scared lad of a German at his side. He's gabbling away making
throat-noises and signs, smiling and doing his inarticulate best to be
intelligible. He pats the Hun on the back, hands him chocolate and
cigarettes, exchanges souvenirs and shares with him his last
luxury. If any one interferes with his Fritzie he's willing to
fight. When they come to the cage where the prisoner has to be handed
over, the farewells of these companions whose acquaintance has been
made at the bayonet-point are often as absurd as they are affecting. I
suppose one only learns the value of kindness when he feels the need
of it himself. The men out there have said "Good-bye" to everything
they loved, but they've got to love some one--so they give their
affections to captured Fritzies, stray dogs, fellows who've collected
a piece of a shell--in fact to any one who's a little worse off than
themselves. My ambulance-driver was like that with his "Sure, Mike."
He was like it during the entire drive. When he came to the white road
which climbs the ridge with all the enemy country staring at it, it
would have been excusable in him to have hurried. The Hun barrage
might descend at any minute. All the way, in the ditches on either
side, dead pack animals lay; in the dug-outs there were other unseen
dead making the air foul. But he drove slowly and gently, skirting the
shell-holes with diligent care so as to spare us every unnecessary
jolting. I don't know his name, shouldn't recognise his face, but I
shall always remember the almost womanly tenderness of his driving.

After two changes into other ambulances at different distributing
points, I arrived about nine on a summer's evening at the Casualty
Clearing Station. In something less than an hour I was undressed and
on the operating table.

You might suppose that when for three interminable years such a stream