To-day's the day. When I woke this morning I had glimpses, as the ship rose and fell, of a green shore showing through the portholes on the far side of the deck. That was the Isle of Wight. Had a magnificent sleep all night; only opened my eyes two or three times. We were rather a long time getting in. Then came Medical Officers of the Home Service; and with surprisingly few benevolent smiles—not that they lack benevolence, at all—I learned that I was for London. It hardly seemed worth while to write any more, and I could not get off the ship to send a wire.
Now I am in a Red Cross division of an express train bound for Waterloo. I'll send you a wire from there when I know what hospital I am for. Shan't know that till we reach Waterloo. Meantime—that's Winchester we've just passed. Old England looks just the same. There is a little snow lying on the high ground round Winchester. It looks the same—yes, in a way; and in another way it never will look just the same again to me. Never just the same, I think. It will always mean a jolly lot more to me than it ever did before. Perhaps I'll be able to tell you about that when we meet. I find I can't write it. Queer thing, isn't it, that just seeing these fields from the windows of a train should bring the water to one's eyes? Very queer! One kind of sees it all through a picture of the trenches, you know.
"The Old Peacemaker" didn't tell me, but I know now that nearly half "A" Company are casualties; and there's a good many "gone West." Poor Taffy's gone. Such a clever lad, Taffy. My Platoon won't be quite the same again, will it? Platoon Sergeant, one other Sergeant, two Corporals, and a lot of men gone. We were in front, you see. Oh! I know there's nothing to grieve about, really. Petticoat Lane's behind our front now, thank goodness. That'll save many a good man from "going West" between now and the end of the war.
I'm not grieving, but it makes a difference, just as England is different. Everything must be different now. It can't be the same again, ever, after one's been in the trenches. If Germany wants to boast, she can boast that she's altered the world for us. She certainly has. It can never be the same again. But I think it will be found, by and by, she has altered it in a way she never meant. Of course, I don't know anything much about it; just the little bit in one's own Brigade, you know. But it does seem to me, from the little I've seen, that where Germany meant to break us, she has made us infinitely stronger than we were before. Look at our fellows! Each one is three times the man he was before the war. The words "fighting for England" had next to no meaning for me before August, 1914. But now! that's why these fields look different, why England can never again look the same to me as it did before. I know now that this England is part of me, or I'm part of it. I know the meaning of England, and I swear I never did before. Why, you know, the very earth of it—well, when I think how the Boche has torn and ravaged all before him over there, and then think of our England, of what the Hun would do here, if he got half a chance.... It's as though England were one's mother, and some swine were to——
But it's no good. I can't write about it. I'll try to tell you. But, do you know, it wasn't till I saw these fields that the notion came over me that I'm sort of proud and glad to have these blessed wounds; glad to have been knocked about a bit. I wonder whether you and Mother will be glad, too; I somehow think you will—for your
"Temporary Gentleman."
THE END
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