VII.
BACK IN BLIGHTY.
... You last heard of my continued existence, I believe, from a field post-card with but one of the printed lines uncrossed: "I have been admitted to hospital." When this was sent I had no more expectation of a return to Blighty than has a rich Bishop of not entering the Kingdom of Heaven. Nevertheless, here we are again, after a three days' tour along the Red Cross lines of communication.
Again I have been admitted to hospital. This one is more sumptuous but less satisfying than the casualty clearing station at Gezaincourt, whence the card was posted. There, in a small chateau converted into an R.A.M.C. half-way house, one was not over-anxious to be up and about, for that would have meant a further dose of war at close quarters. Here, in a huge military hospital at Westminster, one is very anxious to be up and about, for that would mean a long-delayed taste of the joys of London. At Gezaincourt rumbling gunfire punctuated the countryside stillness; aeroplanes hummed past on their way to the lines, and engendered gratitude for a respite from encounters with Archie; from the ward window I could see the star-shells as they streaked up through the dim night. At Westminster rumbling buses punctuate the back-street stillness; taxis hum past on their way to the West End, and engender a longing for renewed acquaintance with the normal world and the normal devil; from the ward window I can see the towers of Parliament as they stretch up through the London greyness. For an Englishman just returned from a foreign battlefield to his own capital it should be an inspiring view, that of the Home of Government, wherein the Snowdens, Outhwaites, Ponsonbys, and Sir Vested Interests, talk their hardest for the winning of the war by one side or the other, I am not sure which. But somehow it isn't.
I have mentioned the hospital's position, because it will help you on the day after to-morrow, if the herewith forecast is correct.
You will read this letter, hang me for my customary disturbing suddenness, and search a time-table. This will tell you that a train from your part of the country arrives in town at 11.45 A.M. (e), which bracketed letter means Saturdays excepted. By it you will travel on Tuesday morning. Then, in the afternoon, you will seek a taxi, but either the drivers will have as fares middle-aged contractors, good for a fat tip, or they will claim a lack of petrol, lady. You will therefore fight for place in a bus, which must be left at the corner of Whitehall and Queen Victoria Street. Next you will walk towards the river, past Westminster Abbey and the Houses of Talk, and so to Chelsea Embankment. Turn off by the Tate Gallery, enter the large building on your right, and you will have arrived. Visiting hours are from two to four, but as the Sister is one of the best and my very kind friend, you will not be turned out until five.
But I can hear you ask leading questions. No, I am not badly wounded nor seriously ill. Neither am I suffering from shell-shock, nor even from cold feet. A Blighty injury of the cushiest is the spring actuating this Jack-in-the-Box appearance. Have patience. To-day's inactivity has bred a pleasant boredom, which I shall work off by writing you a history of the reasons why I am back from the big war. They include a Hun aeroplane, a crash, a lobster, and two doctors.
You will remember how, months ago, our machine landed on an abandoned trench, after being damaged in a scrap? A bullet through the petrol-pipe having put the carburettor out of action, the engine ceased its revs., so that we glided several miles, crossed the then lines at a low height, and touched earth among the network of last June's lines. We pancaked on to the far edge of a trench, and the wheels slid backward into the cavity, causing the lower wings and fuselage to be crumpled and broken.
My left knee, which has always been weak since a far-back accident, was jerked by contact with the parapet. Next day it seemed none the worse, so I did not take the accident seriously. During the weeks and months that followed the knee was painless, but it grew larger and larger for no noticeable reason, like Alice in Wonderland and the daily cost of the war.