st of all homes for lost trains to-day, the Petit
Vitesse siding out of B. station, with the filth of all the ages around,
about, and below us. You have to shut your window to keep out the smell
of burning garbage and other horrors.

It is nearly three months since I sat in a chair, except at meals, and
that is only a flap-down seat, or saw a fire, except the pails of coke
the Tommies have on the lines.

I expect we shall be off again to-night somewhere.

_Saturday, January 9th._--Did you see the H.A.C.'s story of the frozen
Tommy who asked them to warm his hands, and then seeing they were on
their way to his trench hastily explained that he was all right--only a
bit numb. One thing one notices about them is that they have an enormous
tolerance for each other and never seem to want to quarrel. They take
infinite pains in the night not to wake each other in moving over the
heaps of legs and arms sprawled everywhere, and will keep in cramped
positions for hours rather than risk touching some one else's painful
feet or hand. If you want to improve matters they say, "I shall be all
right, Sister, it might jog his foot." They never let you miss any one
out in giving things round, and always call your attention to any one
they think needs it, but not to themselves. It is very funny how they
won't fuss about themselves, and in consequence you often find things
out too late. Last journey a man with asthma and bronchitis was,
unfortunately as it turned out, given a top bunk, as he was considered
too bad to be a sitting-up case. At 6 A.M. I found him looking very
tired and miserable sitting on the edge; "I can't lie down," he said,
"with this cough." When I put him in a sitting-up corner below, he said,
"I could a'slep' all night like this!" It had never occurred to him to
ask to be changed. They get so used to discomfort that they "stay put"
and never utter. We had missed his distress (in the 318 we had on
board), and they were sleeping on the floors of the corridors, so the
middle bunks were very difficult to get at. Any of them would have
changed with him. This happens several times on every journey, but you
can't get them to fuss. The Germans and the Sikhs begin to clamour for
something directly they are on the train, and keep it up till they go
off.

Another typical instance (though not a pretty one) of Tommy's reluctance
to complain occurred on the last journey. I came on one compartment
full, busily engaged in collec