And then, unfortunately, on the parapet of the second line I got my little dose, and was laid out. Goodness knows, that shell certainly laid out some Boches as well as me. I'll say this for 'em, they met us on the parapet all right. But "A" Company's business was urgent. We had scores to settle from Petticoat Lane and other choice spots; and the Kaiser's got no one who could stop us. I do wish I could have seen it through. I know they tried hard to counter us out of that line. But they couldn't shift old "A," who did just as well when I dropped out as before--the beggars! Lawson tells me I was yelling like a madman on that parapet for some time before I went to sleep, you know: "I'll be there in a minute!"--there in a minute! How absurd! Next thing I knew I was being lifted out of a trench stretcher, right away back at Battalion Headquarters in the old support line. Then the good old Batt'n M.O. prodded around me for a bit, and gave me a cigarette, I remember. I remember hearing him say: "Oh! well, _you're_ all right." And then I must have had another doze. Next thing I remember I was lying in a right-hand lower stretcher in a motor ambulance, and soon after that I was in bed in the Field Ambulance at ----. The same night I came on here, the Field Ambulance being pretty busy and full up. It's only a few miles off. I know there was snow all round when I was being lifted out of the motor ambulance into the hall here. And then comfort, and cleanliness and quiet; most wonderful peace, and English nursing sisters. My goodness, aren't English nursing sisters lovely? English women, all of 'em, for that matter. And they say there are still some men at home who don't want to join! Seems queer to me. Well, Lawson is rapidly developing writer's cramp, and I don't wonder at it. And so I'm to move on somewhere else soon from here. In any case, you understand, don't you, that I'm all right, wanting for nothing, and most kindly looked after. I'll write again very soon, and whatever you do, don't have the smallest feeling of anxiety about your "_Temporary Gentleman_." BLIGHTY This is to be evacuation day. A dozen officers and nearly a hundred other ranks are to leave this place to-day for one or other of the bases. The life of a permanent official in one of these Clearing Stations must be curious, handling as he does a never-ending stream of the flotsam and jetsam of the great war. The war knocks chips off us, and as we are broken we stream in through the hospitable portals of this beautifully organised and managed place; are put in plaster of Paris, so to say, and off we go again to another place to be further doctored; the more newly chipped arriving by one gate, as we go trickling out by another. And this process is continuous. Along the British front alone a score or more of men are bowled over every hour. In a place like this the process is brought home to one.