e me--_me_, that was gaun' back
wounded, withoot so much as my jack-knife! Demorralised--that's it!"

"Did you 'ear," enquired a Cockney who came next in the line, "that
all wounded are going to 'ave a nice little gold stripe to wear--a
stripe for every wound?"

There was much interest at this.

"That'll be fine," observed a man of Kent, who had been out since
Mons, and been wounded three times. "Folks'll know now that I'm not a
Derby recruit."

"Where will us wear it?" enquired a gigantic Yorkshireman, from the
next stretcher.

"Wherever you was 'it, lad!" replied the Cockney humourist.

"At that rate," comes the rueful reply, "I shall 'ave to stand oop to
show mine!"

III

But now R.A.M.C. orderlies are at hand, and the symposium comes to an
end. The stretchers are conveyed one by one into the long open coaches
of the train, and each patient is slipped sideways, with gentleness
and dispatch, into his appointed cot.

One saloon is entirely filled with officers--the severe cases in the
cots, the rest sitting where they can. A newspaper is passed round.
There are delighted exclamations, especially from a second lieutenant
whose features appear to be held together entirely by strips of
plaster. Such parts of the countenance as can be discerned are smiling
broadly.

"I _knew_ we were doing well," says the bandaged one, devouring the
headlines; "but I never knew we were doing as well as this. Official,
too! Somme Battle--what? Sorry! I apologise!" as a groan ran round the
saloon.

"Nevermind," said an unshaven officer, with a twinkling eye, and a
major's tunic wrapped loosely around him. "I expect that jest will
be overworked by more people than you for the next few weeks. Does
anybody happen to know where this train is going to?"

"West of England, somewhere, I believe," replied a voice.

There was an indignant groan from various north countrymen.

"I suppose it is quite impossible to sort us all out at a time like
this," remarked a plaintive Caledonian in an upper cot; "but I fail
to see why the R.A.M.C. authorities should go through the mockery of
_asking_ every man in the train where he wants to be taken, when the
train can obviously only go to one place--or perhaps two. I was asked.
I said 'Edinburgh'; and the medical wallah said, 'Righto! We'll send
you to Bath!'"

"I think I can explain," remarked the wounded major. "These trains
usually go to two places--one half to Bath, the other, say, to Ex