oans of my German neighbour,
mixed with cries for "_Das Ei_," didn't allay my fever at all. No one knew
what he wanted. Latterly one of our wounded fellows called the nurse over
and suggested very earnestly that perhaps he had a glass eye and it needed
some attention. The nurse at once examined his eyes, but found them all
right.

However, the next medical officer on duty understood German and acquainted
the nurse with the fact that the patient had been calling for an egg. He
marked on his chart that he should be given two fresh eggs every morning.

This German was accorded first attention, while our own boys had to be
content with being next in line. We could not kick, however, as the
doctors and nurses stretched their ability to do for others to the utmost.
After our prisoner had had his hunger appeased with the "Ei," he seemed
content to die, for that is just what he did. From what I could learn, his
injury had been a bad one, a large piece of shell having pierced his
chest.

I felt sure, when I saw him carried out, that my turn was next. Then I
discovered that the number of my cot was _13_, so--recalling the many
escapes from death I had had and how this number had been concerned in
them, my hopes for recovery went soaring high.

Now I was recovering enough to take an interest in other cases in the
ward, and one in particular, a Royal Irish Fusilier, in the cot opposite
me. He had forty-eight bullet wounds in his body. He had already been in
this ward six weeks, so I knew then I wasn't the worst case there. My
temperature had now dropped to 100, and I was informed that an orderly
would bring my clothes and get me ready for a journey. This meant
Blighty!

A couple of the Royal Army Medical Corps men came into the tent and very
gently laid me in a stretcher, then carried me out along narrow pathways
bordered by neatly whitewashed stones and rows of double-linked marquee
tents with similar neat arrangements of stones at the entrances. There
seemed to be a city of tents on the Rouen _Champ de Course_ (race course),
and outside of it too, as far as my eyes could see.

At the end farthest from the cook-house huts, I noticed a large boiler
arrangement with a funnel sticking up at one end and on the door some
large print, but I could not read the lettering. I asked one of the men
what the object was. I was informed that it was used for disinfecting
Tommy's clothes and exterminating the cooties that they sheltered. Tom