The cots were just as comfortable as beds; there was every appliance for dressing our wounds, and the nurses and doctors looked after us indefatigably. In such surroundings aspects of the war which are taken more seriously elsewhere are made light of. The patients made jokes about each other's wounds and their own, and all were so glad to be alive that pain and suffering were almost forgotten. There was one fellow in the cot next to mine who in the middle of a silence suddenly uttered an exclamation of annoyance. Asked what was the matter, he said he wanted to know the time and had just discovered he had lost his watch. It was a wrist watch, he explained, and must have been left on the arm they had amputated at the field ambulance. At Plymouth we were taken on board a launch and landed at a quay close by the naval hospital. The ingenious cots devised by the Navy enable a wounded man to be moved bodily in his bed, all wrapped up and warm, to the bed in the hospital. They are so made that they can either be carried as stretchers, or slung from a ship's side, or put on hand-trolleys and wheeled. The Naval Hospital at Plymouth is a model of neatness and smartness, each patient in the officers' quarters gets a small room to himself which is called a cabin; the orderlies are all ex-sailors and handy and obliging as only sailors can be; and the naval nurses in their smart blue uniforms are a pleasure to watch. I stayed at Plymouth for five days, when I was allowed to travel to London. PRINTED AT THE BALLANTYNE PRESS LONDON & EDINBURGH SOLDIERS' TALES OF THE GREAT WAR Each Volume Crown 8vo, Cloth, 3s 6d net I WITH MY REGIMENT By "PLATOON COMMANDER" [_Ready_ _To be followed by_ II DIXMUDE A chapter in the History of the Naval Brigade, Oct.-Nov. 1914 By CHARLES LE GOFFIC _Illustrated_ III IN THE FIELD (1914-15) The Impressions of an Officer of Light Cavalry IV IN THE DARDANELLES AND SERBIA Notes of a French Army Doctor _Illustrated_ LONDON: WILLIAM HEINEMANN 21 Bedford Street, W.C.