looked like a terror stricken animal afraid of everybody, and hiding
under the sheet at the slightest approach. When I came in he cowered
back against the wall shaking from head to foot. I put a big bunch of
flowers on the bed, and in a flash his hands were stretched out for
them, and a smile came to his lips. After that whenever I passed the
door, he would shout out, "Arigato! Arigato!" which the nurse said was
the first sign of sanity he had shown.

In the next room was a man who had fallen from a mast on one of the
flag ships. He had landed full on his face and the result was too
fearful to describe. The nurse said he could not live through the
night so I laid my flowers on his bed and was slipping out when he
called to me. His whole head was covered with bandages except his
mouth and one eye, and I had to lean down very close to understand
what he said. What do you suppose he wanted? To look at my hat!! He
had never seen one before and he was just like a child in his
curiosity.

Of course, as foreigners, we always excite comment, and are gazed at,
examined and talked about continually. I sometimes feel like a wild
animal in a cage straight from the heart of Africa!

Our unfailing point of contact is the flowers. You cannot imagine how
they love them. I have seen men holding them tenderly in their fingers
and talking to them as they would to children. Imagine retreating
soldiers after a hard day's fight, stopping to put a flower in a dead
comrade's hand!

Oh! Mate, the most comical things and the most tragic, the most
horrible and the most beautiful are all mixed up together. Every time