. For an Englishman just returned
from a foreign battlefield to his own capital it should be an inspiring
view, that of the Home of Government, wherein the Snowdens, Outhwaites,
Ponsonbys, and Sir Vested Interests, talk their hardest for the winning
of the war by one side or the other, I am not sure which. But somehow it
isn't.

I have mentioned the hospital's position, because it will help you on
the day after to-morrow, if the herewith forecast is correct.

You will read this letter, hang me for my customary disturbing
suddenness, and search a time-table. This will tell you that a train
from your part of the country arrives in town at 11.45 A.M.
(_e_), which bracketed letter means Saturdays excepted. By it you will
travel on Tuesday morning. Then, in the afternoon, you will seek a taxi,
but either the drivers will have as fares middle-aged contractors, good
for a fat tip, or they will claim a lack of petrol, lady. You will
therefore fight for place in a bus, which must be left at the corner of
Whitehall and Queen Victoria Street. Next you will walk towards the
river, past Westminster Abbey and the Houses of Talk, and so to Chelsea
Embankment. Turn off by the Tate Gallery, enter the large building on
your right, and you will have arrived. Visiting hours are from two to
four, but as the Sister is one of the best and my very kind friend, you
will not be turned out until five.

But I can hear you ask leading questions. No, I am not badly wounded nor
seriously ill. Neither am I suffering from shell-shock, nor even from
cold feet. A Blighty injury of the cushiest is the spring actuating
this Jack-in-the-Box appearance. Have patience. To-day's inactivity has
bred a pleasant boredom, which I shall work off by writing you a history
of the reasons why I am back from the big war. They include a Hun
aeroplane, a crash, a lobster, and two doctors.

You will remember how, months ago, our machine landed on an abandoned
trench, after being damaged in a scrap? A bullet through the petrol-pipe
having put the carburettor out of action, the engine ceased its revs.,
so that we glided several miles, crossed the then lines at a low height,
and touched earth among the network of last June's lines. We pancaked on
to the far edge of a trench, and the wheels slid backward into the
cavity, causing the lower wings and fuselage to be crumpled and broken.

My left knee, which has always been weak since a far-back accident, was
jerked by contac