r and sat swaying
on the side of the bed. The splints naturally jutted out some distance
from the end of my one leg and this struck me as being very funny. I
wondered just how I could walk on them. Then I looked down at the other
and the proposition seemed funnier still; though I could feel as if the
leg was there, when I looked there was nothing. It was really extremely
odd! I sat there for some time cogitating these matters and was just
about to try how I could walk when very luckily in came an orderly.

"Germans!" I gasped, pointing to the two beds. I must have looked a
little odd sitting swaying there in a very inadequate "helpless" shirt
belonging to the hospital! With a muttered exclamation he rushed forward
just catching me in his arms, and I was back in bed in a twinkling. The
whole thing was so clear to me; even now I can fancy I really saw those
Germans, and the adorable V.A.D., after searching under the beds at my
request, sat with me for the rest of the night. My "good" leg was tied
securely down after that episode.

I was dead and buried (by report) several times that first week in
hospital and Sergeant Richardson from the Detail Issue Stores, who saw
we always had the best rations, came up to see me one afternoon. He was
so spick and span I hardly recognized him, and in his hand was a large
basket of strawberries. The very first basket that had appeared in the
fruiterers' that year. He sat down and told me how anxious "the boys"
were to hear how I really was. All sorts of exaggerated rumours had been
flying about.

He related how he had first heard the news on that fatal Wednesday and
how "a bloke" told him I had been killed outright. "I knocked 'im down,"
said the Sergeant with pride, "and when he comes to me the next morning
to tell to me you wos still alive, why, I was so pleased I knocked 'im
down again!"

Bad luck on the "bloke," what? I was convulsed, only the trouble was it
hurt me even to laugh, which was trying.

He had been out in Canada before the war as a cowboy and had always
promised to show me some day how to pick things off the ground when
galloping, a pastime we agreed I should now have to forgo. I assured him
if I couldn't do that, however, I had every intention of riding again.
Had I not heard that morning of someone who even hunted! I began to
appreciate the fact that I had my knee.

CHAPTER XVII

HOSPITALS: FRANCE AND ENGLAND

An old Frenchman came to the hospital eve