After dinner some one remarked that "she" would soon come on duty, and there was an air of conscious expectancy among the veterans of the ward. "She," the V.A.D. girl who had received us when we were deposited at the hospital in the small hours of the morning, was--and is--an efficient nurse, a good comrade, a beautiful woman, and the friend of every casualty lucky enough to have been in her charge. For a wounded officer staled by the brutalities of trench life there could be no better mental tonic than the ministrations and charm of Our Lady of X Ward. I cannot guess the number and variety of proposals made to her by patients of a week's or a month's standing, but both must be large. She is also the possessor of this admirable and remarkable record. For two years she has been nursing--really nursing--in France, and yet, though she belongs to a well-known family, her photograph has never appeared in the illustrated papers that boom war-work patriots. On this particular evening, in the intervals of handing round medicines and cheerfulness, our comrade the night nurse made toffee for us over a gas-burner, a grey-haired colonel and a baby subaltern taking turns to stir the saucepan. The next change of scene was to the quays of Boulogne. Ambulance cars from the several hospitals lined up before a ship side-marked by giant Red Crosses. The stretcher casualties were carried up the gangway, down the stairs, and into the boat's wards below. The remainder were made comfortable on deck. Distribution of life-saving contraptions, business with medical cards, gleeful hoots from the funnel, chug-chug from the paddles, and hey for Blighty! across a smooth lake of a sea. Yarns of attack and bombardment were interrupted by the pleasurable discovery that Dover's cliffs were still white. We seemed an unkempt crowd indeed by contrast with dwellers on this side of the Channel. The ragged raiment of men pipped during a Somme advance did not harmonise with plush first-class compartments of the Chatham and Dover railway. Every uniform in our carriage, except mine and another, was muddied and bloodied, so that I felt almost ashamed of the comparative cleanliness allowed by life in an R.F.C. camp, miles behind the lines. The subaltern opposite, however, was immaculate as the fashion-plate of a Sackville Street tailor. Yet, we thought, he must have seen some tough times, for he knew all about each phase of the Somme operations. Beaumont Hamel? He explained exactly how the Blankshires and Dashshires, behind a dense barrage, converged up the high ground fronting the stronghold. Stuff Redoubt? He gave us a complete account of its capture, loss, and recapture. But this seasoned warrior quietened after the visit of an official who listed us with particulars of wounds, units, and service. His service overseas? Five months in the Claims Department at Amiens. Wound or sickness? Scabies.