glasses, and now and then all through the night matches were lighted,
illuminating the room for a second, followed by the glowing end of a
cigarette shining like a star in the darkness.

The sleeping men breathed heavily, tossed about violently, gave strange
jerks and starts. Sometimes they spoke aloud in their sleep.

"That isn't a dud, you fool! It will blow us to hell."

"Now then, get on with it, can't you?"

"Look out! They're coming! Can't you see them moving by the wire?"

The spirit of war was in that ward and hunted them even in their sleep;
lurking terrors surged up again in their subconsciousness. Sights which
they had tried to forget stared at them through their closed eyelids.
The daylight came and the night nurse slipped away, and the day
nurse shook one's shoulders and said: "Time to wash and shave. No
malingering!"

It was the discipline of the hospital. Men as weak as rats had to sit up
in bed, or crawl out of it, and shave themselves.

"You're merciless!" I said, laughing painfully when the day nurse dabbed
my back with cold iodine at six o'clock on a winter morning, with the
windows wide open.

"Oh, there's no mercy in this place!" said the strong-minded girl. "It's
kill or cure here, and no time to worry."

"You're all devils," said the New Zealand general. "You don't care a
damn about the patients so long as you have all the beds tidy by the
time the doctor comes around. I'm a general, I am, and you can't order
ME about, and if you think I'm going to shave at this time in the
morning you are jolly well mistaken. I am down with dysentery, and don't
you forget it. I didn't get through the Dardanelles to be murdered at
Amiens."

"That's where you may be mistaken, general," said the imperturbable
girl. "I have to carry out orders, and if they lead to your death it's
not my responsibility. I'm paid a poor wage for this job, but I do my
duty, rough or smooth, kill or cure."

"You're a vampire. That's what you are."

"I'm a nurse."

"If ever I hear you're going to marry a New Zealand boy I'll warn him
against you."

"He'll be too much of a fool to listen to you."

"I've a good mind to marry you myself and beat you every morning."

"Modern wives have strong muscles. Look at my arm!"

* * *

Three nights in one week there were air raids, and as the German mark
was the railway station we were in the center of the danger-zone. There
was a frightful noise of splintering glass and smashi