be a long
time getting to bed; the Medical Officers at St N. told us there were
already two trains in, and no beds left on hospitals or ships, and 1300
more expected to-day; four died in one of the trains; ours were pretty
well, after the indescribable filth and fug of the train all night; it
was not an ambulance train, but trucks and ordinary carriages. The men
say there are hardly any officers left in many regiments. There has
never been this kind of rush to be coped with anywhere, but the Germans
must be having worse. We had thirteen German prisoners tacked on to us
with a guard of the London Scottish, the first Territorials to come out,
bursting with health and pride and keenness. They are not in the
fighting line yet, but are used as escorts for the G.P. among other
jobs. One of the men on our train had had his shoulder laid open for six
inches by a shell, where he couldn't see the wound. He asked me if it
was a bullet wound! He himself thought it was too large for that, and
might be shrapnel! He hadn't mentioned it all night.

We had some dressings to be done again this morning, and then left them
in charge of the M.O. and two orderlies, and went to report ourselves to
the A.D.M.S. and get a warrant for the return journey. We shall get in
to Le Mans somewhere about midnight. I'm not a bit tired, strange to
say; we got a few rests in the night, but couldn't sleep.

_Tuesday, September 22nd._--Got back to Le Mans at 2
A.M.--motor-ambulanced up to the hospital, where an orderly made lovely
beds for us on stretchers, with brown blankets and pillows, in the
theatre, and labelled the door "Operation," in case any one should
disturb us. At 6 we went to our respective diggings for a wash and
breakfast, and reported to Matron at 8. We have been two days and two
nights in our clothes; food where, when, and what one could get; one
wash only on a station platform at a tap which a sergeant kindly pressed
for me while I washed! one cleaning of teeth in the dark on the line
between trucks. They have no water on trains or at stations, except on
the engine, which makes tea in cans for you for the men when it stops.

We are to rest to-day, to be ready for another train to-night if
necessary. The line from the front to Rouen--where there are two General
Hospitals--is cut; hence this appalling over-crowding at our base. When
we got back this morning, nine of those we took off the trains on Sunday
afternoon had died here, and one