r of course it was our duty to co-operate with the Bluebottles. The
theory with which we beguiled ourselves, that the Bluebottles were
physically starvelings and required our Herculean aid to lift the
stretchers up the stairs, was palpably nonsense. Still we told ourselves
that we, as disciplined soldiers, were here to give a hand to a civilian
mob who might otherwise faint and fail. A singular delusion! Time has
proved its falsity, for with the issue of fresh orders our
station-parties ceased to function: the Bluebottles now make shift
without us--and without, as far as I know, any mishap.

The hospital train was eventually signalled. We were ranked, at
attention, at the foot of the stairs. The Bluebottles stood by their
stretchers. There was hurrying hither and thither of officials.
Sometimes our Colonel, having motored from the hospital, appeared on the
platform to see that all was well, and you may be sure that we
endeavoured to look alert in his august presence. And finally the train
glided into the station.

The hospital trains seemed to be never twice the same: South Westerns,
North Westerns, Great Northerns, Midlands, Great Centrals, Lancashire
and Yorkshires--I saw them all, at one time or another, their sole
affinity being the staring red crosses painted on each coach. A coach or
two consisted of ordinary compartments, for sitting-up cases; the rest
were vans the interiors of which had been converted into wards by means
of bunks. Access to each van-ward was gained by a wide pair of sliding
doors in its centre. These doors, when the train had come to a
standstill, were opened by pallid-looking orderlies, who lowered
gangways and then gazed forth at us, while they awaited orders, with the
lack-lustre eyes of men who had been deprived of the proper allowance of
sleep.

As soon as the list of the Medical Officer on the train had been checked
with that of the Medical Officer on the platform, the evacuation began.
Walking-cases were sent off first--generally a tatterdemalion crew,
hobbling and shuffling along the platform, and, at one stage of the war,
with trench mud still clinging to their clothes. They seldom needed our
assistance: the Bluebottles (even if feeble folk) were deemed by our
corporal to be fit to give any weak walking patient an arm, or carry his
kit. The walking patients, in fact, were a mere episode. Motor-cars
whirled them off, five or six at a time, and they might be half through
the process o