"I don't see much wrong with you," said G., eyeing them up and down. They then whacked their legs soundly and never flinched once, for they each had an artificial one! I blessed George from the bottom of my heart. Someone told him this, and he promptly sat down and wrote to me, enclosing several signed postcards and a drawing of himself at the end of the letter—his own impression of what he looked like in the pre-historic scene in Zigzag—and a promise of a box for the show as soon as I got to Blighty. Some jolly good fellow!
The countless flowers I received were one of the chief joys. I simply adored lying and looking at them.
Every single person I knew seemed to have remembered me, and boxes of chocolates filled my shelf as well.
The Parc d'Automobiles Belges sent such a huge gerbe that two men had to carry it, and, emblazoned on a broad ribbon of the Belgian colours, spanning the whole thing, was my name and an inscription in letters of gold! Captain Saxon Davies, from the "Christol" in Boulogne, had fruit sent over in the boat from Covent Garden delivered at the hospital every morning by motor cycle. I felt quite overwhelmed; everyone seemed determined to spoil me.
One day the Padre had come in to see me and was just concluding a prayer when there was a tap, and the door opened on the instant. A large bottle, the size of a magnum, was pushed in by an orderly, who, seeing the Padre, departed in haste. (I was squinting up through my eyelashes and saw it all and just pulled myself together in time to say "Amen.")
I knew who had sent it and hastened to explain: "It's not champagne, Padre, it's Eau de Cologne!" That surprising sportsman replied: "Isn't it? Bad luck. Have you a scent spray? No? Well, I'll get you one!" (Some Padre!)
On the Sunday one of my people came over, thanks to the cheery telegrams the War Office had been dispatching. It seemed an unnecessary fuss—the Colonel, too, showed distinct signs of "needle"—but it was a dear little Aunt who is never flustered by anything and who greeted me as if we had parted only yesterday. The word "leg" was not included in her dictionary at all. One is apt to be a bit touchy at first about these little things, and though I had seen the most terrible wounds in our hospital, amputations had always rattled me thoroughly.
The little Aunt subsequently entertained the austere A.P.M., while her papers were being put in order, with most interesting details of my childhood and how she had brought me up from a baby! The whole interview was described to me as "utterly priceless," by the F.A.N.Y. who had taken her there.
The French Battery sent daily to enquire and presently I was allowed visitors. I began to realize after a while that in losing a leg you find out exactly who your real friends are. There are those whom I shall never forget who came day after day to read or talk to me—friends who paid no attention when the leg gave one of its violent jerks, but went on talking as if nothing had happened, a fact that helped me to bear it more than all the expressed sympathy in the world. The type who says "Whatever was that? How dreadful!" fortunately never came. It was only due to those real friends that I was saved from slipping into a slough of despond from which I might never have hoped to rise. Eva gave up rides and tennis in order to come down every day, and considering the little time there was to devote to these pastimes I appreciated it all the more.
To say I was the best posted person in the place is no exaggeration. I positively heard both sides of every question (top and bottom as well sometimes) and did my best to make as little scandal as possible!