from a neighbouring hospital. It was looted from
the medical stores. The frosting, which excited Sergeant O'Rorke's
admiration, was done with sugar. It was Miss Nelly Davis, youngest and
merriest of Miss Willmot's helpers, who suggested the sugar, when the
powdered glass ordered from England failed to arrive.

"There can't be any harm in using it," she said. "What we're getting now
isn't sugar at all, it is fine gravel. A stone of it wouldn't sweeten a
single urn of tea."

Miss Willmot took the sugar from her stores as she accepted the looted
cotton-wool, without troubling to search for excuse or justification.
She was a lady of strong will. When she made up her mind that the
Christmas decorations of her canteen were to be the best in France she
was not likely to stick at trifling breaches of regulations.

She looked round her with an expression of justifiable satisfaction. The
long hut which served as a canteen looked wonderfully gay. Underneath
the white star ran an inscription done in large letters made of ivy
leaves. Miss Willmot, in the course of two years' service in the canteen
of a base camp, had gained some knowledge of the soldier's heart
Her inscription was calculated to make an immediate appeal. "A Merry
Christmas," it ran, "And the Next in Blighty." The walls of the hut were
hung round with festoons of coloured paper. Other festoons, red, blue,
and green stretched across the room from wall to wall under the low
ceiling. Chinese lanterns, swinging on wires, threatened the head of
anyone more than six feet in height Sergeant O'Rorke, an Irish Guardsman
until a wound lamed him, now a member of the camp police force, had
to dodge the Chinese lanterns when he walked about Jam-pots and
cigarette-tins, swathed in coloured paper, held bunches of holly and
sprigs of mistletoe. They stood on the tables and the window sills.

But the counter was the crowning glory of the canteen. In the middle of
it stood an enormous Christmas cake, sugar-covered, bedecked with flags.
Round the cake, built into airy castles, were hundreds of crackers. Huge
dishes, piled high with mince pies, stood in rows along the whole length
of the counter