The hospital ship had been alongside nearly an hour, I believe. It was three o’clock in the afternoon. Breakfast, the dressing of my wound again, lunch; all had followed in an uneventful succession. The throbbing of the engines as the boat steamed quietly along had been hardly noticeable at all. At last there was a bustle, and we were carried out of the room, out into the sunshine again, and along the quay to the train. Here I was given a berth in the middle tier this time, for which I was very thankful. I felt so utterly tired; and the weight of my arm across my body was intolerable.
That seemed a long, long journey too; but I got tea without delay this time, and it was hot. At Farnborough the train stopped and a few men were taken out. The rest came on to London.
“Is there any special hospital in London you want to go to?” said a brisk R.A.M.C. official, when we reached Waterloo.
“No,” I answered.
He wrote on a label, and put that round my neck also.
“Lady Carnarvon’s,” he said.
I lay for some time on the platform of Waterloo station, gazing up at the vault in the roof. Porters and stretcher-bearers stood about, and gazed down at one in silence. Then I was moved into a motor ambulance, and a Red Cross lady took her seat in the back. My head was in the front, so that I could see nothing. Just before the car went off, a policeman put his head in.
“Any milk or anything?”
“Would you like any milk or beef tea?” the lady said.
“Milk, please.”