March 13th. Soup is the latest addition to our bill of fare for the men, who greatly appreciate it as being more nourishing than tea.
Our battle with Primus stoves is never-ending. The roar of these little indispensable instruments of torture haunts us, and an effigy of one will assuredly be engraven on some of our tombstones! Apropos of food, we have grown almost into vegetarians, the meat we get being mostly horse—which, dressed in the delightfully piquant French style, is tasty but not nourishing—or the eternal pork that occurs and recurs with clockwork regularity alternately disguised as veal, lamb or mutton.
There are days when we envy the men—whose rations of good bully beef they affect to scorn—with all our hearts.
The spring push continues. The rapidity with which the Neuve Chapelle men were brought down to the base, often finding themselves in hospital twelve hours after they fell, is incredible.
Last night a Red Cross ambulance driver, who had passed through before, came in for some coffee. As he counted his change I noted his eyes were dim with unshed tears. When he confessed that the strain of many sleepless nights is beginning to tell on him, I could find few words of comfort.
The awful groans, the prayers for release as he drives along the jolting roads, petrify him. And these last days have been pregnant with work for the ambulances. The culminating point was reached to-night, when, the car breaking down on a lonely road, he stepped round to find out how his men were, and discovered that of four only one still lived.
March 18th. To-day the news came that the hostel is to be officially opened. From the batch of War Office correspondence with which I am now inundated I glean:
1. "Arrangements have now been made to send to France at the public expense a limited number of relatives of soldiers reported to be in a very serious condition in the Base Hospitals."
2. "The number will be limited to six persons at each of the Bases and to one relative in the case of each soldier, the accommodation being provided by the Y.M.C.A., and visits will only be allowed in cases in which the Medical Officer considers that the patient would benefit by the presence of a relation."