The station platform, when we reached it, was generally a blank perspective devoid of all living creatures except ourselves. Fate decreed that we should be summoned long before the train was due. I have kicked my heels for many a doleful hour on that platform, and the reflection that "they also serve who only stand and wait" was chilly comfort if--as frequently happened--we had been hurried off dinnerless. The convoys' arrivals always seemed to coincide with dinner-time. On our return to the hospital we should find that the rations had been kept hot for us. But, in the meanwhile, an empty stomach was a poor preparation for the strain of carrying stretchers up the stairs from the station platform to the ambulances; and those of us who could produce pennies for automatic-machine chocolate gained an instant popularity. The longest period of waiting drew to an end at last, however. The platform assumed a livelier air. The station-master appeared from his den. Officers of the Army Medical Service and the Red Cross strolled down. And the stairs and platform echoed to the pattering of the feet of hosts of industrious "Bluebottles," fetching stretchers and blankets. The blue-uniformed volunteers who form a portion of the London Ambulance Column are nicknamed the Bluebottles in allusion to their dress. It is a nickname which, let me say at once, any man might be proud of. I know not whether the history of the Bluebottles has yet been written, but certain it is that their doings have got into newspaper print less often than they deserved. For theirs is a double role which truly merits the country's admiration. While carrying on the commerce of the Empire--that vital commerce without which there would be bankruptcy and no sinews of war, nor indeed any England left to defend--they have vowed themselves also, of their own free-will, to the helping of the wounded. Day or night the Bluebottle is liable to be called from his desk or his home by the telephone: like the Florentine Brother of the Misericordia he must instantly hurry into his uniform and rush to the place appointed. He may be busy or he may be tired; no matter: his vow holds good. Off he goes, to the railway-station to meet the hospital train and evacuate its stretchers.