A fleet of motor ambulances swayed over the uneven ground and rolled up close to the clearing station. The drivers and helpers began loading the stretchers aboard and one by one started away. Before I was put into one, the big Scotchman took a large syringe and injected a strong dose of morphia into my chest.
"Ye'll find it hard," he said, "bumping over the hill, but ye'll soon be all right and comfortable."
"Tell me," I said, "shall I get into a real bed on the ship?"
He laughed. "Sure ye will, laddie. The best bed ye've had since ye've been in the airmy. Good luck to ye, laddie."
Each of the motor ambulances carried four men, two above and two below. I was put on top, and the door flap pulled over. We jolted and pitched and swayed. Once we turned short and skidded at a curve. I knew just the very place, although it was dark in the ambulance. I had gone over the road often with ration parties. Fortunately the morphia was beginning to take effect, and dulled the pain to some extent. At last the ambulance stopped, somebody pulled the curtain back, and we were lifted out. We were on West Beach. A pier ran out into the sea. A man-o'-war launch towing a string of boats glided in near enough to let her first boat come close to the pier. The breeze was quite fresh, and made me shiver. The stretchers were laid across the boats, close to each other. Soon all the boats were filled. I could see the man on the stretcher to the right of me, but the one on the other side I could not see. I tried to turn my head but could not. The eyes of the man next me were large with pain. I smiled at him, but instead of smiling back at me, his lip curled resentfully, and he turned over on his side so that he could face away from me. As he did, the blanket slipped from his shoulder, and I saw on his shoulder strap the star of a second lieutenant. I had committed the unpardonable sin. I had smiled at an officer as if I had been an equal, forgetting that he was not made of common clay. Once after that, when he turned his head, his eyes met mine disdainfully. That time I did not smile. I have often laughed at the incident since, but there on that boat I was boiling with rage. Not a word had passed between us, but his expression in turning away had been eloquent. I cursed him and the system that produced him, and swore that never again would I put on a uniform. Gradually I calmed down; the morphia had got in its work. In a little while I had sunk into a comatose condition. I remember, in a hazy sort of way, being taken aboard a large lighter. There were tiers of stretchers on both sides. This time I was in the lower tier, and was wondering how soon the man above me would fall on me. At last I went to sleep. When I awoke, I was alone and in mid-air. All about me was black. By that time I was completely paralyzed from the waist up. I could see only directly above my head. It was night, and the sky was dotted with twinkling stars. I could feel no movement, but the stars came slowly nearer and nearer. "What was I doing here in mid-air?" Subconsciously I thought of the body of Mohammed, suspended between earth and heaven. Now I felt I had hit on the answer. I was going to heaven, and the thought was very comforting. Suddenly the stars stopped, and after a pause began receding. A face appeared above me, then the head and shoulders of a man dressed in the uniform of a naval officer. This suggested something else to me. The officers of the Flying Corps wear naval uniforms. I decided that while I was asleep I had been transferred to the Flying Corps.
"Hello, old chap," said the naval officer. "Do you know where you are?"
"No," I said. "Am I going to heaven, or have I joined the Flying Corps?"
"No," said the officer. "You're on the stretcher being hoisted aboard the hospital ship."
Two big, strapping, bronzed sailors approached and lifted the stretcher on to an elevator; they stepped on and the elevator descended. We stopped at the end of a short white-walled passageway, lighted by electricity. The sailors grasped the stretcher as lightly as if it had been empty, walked along to the end of the passageway into a ward. It had formerly been a dining saloon. Large square windows looked out upon the sea, everything was white and clean and orderly. After the dirt and filth of the Peninsula it was like a beautiful dream. The sailors lifted me gently into a bed and stood there waiting for orders from the nurse. As I looked at them I thought of our boys standing in the trenches during a bombardment and yelling, "Come on, the navy," and I murmured, "Come on, the navy;" and then when I looked at the calm, self-possessed, capable-looking nursing sister, moving about amongst the wounded, I said, and never had it meant so much to me, "Good old Britain."
The string of boats in which I had come was the batch that filled the quota of the patients of the hospital ship. In about half an hour she began to move. An orderly came around with meals. The doctor came in after a little while and began examining the patients. From some part of the ship not far from where I was came the sound of voices singing hymns. It was the last touch needed to emphasize the difference between the hospital ship and the Peninsula. Sunday evening on the Peninsula had meant no more than any other. The ship moved along so quietly that she seemed scarcely to stir. The doctor and the nurse worked noiselessly; over everything hung the spirit of Sabbath calm. Gallipoli might have been as far away as Mars.