Already at 7 o'clock there were men going along the quay--a steady stream of them, tramping, splashing, stumbling towards the steamer. In the matter of the sailing of leave boats rumour is the sole informant, and rumour had it that this boat would start at 10 a.m. Leave is a precious thing. He takes no risks who has secured the coveted pass to Blighty. It is a small matter to wait three hours on a rain-swept quay. It would be a disaster beyond imagining to miss the boat. Officers make for the boat in twos or threes, their trench coats, buttoned tightly, flap round putteed or gaitered legs. Drenched haversacks hang from their shoulders. Parties of men, fully burdened with rifles and kit, march down from the rest camp where they have spent the night. The mud of the trenches is still thick on them. One here and there wears his steel helmet. They carry all sorts of strange packages, sacks tied at the mouth, parcels sewed up in sacking, German helmets slung on knapsacks, valueless trophies of battlefields, loot from captured dug-outs, pathetically foolish souvenirs bought in French shops, all to be presented to the wives, mothers, sweethearts who wait at home. A couple of army sisters, lugging suit-cases, clinging to the flying folds of their grey cloaks, walk, bent forward against the wind and rain. A blue-coated Canadian nurse, brass stars on her shoulder straps, has given an arm to a V.A.D. girl, a creature already terrified at the prospect of crossing the sea on such a day. The rain streams down their faces, but perhaps Canadians are accustomed to worse rain in their own country. Certainly this young woman does not seem to mind it. She is smiling and walks jauntily. Like many of our cousins from overseas she is rich in splendid vitality. A heavy grey motor rushes along, splashing the walkers. Beside the driver is a pile of luggage. Inside, secure behind plate glass from any weather, sits a general. Another motor follows and still others. British staff officers and military attaches from allied nations, the privileged classes of the war, sweep by while humbler men splash and stumble. But in front of the gangway of the leave boat, as at the gates of Paradise, there is no distinction of persons. The mean man and the mighty find the same treatment there. There comes a moment when the car must be left, when crossed sword and baton on the shoulder straps avail their wearer no more than a single star. A sailor, relentless as Rhadamanthus, stands on the gangway and bars the way to the shelter of the ship. No one--so the order has gone forth--is to be allowed on board before 9 o'clock. There is shelter a few yards behind, a shed. A few seek it. I prefer to stand, with other early comers, in a cluster round the end of the gangway, determined, though we wait hours, to be among the first on board.