operation was performed almost immediately.

The W.A.A.C.s' ward was all very well as an experience, but the noise
and shaking, not to mention the thought of the broom catching my bed
regularly every morning, was too much to face again. The surgeon who was
operating tried to get me into his hospital for officers where there
were several single rooms vacant at the time.

Vain hope. Again the familiar phrase rang out, and once more I
apologised for being a female, and was obliged to make arrangements to
return to the private nursing home where I had been in August. The year
was up, and here I was still having operations. I was disgusted in the
extreme.

When I was at last fit to go to Roehampton the question of accommodation
again arose. I never felt so sick in all my life I wasn't a
man--committees and matrons sat and pondered the question. Obviously I
was a terrible nuisance and no one wanted to take any responsibility.
The mother superior of the Sacred Heart Convent at Roehampton heard of
it and asked me to stay there. Though I was not of their faith they
welcomed me as no one else had done since my return, and I was
exceedingly happy with them. It was a change to be really wanted
somewhere.

In time I got fairly hardened to the stares from passers-by, and it was
no uncommon thing for an absolute stranger to come up and ask, "Have you
lost your leg?" The fact seemed fairly obvious, but still some people
like verbal confirmation of everything. One day in Harrod's, just after
the 1918 push, one florid but obviously sympathetic lady exclaimed,
"Dear me, poor girl, did you lose your leg in the recent push?" It was
then the month of June (some good going to be up on crutches in that
time!) Several staff officers were buying things at the same counter and
turned at her question to hear my reply. "No, not in this _last_ push,"
I said, "but the one just before," and moved on. They appeared to be
considerably amused.

How I loathed crutches! One nightmare in which I often indulged was
that I found, in spite of having lost my leg, I could really walk in
some mysterious way quite well without them. I would set off joyfully,
and then to my horror suddenly discover my plight and fall smack. I woke
to find the nerve had been at its old trick again. Sometimes I was
seized with a panic that when I did get my leg I should not be able to
use it, and worse still, never ride again. That did not bear thinking
of.

I went to the hos