't lost my charm.

The next day was Wednesday, and I had been up since 5 and was taking a
lorry-full of stretchers and blankets past a French Battery to the
E.M.O.'s. It was about midday and there was not a cloud in the sky. Then
suddenly my heart stood still. Somehow, instinctively, I knew I was "for
it" at last. Whole eternities seemed to elapse before the crash. There
was no escape. Could I urge Little Willie on? I knew it was hopeless;
even as I did so he bucketed and failed to respond. He would! How I
longed for Susan, who could always be relied upon to sprint forward. At
last the crash came. I felt myself being hurled from the car into the
air, to fall and be swept along for some distance, my face being
literally rubbed in the ground. I remember my rage at this, and even in
that extreme moment managed to seize my nose in the hope that it at
least might not be broken! Presently I was left lying in a crumpled heap
on the ground. My first thought, oddly enough, was for the car, which I
saw standing sulkily and somewhat battered not far off. "There _will_ be
a row," I thought. The stretcher bearer in behind had been killed
instantaneously, but fortunately I did not know of this till some time
later, nor did I even know he had jumped in behind. The car rattled to
such an extent I had not heard the answer to my query, if anyone was
coming with me to unload the stretchers.

I tried to move and found it impossible. "What a mess I'm in," was my
next thought, "and how my legs ache!" I tried to move them too, but it
was no good. "They must both be broken," I concluded. I put my hand to
my head and brought it away all sticky. "That's funny," I thought,
"where can it have come from?" and then I caught sight of my hand. It
was all covered with blood. I began to have a panic that my back might
be injured and I would not be able to ride again. That was all that
really worried me. I had always dreaded anything happening to my back,
somehow.

The French soldiers were down from their Battery in a trice, all great
friends of mine to whom I had often thrown ration cigarettes.

Gaspard (that was not his name, I never knew it, but always called him
that in my own mind after Raymond's hero) gave a cry and was on the
ground beside me, calling me his "little cabbage," his "poor little
pigeon," and presently he half lifted me in his arms and cradled me as
he might a baby. I remained quite conscious the whole time. "Will I be
able to rid