In bed on board the Red Cross ship. All spotless white enamel and electric light, and spotlessly-aproned nurses, just as in hospital. I've just been dressed for the night; clean bandages and everything comfortable. From the last benevolent smile I elicited I shouldn't be surprised if we weighed anchor round about midnight; but I may be quite wrong. Anyhow, I feel remarkably comfortable. I think there must have been something specially comforting in the medicine I had when my bandages were changed. I shall sleep like a top. I don't think I've quite got the hang yet of the fact that I am actually bound for Blighty. But there it is; I'm on the ship, and I suppose it's on the cards I may see you before this scribble of mine can reach you by post. In which case, it seems rather waste of time writing at all, doesn't it? I think I'll go to sleep. I haven't slept since the night before last. That boy I told you of who was bombed, after being in a mine explosion, is sleeping like an infant in the next cot but one to mine. Nice-looking chap. I'm glad he's sleeping; and I bet somebody will be glad to see him in Blighty to-morrow. To-morrow! Just fancy that! * * * * * _Next day._ To-day's the day. When I woke this morning I had glimpses, as the ship rose and fell, of a green shore showing through the portholes on the far side of the deck. That was the Isle of Wight. Had a magnificent sleep all night; only opened my eyes two or three times. We were rather a long time getting in. Then came Medical Officers of the Home Service; and with surprisingly few benevolent smiles--not that they lack benevolence, at all--I learned that I was for London. It hardly seemed worth while to write any more, and I could not get off the ship to send a wire. Now I am in a Red Cross division of an express train bound for Waterloo. I'll send you a wire from there when I know what hospital I am for. Shan't know that till we reach Waterloo. Meantime--that's Winchester we've just passed. Old England looks just the same. There is a little snow lying on the high ground round Winchester. It looks the same--yes, in a way; and in another way it never will look just the same again to me. Never just the same, I think. It will always mean a jolly lot more to me than it ever did before. Perhaps I'll be able to tell you about that when we meet. I find I can't write it. Queer thing, isn't it, that just seeing these fields from the windows of a train should bring the water to one's eyes? Very queer! One kind of sees it all through a picture of the trenches, you know.