"That same big bus is used several times a week to take parties for the long ride along the Riviera, to Nice, Monte Carlo, and Menton--one of the supremely beautiful drives of the world. There is an hour's stop in Nice, another in Monte Carlo for lunch, and then, after a glimpse of the Italian border, the party turns back. The Hotel Cap d'Antibes, with its many lights, looks very pleasant after the long, cold ride--it is always cold on the Riviera after the sun goes down--and dinner, always good, tastes especially so to the hungry tourists. "The Cap is too isolated to be gay in the evening; but, after all, most of the women there have come to rest and recuperate, so they are glad of a quiet game of bridge, a book before the open fire, or a short walk in the magic of southern moonlight. The energetic younger ones usually pull back the rugs and dance--a hen party, to be sure; fun just the same, if one judges by the faces of the girls. There is generally singing, too. One nurse while I was there had a very lovely voice (you kept thinking how much pleasure she must have been able to give the men in her ward) and after she had sung the verse of some popular song, every one joined the chorus. And it was at one of these singsongs, in the big white-paneled drawing-room, with the yellow light falling on many faces about the piano, that I had a glimpse of a gray hospital ward and one of those tragic commonplaces that make up the life of a nurse in times of war. "The singer had been singing a favorite song of the British Tommies with a strong cockney accent: "'Oi want go 'ome, Oi want to go 'ome, Now that Belgium is Belgium again, Now that France has got Alsace-Lorraine, Carry me over the sea, Where the Allymand cannot get me, Oh my, I'm too young to die, I want to go 'ome,' when a girl near me, who had been rather silent, spoke for the first time: "'That song reminds me of a boy I used to have in my ward. He had a broken back and it was just a question of time, but he didn't know that. He sang that song until I thought I couldn't stand it.' "The singing was still to be heard as I slipped into my coat a few minutes later and went out of doors. Down on the rocks the water slipped against them softly, overhead were a million stars in the dark sky. "And so, war--hideous and relentless--intrudes even on the peace of beautiful places, as it always will for most of us as long as we live. But even if the memories of what lay behind them came back to the nurses who had their leave at Cap d'Antibes, the days there were mostly happy ones. Nothing that the Red Cross has done has been more worth while than this place that they have had for the nurses who needed rest and recuperation. There were the creature comforts of hot water, good food, and soft beds; there was sunshine after an eternity of rain; peace after war." CHAPTER IX THE RED CROSS IN THE HOSPITALS OF THE A. E. F.