on's hand, and telling of
Christmases when he was a little boy. Then, when she gets up to go, the
man in bed turns his head towards the poor little pile of presents.
"You'd better take those, mother," he says. "They won't be much use to
me. But it's the happiest Christmas I've ever had." And all the poor
woman's courage leaves her, and she stoops forward under the mistletoe
and kisses him, kisses him, with tears streaming down her face.

* * * * *

Most stirring of all are the clearing hospitals near the firing line.
They are crowded, and all night long fresh wounded stumble in, the mud
caked on their uniforms, and their bandages soiled by dark stains. In
one corner a man groans unceasingly: "Oh, my head ... God! Oh, my poor
head!" and you hear the mutterings and laughter of the delirious.

But if the pain here is at its height, the relief is keenest. For months
they have lived in hell, these men, and now they have been brought out
of it all. A man who has been rescued from suffocation in a coal mine
does not grumble if he has the toothache; a man who has come from the
trenches and death does not complain of the agony of his wound--he
smiles because he is in comfortable surroundings for once.

Besides, there is a great feeling of expectation and hope, for there is
to be a convoy in the morning and they are all to be sent down to the
base--all except the men who are too ill to be moved and the two men who
have died in the night, whose beds are shut off by red screens. The "cot
cases" are lifted carefully on to stretchers, their belongings are
packed under their pillows, and they are carried down to the ambulances,
while the walking cases wander about the wards, waiting for their turn
to come. They look into their packs for the fiftieth time to make sure
they have left nothing; they lean out of the windows to watch the
ambulance roll away to the station; they stop every orderly who comes
along to ask if they have not been forgotten, or if there will be room
for them on the train; they make new acquaintances, or discover old
ones. One man meets a long-lost friend with a huge white bandage round
his neck. "Hullo, you poor devil," he says, "how did you get it in the
neck like that? was it a bullet or a bit of a shell?" The other swears,
and confesses that he has not been hit at all, but is suffering from
boils.

For, going down to the base are wounded and sick of every sort--men who
have l