ier ambulance. We backed into position on the
sloping shingly ground near the side of the canal, and waited for the
barge to come in.

Presently we espied it slipping silently along under the bridge. The
cases were placed on lifts and slung gently up from the inside of the
barge, which was beautifully fitted up like a hospital ward.

It is not an easy matter when you are on a slope to start off smoothly
without jerking the patients within; and I held my breath as I
declutched and took off the brake, accelerating gently the meanwhile.
Thank heaven! We were moving slowly forward and there had been no jerk.
They were all bad cases and an occasional groan would escape their lips
in spite of themselves. I dreaded a certain dip in the road--a sort of
open drain known in France as a _canivet_--but fortunately I had
practised crossing it when out one day trying a Napier, and we
manoeuvred it pretty fairly. My relief on getting to hospital was
tremendous. My back was aching, so was my knee (from constant
clutch-slipping over the bumps and cobbles), and my eyes felt as if they
were popping out of my head. In fact I had a pretty complete "stretcher
face!" I had often ragged the others about their "stretcher faces,"
which was a special sort of strained expression I had noticed as I
skimmed past them in the little lorry, but now I knew just what it felt
like.

The new huts were going apace, and were finished about the end of April,
just as the weather was getting warmer. We were each to have one to
ourselves, and they led off on each side of a long corridor running down
the centre. These huts were built almost in a horse-shoe shape and--joy
of joys! there were to be two bathrooms at the end! We also had a
telephone fixed up--a great boon. The furniture in the huts consisted of
a bed and two shelves, and that was all. There was an immediate slump in
car cleaning. The rush on carpentering was tremendous. It was by no
means safe for a workman to leave his tools and bag anywhere in the
vicinity; his saw the next morning was a thing to weep over if he did.
(It's jolly hard to saw properly, anyway, and it really looks such an
easy pastime.)

The wooden cases that the petrol was sent over in from England, large
enough to hold two tins, were in great demand. These we made into
settees and stools, etc., and when stained and polished they looked
quite imposing. The contractor kindly offered to paint the interiors of
the huts for us as a