below the knee. Some of the toes drop off. I have one carriage
of twenty-four Indians. A Sikh refused to sit in the same seat with a
stout little major of the Gurkhas. I showed him a picture of Bobs, and
he said at once, "Robert Sahib." They love the 'Daily Mirrors' with
pictures of Indians. The Sikhs are rather whiney patients and very hard
to please, but the little Gurkhas are absolute stoics, and the Bengal
Lancers, who are Mohammedans, are splendid.

_Thursday, December 3rd._--We kept our load on all night, as we got in
very late. I went to bed 10.20 A.M., and then took all the train:
unloaded directly after breakfast. Some men from Lancashire were rather
interesting on the war; they thought it would do Europe so much good in
the long-run. And the French might try and get their own back when they
get into Germany, but "the British is too tender-'earted to do them
things." They arranged that Belgium should have Berlin! They all get
very pitiful over the Belgian homes and desolation; it seems to upset
them much more than their own horrors in the trenches. A good deal of
the fighting they talk about as if it was an exciting sort of football
match, full of sells and tricks and chances. They roar with laughter at
some of their escapes.

There was no hospital ship in, which spells a bath or no bath to me, but
I ramped round the town till I found a hotel which kindly supplied a
fine bath for 1.75. And I found another and nicer English church and a
Roman Catholic one.

Grand mail when I came in--from home.

_Friday, December 4th._--Had a busy day loading at three places: just
going to turn in as I have to be up at 2 A.M.; we shall have the
patients on all night. It is a fearful night, pouring and blowing. We
have taken a tall white-haired Padre up with us this time: he wanted a
trip to the Front. We happened to go to a place we hadn't been to
before, in a coal-mining district. While we loaded he marched off to
explore, and was very pleased at finding a well-shelled village and an
unexploded shell stuck in a tree. It specially seemed to please him to
find a church shelled! He has enjoyed talking to the crowds of men on
the train on the way down. He lives and messes with us. We opened the
Harrod's cake to-day; it is a beauty. The men were awfully pleased with
the bull's-eyes, said they hadn't tasted a sweet for four months.

One of the C.S. has just dug me out to see some terrific flashes away
over the Channel, whic