Oh, Cornelia, the waste, the wanton waste and cruelty of war. Where is it tending? Where shall we be brought before it is over? Sometimes my brain reels at the thought. Meanwhile the band is slowly tightening. We have not had any butter at home for over a week. *XIII* The awful suspense about Himself I was enduring when I wrote last was broken at last by a cable from France. It came from Effie at Camiers and it took me some time to grasp its meaning. "Safe, unhurt; tell your mother," was every word it said. Florence and I, poring distractedly over it together, could only arrive at the conclusion that there had been a disaster at sea, in which our troopship was involved. We did not even know its name, from what port it had sailed, or whither bound; in fact we did not know he had sailed at all from the French base. It is the black darkness in which one has to live which makes it so hard to be a soldier’s wife in war times. A few more awful days had to be lived through—whole ten of them, then a long, closely written letter from Himself, arrived from a port in France, whose very name was not given. But the story was wonderfully vivid and full; in fact I didn’t know how it had passed the Censor, till I saw his own signature on the envelope, indicating that he had censored it himself. I must not enclose the letter, nor yet tell you all it contained, because I want you to get what I am writing. These are the facts: They set sail from Marseilles after long, dreary waiting in a particularly unpleasant camp, and next morning at ten o’clock were torpedoed off the Italian coast, not far from Genoa. Do you remember Genoa and its terraces where we met first, so long ago that it seems as if it must have been in some other existence? You know how Himself writes, very simply and directly, without any embroideries, but his narrative was far more impressive than if he had tried to make it effective. It simply just makes you see it all, realise the horror of it. The first torpedo disabled the ship, but if the enemy had left it at that, she could have been taken into port under her own steam. There was, of course, a good deal of excitement and the boats were difficult to handle, apparently they had never been inspected or tested for any emergency. Can you conceive it, Cornelia, we have been three years at war and yet such elementary precautions are left to chance? Priceless time was lost grappling with them, and before they could be lowered, priceless lives were lost. Himself waiting calmly, ready for the emergency,—or for the end, for which he needed no preparation, saw the second shell launched from the submarine. Many of the boats had got clear. One had the sixty nurses who comprised the hospital unit; sitting up to their middles in water, they sang hymns to cheer those drifting helpless in the sea. The second torpedo found its mark amidships and the gallant boat went down in eight minutes.