“I doot he canna unnerstand onything,” remarked the Highlander.  “He’s fair demoralised, like the rest.  D’ ye ken what happened tae me?  I was gaun’ back wounded, with this—­” he indicates an arm strapped close to his side—­“and there was six Fritzes came crawlin’ oot o’ a dug-oot, and gave themselves up tae me—­me, that was gaun’ back wounded, withoot so much as my jack-knife!  Demorralised—­that’s it!”

“Did you ’ear,” enquired a Cockney who came next in the line, “that all wounded are going to ’ave a nice little gold stripe to wear—­a stripe for every wound?”

There was much interest at this.

“That’ll be fine,” observed a man of Kent, who had been out since Mons, and been wounded three times.  “Folks’ll know now that I’m not a Derby recruit.”

“Where will us wear it?” enquired a gigantic Yorkshireman, from the next stretcher.

“Wherever you was ’it, lad!” replied the Cockney humourist.

“At that rate,” comes the rueful reply, “I shall ’ave to stand oop to show mine!”

III

But now R.A.M.C. orderlies are at hand, and the symposium comes to an end.  The stretchers are conveyed one by one into the long open coaches of the train, and each patient is slipped sideways, with gentleness and dispatch, into his appointed cot.

One saloon is entirely filled with officers—­the severe cases in the cots, the rest sitting where they can.  A newspaper is passed round.  There are delighted exclamations, especially from a second lieutenant whose features appear to be held together entirely by strips of plaster.  Such parts of the countenance as can be discerned are smiling broadly.

“I knew we were doing well,” says the bandaged one, devouring the headlines; “but I never knew we were doing as well as this.  Official, too!  Somme Battle—­what?  Sorry!  I apologise!” as a groan ran round the saloon.

“Nevermind,” said an unshaven officer, with a twinkling eye, and a major’s tunic wrapped loosely around him.  “I expect that jest will be overworked by more people than you for the next few weeks.  Does anybody happen to know where this train is going to?”

“West of England, somewhere, I believe,” replied a voice.

There was an indignant groan from various north countrymen.

“I suppose it is quite impossible to sort us all out at a time like this,” remarked a plaintive Caledonian in an upper cot; “but I fail to see why the R.A.M.C. authorities should go through the mockery of asking every man in the train where he wants to be taken, when the train can obviously only go to one place—­or perhaps two.  I was asked.  I said ‘Edinburgh’; and the medical wallah said, ’Righto!  We’ll send you to Bath!’”

“I think I can explain,” remarked the wounded major.  “These trains usually go to two places—­one half to Bath, the other, say, to Exeter.  Bath is nearer to Edinburgh than Exeter, so they send you there.  It is kindly meant, but—­”