The Gordons made a great bayonet charge, but lost heavily in officers and men in half an hour; we have some on the train. The French also lost heavily, and lie unburied in hundreds; but the men say the Germans were still more badly "punished." They tell us that in the base hospitals they never get a clean wound; even the emergency amputations and trephinings and operations done in the Clearing Hospitals are septic, and no one who knew the conditions would wonder at it. We shall all forget what aseptic work is by the time we get home. The anti-tetanus serum injection that every wounded man gets with his first dressing has done a great deal to keep the tetanus under, and the spreading gangrene is less fatal than it was. It is treated with incisions and injections of H_{2}O_{2}, or, when necessary, amputation in case of limbs. You suspect it by the grey colour of the face and by another sense, before you look at the dressing. At B. a man at the station greeted me, and it was my old theatre orderly at No. 7 Pretoria. We were very pleased to see each other. I fitted him out with a pack of cards, post-cards, acid drops, and a nice grey pair of socks. A wounded officer told us he was giving out the mail in his trench the night before last, and nearly every man had either a letter or a parcel. Just as he finished a shell came and killed his sergeant and corporal; if they hadn't had their heads out of the trench at that moment for the mail, neither of them would have been hit. The officer could hardly get through the story for the tears in his eyes. VI. On No.-- Ambulance Train (4) CHRISTMAS AND NEW YEAR ON THE TRAIN _December 18, 1914, to January 3, 1915_ "Judge of the passionate hearts of men, God of the wintry wind and snow, Take back the blood-stained year again, Give us the Christmas that we know." --F.G. SCOTT, _Chaplain with the Canadians_. VI. On No.-- Ambulance Train (4). CHRISTMAS AND NEW YEAR ON THE TRAIN. _December 18, 1914, to January 3, 1915._ The Army and the King--Mufflers--Christmas Eve--Christmas on the train--Princess Mary's present--The trenches in winter--"A typical example"--New Year's Eve at Rouen--The young officers. _Friday, December 18th_, 10.30 A.M.--We've had an all-night journey to Rouen, and have almost got there. One of my sitting-ups was 106 deg. this morning, but it was only malaria, first typical one I have met since S.A. A man who saw the King when he was here said, "They wouldn't let him come near the trenches; if a shell had come and hit him I think the Army would 'a gone mad; there'd be no keeping 'em in the trenches after that." This place before Rouen is Darnetal, a beautiful spiry town in a valley, pronounced by the Staff of No.-- A.T. "Darn it all." 6 P.M.--We unloaded by 12, and had just had time to go out and get a bath at the best baths in France.