or
it--hardly a welcome surprise; and down at barges that evening--it was a
Sunday--Gamwell, the Sergeant, told me officially I was to take on the
job next morning at 5 a.m.

When I got back to Camp I went for a preliminary run on it, as I had
never driven that make before. The tyres were solid, all vestige of
springs had long since departed from the seat and the roof was covered
with tin that bent and rattled like stage thunder. The gears were in the
middle and very worn, and the lever never lost an opportunity of
slipping into first as you got out, and consequently the lorry tried to
run over you when you cranked up! Altogether a charming car. You drove
along like a travelling thunder-clap, and coming up the slope into Camp
the earth fairly shook beneath you. I used to feel like the whole of
Valhalla arriving in a Wagner Opera! It was also quite impossible to
hear what anyone said sitting on the seat beside you.

The third day, as I got out, I felt all my bones over carefully. "When I
come off this job," I called to Johnson, "I shall certainly swallow a
bottle of gum as a wise precaution." He grinned appreciatively.

Lowson, who had had her turn before Eva, appropriately christened it
"Little Willie," and I can affirm that that car had a Hun soul.

You were up and dressed at 5 a.m. and waited about camp till the
telephone bell rang to say the train had arrived. Schofield, the
incinerator man who was usually in the camp at that hour, never failed
to make a cup of tea--a most welcome thing, for one never got back to
camp to have breakfast till 11 or 11.30 a.m. I used to spend the
interval, after "Little Willie" was all prepared for the road, combing
out Wuzzy's silver curls. He always accompanied the lorry and was
allowed to sit, or rather jolt, on the seat beside me, unrebuked. After
breakfast there was the quay to clear up and all the many other details
to attend to, getting back to camp about 3 to go off in an hour's time
to barges. When a Fontinettes ambulance train came down, the lorry
driver was lucky if she got to bed this side of 2 a.m.

All social engagements in the way of rides, etc., had to be cancelled in
consequence, but the Monday before I went into hospital the grey and
Baby appeared up in camp about 5.30. I was hanging about waiting for the
telephone to say the barge had arrived, but as there was a high wind
blowing it was considered very unlikely it would come down the canal
that evening. I 'phoned