wounded--with luck even from your own brigade, battery or battalion.
Then the talk becomes all about how things are going, whether we're
still holding on to our objectives, who's got a blighty and who's gone
west. One discussion you don't often hear--as to when the war will
end. To these civilians in khaki it seems that the war has always been
and that they will never cease to be soldiers. For them both past and
future are utterly obliterated. They would not have it otherwise.
Because they are doing their duty they are contented. The only time
the subject is ever touched on is when some one expresses the hope
that it'll last long enough for him to recover from his wounds and get
back into the line. That usually starts another man, who will never be
any more good for the trenches, wondering whether he can get into the
flying corps. The one ultimate hope of all these shattered wrecks who
are being hurried to the Blighty they have dreamt of, is that they may
again see service.

The tang of salt in the air, the beat of waves and then, incredible
even when it has been realised, England. I think they ought to make
the hospital trains which run to London all of glass, then instead of
watching little triangles of flying country by leaning uncomfortably
far out of their bunks, the wounded would be able to drink their full
of the greenness which they have longed for so many months. The trees
aren't charred and blackened stumps; they're harps between the knees
of the hills, played on by the wind and sun. The villages have their
roofs on and children romping in their streets. The church spires
haven't been knocked down; they stand up tall and stately. The
roadsides aren't littered with empty shell-cases and dead horses. The
fields are absolutely fields, with green crops, all wavy, like hair
growing. After the tonsured filth we've been accustomed to call a
world, all this strikes one as unnatural and extraordinary. There's a