I was just getting cigarettes for an up-going train of field-kitchens and guns out of your parcel when it began to move. The men on each truck stood ready, and caught the packets as eagerly as if they'd been diamonds as I threw them in from my train. It was a great game; only two went on the ground. The "Surprise," I suppose, is in the round tin. We are keeping it for a lean day.
6 p.m.—We are just coming to Chocques for Indians again, not far from Armentières, so I am looking up my Hindustani conversation again.
On Friday—the day between these two journeys—Sister N. and I got a motor ambulance from the T.O. and whirled off to Wimereux in it. It is a lovely place on the sea, about three miles off, now with every hotel, casino, and school taken up by R.A.M.C. Base Hospitals. It was a lovely blue morning, and I went right out to the last rock on the sands and watched the breakers while Sister N. attended to some business. It was glorious after the everlasting railway carriage atmosphere. Then we found a very nice old church in the town. It is too wet to load up with the Indians to-night, so we have the night in bed, and take them down to-morrow.
A sergeant of the 10th Hussars told me he was in a house with some supposed Belgian refugees. He noticed that when a little bell near the ceiling rang one of them always dashed upstairs. He put a man upstairs to trace this bell and intercept the Belgian. It was connected with the little trap-door of a pigeon-house. When a pigeon came in with a message, this door rang the bell and they went up and got the message. They didn't reckon on having British in the house. They were shot next morning.
It takes me a month to read a Sevenpenny out here.
Sunday (Advent), November 29th.—On the way down from Chocques. We have got Indians, British, and eight Germans this time. One big, handsome, dignified Mussulman wouldn't eat his biscuit because he was in the same compartment as a Hindu, and the Hindu wouldn't eat his because the Mussulman had handed it to him. The Babu I called in to interpret was very angry with both, and called the M. a fool-man, and explained to us that he was telling them that in England "Don't care Mussulman, don't care Hindu"—only in Hindustan, and that if the Captain Sahib said "Eat," it was "Hukm," and they'd got to. My sympathies were with the beautiful, polite, sad-looking M., who wouldn't budge an inch, and only salaamed when the Babu went for him.
Monday, November 30th, Boulogne.—Yesterday a wounded Tommy on the train told me "the Jack Johnsons have all gone." To-day's French communiqué says, "The enemy's heavy artillery is little in evidence." There is a less strained feeling about everywhere—a most blessed lull.
We were late getting our load off the train last night, and some were very bad. One of my Sikhs with pneumonia did not live to reach Boulogne. Another pneumonia was very miserable, and kept saying, "Hindustan gurrum England tanda." They all think they are in England. The Gurkhas are supposed by the orderlies to be Japanese. They are exactly like Japs, only brown instead of yellow. The orderlies make great friends with them all. One Hindu was singing "Bonnie Dundee" to them in a little gentle voice, very much out of tune. Their great disadvantage is that they are alive with "Jack Johnsons" (not the guns). They take off all their underclothes and throw them out of the window, and we have to keep supplying them with pyjamas and shirts. They sit and stand about naked, scratching for dear life. It is fatal for the train, because all the cushioned seats are now infected, and so are we. I love them dearly, but it is a big price to pay.
Tuesday, December 1st.—We are to-day in a beautiful high embankment at Wimereux, three miles from Boulogne, right on the sea, and have been dry-docked there till 3 p.m. (when we have just started for?), while endless trains of men and guns have gone up past us. H.M. King George was in the restaurant car of one of them. We have been out all the morning, down to the grey and rolling sea, and have been celebrating December 1st by sitting on the embankment reading back numbers of 'The Times,' and one of the C.S.'s and I have been painting enormous Red Crosses on the train.
'Punch' comes regularly now and is devoured by our Mess. We are very like the apostles, and share everything from cakes and 'Spheres' to remedies for "Jack Johnsons." Bread-and-butter doesn't happen, alas!