That utter quietness of the girls was a thing that had impressed me after staying in hotels full of the British Army, which goes to bed at midnight, bangs its doors, throws its boots outside, shouts from room to room, and begins the whole process, reversed, at about six o'clock the next morning. Here the girls wore soundless slippers, so that those who had to be about should not disturb those who slept, and doors were opened and shut with a cotton-wool care which appealed to me, or would have, if I hadn't had to get up. When I was dressed I found my way down endless blowy corridors, for the doors at the ends are always kept open, to the room of the girl who had called me. She looked at my fur coat and said it would get spoilt. I replied with great truth that it was past spoiling, but she took it off me, whipped my cap from my head, and the girls proceeded to dress me. They pulled a leather cap with ear-pieces down on my head and stuffed me into woolly jackets and wound my neck up in a comforter and finished up with a huge leather coat and a pair of fur gloves like bear's paws, so that when all was done I couldn't bend and had to be hoisted quite stiff up to the front of the ambulance. But first we all went into the kitchen, where part of the domestic staff sits up all night to prepare food for the night drivers. There we drank the loveliest cocoa I ever met, the sort the spoon would stand up in, piping hot, out of huge bowls. Then my driver and the section leader for the night led me across the soaking park to where, in almost total darkness, girls were busy with their ambulances. I was hoisted up beside my driver and endeavoured clumsily with my bear's paws to fasten the canvas flap back across the side as I was bidden. I may say that I felt extraordinarily clumsy amongst these girls, most of whom could have put me in their pockets. They knew so exactly what to do, their movements were all so perfectly adjusted to their needs, they knew where everything was, while I fumbled for steps and hoped for the best.... They made me feel, in the beautiful way they shepherded me, that I was a silly useless female and that they were grave chivalrous young men; they watched over me with just that matter-of-fact care. To me it was all wonderful, that experience. To the girls, who do it every night, every alternate fortnight, year in, year out, the thrill of it has naturally gone long since; the wonder is that to them all remains the pity of it. We swung out of the park into the road. There was no moon, the stars were mostly hidden by the heavy clouds, the sleet blew in gusts against the wind screen. We went at a good pace, bound for a Canadian hospital, and then for a station beyond E----, where the train was waiting, for this was what is called an "evacuation" that I was going to see. No train of wounded was due in that night, and the Convoy's business was to take men who were being sent elsewhere from the hospitals to the train.