Each of the motor ambulances carried four men, two above and two below. I was put on top, and the door flap pulled over. We jolted and pitched and swayed. Once we turned short and skidded at a curve. I knew just the very place, although it was dark in the ambulance. I had gone over the road often with ration parties. Fortunately the morphia was beginning to take effect, and dulled the pain to some extent. At last the ambulance stopped, somebody pulled the curtain back, and we were lifted out. We were on West Beach. A pier ran out into the sea. A man-o'-war launch towing a string of boats glided in near enough to let her first boat come close to the pier. The breeze was quite fresh, and made me shiver. The stretchers were laid across the boats, close to each other. Soon all the boats were filled. I could see the man on the stretcher to the right of me, but the one on the other side I could not see. I tried to turn my head but could not. The eyes of the man next me were large with pain. I smiled at him, but instead of smiling back at me, his lip curled resentfully, and he turned over on his side so that he could face away from me. As he did, the blanket slipped from his shoulder, and I saw on his shoulder strap the star of a second lieutenant. I had committed the unpardonable sin. I had smiled at an officer as if I had been an equal, forgetting that he was not made of common clay. Once after that, when he turned his head, his eyes met mine disdainfully. That time I did not smile. I have often laughed at the incident since, but there on that boat I was boiling with rage. Not a word had passed between us, but his expression in turning away had been eloquent. I cursed him and the system that produced him, and swore that never again would I put on a uniform. Gradually I calmed down; the morphia had got in its work. In a little while I had sunk into a comatose condition. I remember, in a hazy sort of way, being taken aboard a large lighter. There were tiers of stretchers on both sides. This time I was in the lower tier, and was wondering how soon the man above me would fall on me. At last I went to sleep. When I awoke, I was alone and in mid-air. All about me was black. By that time I was completely paralyzed from the waist up. I could see only directly above my head. It was night, and the sky was dotted with twinkling stars. I could feel no movement, but the stars came slowly nearer and nearer. "What was I doing here in mid-air?" Subconsciously I thought of the body of Mohammed, suspended between earth and heaven. Now I felt I had hit on the answer. I was going to heaven, and the thought was very comforting. Suddenly the stars stopped, and after a pause began receding. A face appeared above me, then the head and shoulders of a man dressed in the uniform of a naval officer. This suggested something else to me. The officers of the Flying Corps wear naval uniforms. I decided that while I was asleep I had been transferred to the Flying Corps.