anxious not to bump me that they were
clumsier in their nervousness than I had ever seen them! As I was pulled
out I saw that many of my friends, English, French, and Belgian, had
come down to give me a send off. They stood in absolute silence, and
again I felt as if I was at my own funeral. As I was borne down the
gangway into the ship I could bear it no longer, and pulled off my cap
and waved it in farewell. It seemed to break the spell, and they all
called out "Goodbye, good luck!" as I was borne round the corner out of
sight to the little cabin allotted me.

Several of them came on board after, which cheered me tremendously. I
was very keen to have Eva with me as far as Dover, but, unfortunately,
official permission had been refused. The captain of the ship, however,
was a tremendous sportsman and said: "Of course, if my ship starts and
you are carried off by mistake, Miss Money, you can't expect me to put
back into port again, and _I_ shan't have seen you," he added with a
twinkle in his eye as he left us. You may be sure Eva was just too late
to land! He came along when we were under way and feigned intense
surprise. As a matter of fact he was tremendously bucked and said since
his ship had been painted grey instead of white and he had been given a
gun he was no longer a "hospital," but a "wounded transport," and
therefore was within the letter of the law to take a passenger if he
wanted to. The cabin was on deck and had been decorated with flowers in
every available space. The crossing, as luck would have it, was fairly
rough, and one by one the vases were pitched out of their stands on to
the floor. It was a tremendous comfort to me to have old Eva there. Of
course it leaked out as these things will, and there was even the
question of quite a serious row over it, but as the captain and everyone
else responsible had "positively not seen her," there was no one to
swear she had not overstayed her time and been carried off by mistake!
At Dover I had to say goodbye to her, the sister, and the kindly
captain, and very lonely I felt as my stretcher was placed on a trolley
arrangement and I was pushed up to the platform along an asphalt
gangway. The orderlies kept calling me "Sir," which was amusing. "Your
kit is in the front van, sir," and catching sight of my face, "I
mean--er--Miss, Gor'blimee! well, that's the limit!" and words failed
them.

I was put into a ward on the train all by myself. I didn't care for that