Pattern X.B.451.--"Method of turning
down sheets on Beds Hospital." On "Beds Barrack" the method is
slightly different and is just as ably shown on Sealed pattern X.B.452.
During moments of intense depression one is apt to fear the war-winning
properties of X.B.451 and 452 have not been sufficiently appreciated by
an unintelligent public.

The period of strain incurred on entrance was over as far as Vane was
concerned. For the sixth time since leaving his battalion he had, in a
confidential aside, informed a minion of the B.A.M.O. that he was a Wee
Free Presbyterian Congregationalist; and for the sixth time the worthy
recipient of this news had retired to consult War Office Sealed List of
Religions A.F.31 to find out if he was entitled to be anything of the
sort. In each case the answer had been in the negative, and Vane had
been entered as "Other Denominations" and regarded with suspicion. One
stout sergeant had even gone so far as to attempt to convert him to
Unitarianism; another showed him the list, and asked him to take his
choice.

In the bed next to him was a young Gunner subaltern, with most of his
right leg shot away, and they talked spasmodically, in the intervals of
trying to read month old magazines.

"Wonderful sight," remarked the Gunner, interrupted for a moment in his
story by the eternal thermometer. "Firing at 'em over open sights:
shrapnel set at 0. Seemed to cut lanes through 'em; though, God be
praised, they came on for a bit, and didn't spoil our shooting."

Vane, sucking a thermometer under his tongue, nodded sympathetically.

"A bit better than sitting in a bally O.P. watchin' other fellows poop
at the mud."

"How did you get yours?" he queried, as the Sister passed on.

"Crump almost at my feet, just as I was going into my dug-out. . . .
Mouldy luck, and one splinter smashed the last bottle of whisky." The
gunner relapsed into moody silence at the remembrance of the tragedy.

Two beds further along the Padre was playing a game of chess with a
Major in the Devons; and on the opposite side of the tent another
chaplain, grey haired and clean shaven, was talking and laughing with a
boy, whose face and head were swathed in bandages.

The R.C. and the C. of E. exponents hunting in couples as these two
always did. . . . They are not the only two who before the war would
have relegated the other to the nethermost depths of the deepest Hell;
but whose eyes have been opened to wisdom no