The trip down from the front was very hard. They all came by train this time. One team after a long train trip arrived at a fair-sized coast town at 2 P.M. The doctor tried to get a room at the hotel for the nurse, who was dead with cold and fatigue, but all the rooms had been taken by officers going through on their way to posts. Their train was to go out at one A.M., so the doctor only wanted the room for the evening for this nurse. Finally the proprietor said he would let the nurse have the room of an officer who had gone out for the evening but he was expected in at twelve. But that seemed fine, so the nurse had a little rest in this man’s room, but at twelve was called, for the officer had come back and was waiting outside the door. The rest of the night she sat up in a freezing French railway carriage, the only woman with her doctor, her two orderlies, and two Tommies. The Tommies and the orderlies piled up on each other and went sound to sleep, but she and the doctor waggled and jolted through the miserable, damp, cold night. They reached here at one o’clock the next afternoon, and really had come so few miles as the crow flies. How I wished for a warm bathroom and a quiet cozy sleeping place for these weary, dirty, splendid women of mine. But willing, eager hands brought pitchers of hot water and put hot-water bags in little beds that are clean if small, and brought trays of food, and now after two days both of the nurses are looking a little less green and black around the eyes. And how glad and grateful we are to have them back. There are two more away, and another is probably to go soon, and she is none the less eager after hearing the tales of the others. Major Murphy says the experience is, of course, very wonderful, but it is brutal. He means brutal on the teams. But English men and women have been doing this for months and months. This was a very big push that these two teams have been through. It is a marvel to me that human beings can stand it all. October 30, 1917. Dearest Dad and Mother:-- It is quite a long time since I last wrote anything more than just short handwritten notes. It was the 14th that my last letter was dated, I find. Since that time we have been pretty hard at work. We had very little let-up at all for about six weeks. Our numbers have kept over the thousand mark all along, which means for us very little time for play.