The concerts that we give in the ward touch me with some curious
emotion. I think it is because I am for once at rest in the ward and
have time to think and wonder.

There is Captain Thomson finishing his song. He doesn't know what to do
with his hands; they swing. He is tall and dark, with soft eyes--and
staff badges.

Could one guess what he is? Never in a dozen years.... But I _know_!

He said to me last night, "Nurse, I'm going out to-morrow."

I leant across the table to listen to him.

"Nurse, if you ever want any _crepe de Chine_ ... for nightgowns ...
mind, at wholesale prices...."

"I have bought some at a sale."

"May I ask at what price?"

"Four-and-eleven a yard."

"Pity! You could have had it from me at three!"

He gave me his business card. "That's it, nurse," he said, as he wrote
on the back of it. "Drop me a line to that address and you'll get any
material for underwear at trade prices."

He booked one or two orders the night he went away--not laughingly, not
as a joke, but with deep seriousness, and gravely pleased that he was
able to do what he could for us. He was a traveller in ladies'
underwear. I have seldom met any one so little a snob....

Watch Mr. Gray singing....

One hand on the piano, one on his hip:

"I love every mouse in that old-fashioned house."

"That fellow can sing!" whispers the man beside me.

"Is he a professional?" I asked as, finishing, the singer made the
faintest of bows and walked back to his chair.

"I think he must be."

"He is, he is!" whispered Mr. Matthews, "I've heard him before."

They know so little about each other, and they don't ask. It is only I
who wonder--I, a woman, and therefore of the old, burnt-out world. These
men watch without curiosity, speak no personalities, form no sets,
express no likings, analyse nothing. They are new-born; they have as yet
no standards and do not look for any.

Ah, to have had that experience too!... I am of the old world.

Again and again I realize, "A nation in arms...."

Watchmakers, jewellers, station-masters, dress-designers, actors,
travellers in underwear, bank clerks ... they come here in uniforms and
we put them into pyjamas and nurse them; and they lie in bed or hobble
about the ward, watching us as we move, accepting each other with the
unquestioning faith of children.

The outside world has faded since I have been in the hospital. Their
world is often near me--their mud and trenches,