only a few minutes more and then it'll be all right again."

"All right, Johnstone," I said; and we shook hands.

Our own shells were bursting so close to our front that they were
showering us with earth and stones.

I saw the nearest Germans about a couple of hundred yards away.

Then suddenly a dark curtain dropped before my eyes.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

I seemed to awake from a long sleep, only to discover that instead of
being in a trench or a billet I was in a hospital; one of the kind made of
canvas. There were two great marquee tents, with nurses flitting about
quietly--like angels they seemed to me, for the moment.

The pain that racked my body was awful. I lay there trying to determine in
what part of me the pain was located but it seemed to be all over me. I
noticed that either a nurse or an orderly was constantly in attendance at
my cot.

As my comprehension of things about me became clearer, I realized that my
neighbour was a German. His moaning, coupled with his muttering of "_Ach,
mein Gott in Himmel!_" got on my nerves, but I decided to say nothing, as
I had not yet learned whether it was an enemy hospital or one of our own.
I decided that if it was the former, the quietest way to die was the
best, if die I must. During one of the moaning spells of my neighbour, I
seemed to lose consciousness. When I "came back," a soft voice whispered
in my ear: "It's all right; keep still; we are only taking a plate of your
leg."

An _English_ voice!--and with such kindness in it! Our own hospital! Not a
prisoner! I just wanted to cry out, from sheer happiness.

When next I found myself in my cot, that awful pain was unnerving me, but
the doctor, Captain Allen, assured me that I would be all right after a
few weeks' rest in Blighty. I immediately asked when I was to go. His
reply was: "When your temperature goes down. It has been 104 for about a
week."

I said I would like to write home, and my soft-voiced nurse thereupon
brought me paper and envelope. I moved to extend my right hand for the
paper, and with dismay found it in splints and bandages, with a strong
resemblance to a huge boxing glove. Quickly I glanced at the left hand, to
find with relief that it, at least, was whole.

I had of course never learned to use my left hand for writing. Observing
my need of assistance, the nurse sat on the edge of my bed and took pen
and paper to write for me. I had not even to ask her to do this service.
The tea