remains. Where matches fall there they lie. The stumps of cigarettes
grace even the insides of flower-pots, knives are wiped on bread,
and overcoats of enormous weight (khaki in colour, with a red cross
on the arm) are hung on inefficient loose nails, and fall down.
Towels are always scarce; but then, they serve as dinner-napkins,
pocket-handkerchiefs, and even as pillow-cases, so no wonder we are a
little short of them. There is no necessity for muddle. There never is
any necessity for it.

The communal life is a mistake. I wonder if Christ got bored with it.

On Sundays I always want to rest, and something always makes me write.
The attack comes on quite early. It is irresistible. At last I am a
little happy after these dreary months, and it is only because I can
think a little, and because the days are not quite so dark. I think the
nights have been longer here than I ever knew them. No doubt it is the
bad weather and the small amount of light indoors that make the days
seem so short.

I am going back to-morrow to the station, with its train-loads of
wounded men. I _want_ to go, and to give them soup and comforts and
cigarettes, but just ten days' illness and idleness have "balmed my
soul."

_22 February._--Waited all day for a car to come and fetch me away. It
was dull work as I could never leave the flat, and all my things were
packed up, and there was no coal.

_23 February._--Waited again all day. I got very tired of standing by
the window looking out on a strip of beach at the bottom of the street,