als
for classification and diagnosis and dressings, but it is of a sketchy
character, as you may imagine. They are all swarming with J.J.'s, even
the officers. One of the officers is wounded in the head, shoulder,
stomach, both arms, and both feet. A boy in my wards, with a baby face,
showed me a beautiful silver, enamelled and engraved watch he got off a
"Yewlan"; he was treasuring it in his belt "to take home to Mother." I
asked him if the Yewlan was dead. "Oh yes," he said, his face lighting
up with glee; "we shot him. He was like a pepper-pot when we got to
him." Isn't it horrible? And like the boy in 'Punch,' he'd never killed
anybody before he went to France. I wonder what "Mother" will say to his
cheerful little story.

I have been busy bursting a bad quinsy with inhalers and fomentations.
After a few hours he could sing Tipperary and drink a bottle of stout!

There are two Volunteer shop-boys from a London Territorial Regiment,
who call me "Madam" from force of habit.

_Sunday, January 17th._--We didn't unload at Boulogne last night, and
are still (11 A.M.) taking them on to Etretat, a lovely place on the
coast, about ten miles north of Havre. The hospital there is my old
No.-- General Hospital, that I mobilised with, so it will be very jolly
to see them all again.

We are going through most lovely country on a clear sunny morning, and
none of the patients are causing any anxiety, so it is an extremely
pleasant journey, and we shall have a good rest on the way back.

3 P.M.--Just as I was beginning to forget there were such things as
trenches and shrapnel and snipers, they told me a horrible story of two
Camerons who got stuck in the mud and sucked down to their shoulders.
They took an hour and a half getting one out, and just as they said to
the other, "All right, Jock, we'll have you out in a minute," he threw
back his head and laughed, and in doing so got sucked right under, and
is there still. They said there was no sort of possibility of getting
him out; it was like a quicksand.

One told me--not as such a very sensational fact--that he went for
eleven weeks without taking off his clothes, _or a wash_, and then he
had a hot bath and a change of everything. He remarked that he had to
scrape himself with a knife.

We have been travelling all day, and shan't get to Etretat till about 7
P.M. It is a mercy we got our bad cases off at Boulogne--pneumonias,
enterics, two s.f.'s, and some badly wounded, i