snow on the ground and showers of snow at
intervals.

Some of mine are from the St Eloi, fighting last Sunday and Monday.

Some of N.'s regiment were badly caught between two ruined houses, each
containing Maxims and machine-guns. They had just been reinforced by
some young recruits of K.'s Army who detrained that night to go straight
into the charge. "They come on well, them youngsters," said an old
soldier, "but they got terrible mowed down. We lost nine officers in a
quarter of an hour."

It has been a very costly splash altogether.

One officer on the train has fourteen wounds.

_Saturday, March 20th, Boulogne._--The hospitals here have been pretty
well emptied home now, and are ready for the next lot.

Here we have been standing by all day while a big Committee at Abbeville
is settling whether our beloved and beautiful No.-- A.T. is to be handed
back to the French railway; and if so, whether it will be replaced by
inferior French carriages, or whether one of the four new British trains
that are coming will be handed over to us, or whether all the
_personnel_ will be disbanded and dispersed. I have a feeling that its
day is over, but perhaps things will turn out better than that.

I have been for five walks to-day, including a bask in the sun on the
sands, and a bath at the Club and a visit to the nice old R.C. church
and the flower-market.

_Tuesday, March 23rd_, 9 P.M.--Waiting all day at G.H.Q.; things are
unusually quiet; one train has been through with only ninety, and
another with a hundred. We went for a walk along the canal this morning
with the wee puppy, and this afternoon saw over the famous jute factory
Convalescent Home, where they have a thousand beds under one roof: it is
like a town divided into long wards,--dining-rooms, recreation rooms,
dressing station, chiropodist, tailor's shop, &c.--by shoulder-high
canvas or sailcloth screens; they have outside a kitchen, a boiler, a
disinfector for clothes, and any amount of baths. They have a concert
every Saturday night. The men looked so absolutely happy and contented
with cooked instead of trench food, and baths and games and piano, and
books and writing, &c. They stay usually ten days, and are by the tenth
day supposed to be fit enough for the trenches again; it often saves
them a permanent breakdown from general causes, and is a more economical
way of treating small disablements than sending them to the Base
Hospitals. Last week they had