m the
road, and the moonlight and the night vapour rising from the marshy
ground were all tangled together so that I could hardly see hedge from
field or path.

I saw a lit cigarette-end, and a woman's laugh came across the field as
naturally as if a sheep had bleated in the swampy grass. It struck me
that the dark countryside was built to surround and hide a laugh like
hers--the laugh of a lover, animal and protesting.

I saw the glowing end of the cigarette dance in a curve and fall to the
ground, and she laughed again more faintly.

Walking on in the middle of the moonlight, I reached the gate I was
looking for, ran up the pebbly drive to the dining-room window, gave my
message, and returned.

I slipped my cap off my hair and pushed it into my pocket, keeping under
the shadow of the hedge and into the quiet field.

They were whispering: "Do you?" "I do...." "Are you?" "I am...."
crushed into the set branches of the hedge.

The Mess went vilely to-night. Sister adds up on her fingers, and that's
fatal, so all the numbers were out, and the _chef_ sent in forty-five
meats instead of fifty-one. I blushed with horror and responsibility,
standing there watching six hungry men pretending to be philosophers.

The sergeant wolfed the cheese too. He got it out from under my very
eyes while I was clearing the tables and ate it, standing up to it in
the pantry with his back to me when I went in to fetch a tray.

Whenever I see that broad khaki back, the knickered legs astride, the
flexed elbow-tips, I know that his digestion is laying up more trouble
for him.

Benks, the Mess orderly, overeats himself too. He comes to the bunk and
thrusts his little smile round the door: "Sister, I got another of them
sick 'eadaches," very cheerfully, as though he had got something worth
having. She actually retorted, "Benks, you eat too much!" one day, but
he only swung on one leg and smiled more cheerfully than ever.

The new Sister has come. That should mean a lot. What about one's
habits of life...?

The new Sister has come, and at present she is absolutely without
personality, beyond her medal. She appears to be deaf.

I went along to-night to see and ask after the man who has his nose
blown off.

After the long walk down the corridor in almost total darkness, the
vapour of the rain floating through every open door and window, the
sudden brilliancy of the ward was like a haven.

The man lay on my right on entering--the s