An officer told
me exactly how many guns from 9.2's downwards we used, all firing at
once. And poor fat Germans, and thin Germans, and big Germans, and
little Germans at the other end of it.

A man of mine with his head shattered and his hand shot through was
trephined last night, and his longitudinal sinus packed with gauze. He
was on the train at 9 this morning, and actually improved during the
day! He came to in the afternoon enough to remark, as if he were doing a
French exercise, "You-are-a-good-Nurse!" The next time he woke he said
it again, and later on with great difficulty he gave me the address of
his girl, to whom I am to write a post-card. I do hope they'll pull him
through.

_Sunday, March 14th_, 4 P.M.--Just bringing down another load. I have a
hundred and twenty wounded alone; the train is packed.

No time for more--the J.J.'s are swarming.

We unloaded at B. yesterday evening, and were off again within an hour
or two.

_Monday, March 15th_, 2.30 A.M.--Woke up just as we arrived at Bailleul
to hear most incessant cannonade going on I ever heard, even at Ypres.
The sky is continually lit up with the flashes from the guns--it is a
pitch-dark night--and you can hear the roar of the howitzers above the
thud-thud of the others. I think we are too far N. for there to be any
French 75's in it. I had to wake Sister D. to see it, as she had never
seen anything like it before. We are only a few miles away from it.

Must try and sleep now, as we shall have a heavy day to-day, but it is
no lullaby.

4.30 P.M.--Just time for a scrawl. The train is packed with wounded,
most of whom, including the poor sitting-ups, are now dead asleep from
exhaustion. The British Army is fighting and marching all night now. The
Clearing Hospitals get 800 in at a time, many with no dressings on. We
have twenty-seven officers on this train alone.

I have a boy of 22 with both legs off. He is dazed and white, and wants
shifting very often. Each time you fix him up he says, "That's
champion."

Forty of them were shelled in their billets.

The Germans are said to be, some of them, fighting in civilian clothes
till they get their uniforms. The men say there are hundreds of young
boys and old men among them; they are making a desperate effort and
bringing everything they've got into it now.

_Later._--We also have mumps, measles, scarlet fever, and diphtheria in
the infectious coach.

A baby lieut. with measles showed me s