five hundred wounded to treat, and two of
the M.O.'s had to take a supply-train of seven hundred slightly wounded
down to Rouen with only two orderlies. They had a bad journey. I had a
French class after tea. We are now expecting to-day's London papers,
which are due here about 9 P.M.

Have got some Hindustani to learn for my next lesson (from Sister B.),
so will stop this.

_Wednesday, March 24th._--Moved on at 11 P.M. and woke up at Chocques; a
few smallish guns going. Loaded up there very early and at two other
places, and are now nearly back to Boulogne, mostly wounded and a few
Indians; some of them are badly damaged by bombs.

The men in the Neuve Chapelle touch were awfully disappointed that they
weren't allowed to push on to Lille. The older men say wonderful things
of K.'s boys: "The only fault we 'ave to find wi' 'em is that they
expose theirselves too much. 'Keep your 'eads down!' we 'ave to say all
the time. All they wants is to charge."

According to the men, we shall be busy again at the end of this week.

_Midnight._--On way to coast near Havre where No.-- G.H. is. Put all
worst cases off at B., the rest mostly sleeping peacefully. Passed a
place on coast not far S. of B., where six hundred British workmen are
working from 7 A.M. to 10 P.M. building hospital huts for 12,000 beds, a
huge encampment, ready for future business.

Have seen cowslips and violets on wayside. Lovely moonlight night. Train
running very smoothly.

_Thursday, March 25th._--There is a great deal of very neat and
elaborate glass market-gardening going on round Rouen: it looks from the
train an unbroken success; thousands of fat little plants with their
glass hats off and thousands more with them on, and very little labour
that can be seen. But the vegetables we buy for our mess are not
particularly cheap.

9 P.M., _R._--There are three trains waiting here, or rather at S.,
which means a blessed lull for the people in the firing line.

There was a day or two after Neuve Chapelle when the number of wounded
overflowed the possibilities of "collection"; the stretcher-bearers were
all hit and the stretchers were all used, and there were not enough
medical officers to cope with the numbers (extra ones were hurried up
from the Base Hospitals very quickly), and if you wanted to live you had
to walk or crawl, or stay behind and die. We had a Canadian on who told
me last night that he should never forget the stream of wounded drag