odgers" and consisted of meeting the
"sitting" cases from an ambulance train, taking them to the different
hospitals for the night, and then back to the quay early next morning in
time to catch the hospital ship to England. The stretcher cases had been
put on board the night before, but there was no sleeping accommodation
for so many "sitters." An ordinary evacuation often took place as well,
so that before breakfast we had sometimes carried as many as thirty-five
sitting cases, and done journeys with twelve stretchers. One day at No.
30 hospital I saw several of the girls beside a stretcher, and there was
the "Bovril king" lying swathed in blankets, chatting affably! He was
the cook at No. 30, a genial soul, who always rushed out in the early
hours of the morning when one was feeling emptiest, with a cup of hot
soup. He called it doing his bit, and always referred to himself proudly
as the "Bovril king." Alas, he was now being invalided home with
bronchitis!

Hope came back from leave and told me she had been pursued half way down
Regent Street by a fat old taxi driver who asked after me. It was dear
old Stone, of course, now returned to civil life and his smart taxi with
the silver "vauses!" I have hunted the stands in vain for his smiling
rosy face, but hope to spot him some day and have my three days' joy
ride.

One precious whole afternoon off, a very rare event, I went out for a
ride with Captain D. He rode "Baby," a little bay mare, and I rode a
grey, a darling, with perfect manners and the "sweetest" mouth in the
world. He was devoted to "Baby," and wherever she went he went too, as
surely as Mary's little lamb.

We struck off the road on to some grass and after cantering along for
some distance found we were in a network of small canals--the ground was
very spongy and the canal ahead of us fortunately not as wide as the
rest. We got over safely, landing in deep mud on the other side, and
decided our best plan was to make for the road again. We espied a house
at the end of the strip we were in with a road beyond, and agreed that
there must be a bridge or something leading to it. Captain D. went off
at a canter and I saw Baby break into a startled gallop as a train
steamed up on the line beyond the road. They disappeared behind the
house and I followed on at a canter. I turned the corner just in time to
see them almost wholly immersed in a wide canal and the gallant Captain
crawling over Baby's head on to the