Several of them came on board after, which cheered me tremendously.  I was very keen to have Eva with me as far as Dover, but, unfortunately, official permission had been refused.  The captain of the ship, however, was a tremendous sportsman and said:  “Of course, if my ship starts and you are carried off by mistake, Miss Money, you can’t expect me to put back into port again, and I shan’t have seen you,” he added with a twinkle in his eye as he left us.  You may be sure Eva was just too late to land!  He came along when we were under way and feigned intense surprise.  As a matter of fact he was tremendously bucked and said since his ship had been painted grey instead of white and he had been given a gun he was no longer a “hospital,” but a “wounded transport,” and therefore was within the letter of the law to take a passenger if he wanted to.  The cabin was on deck and had been decorated with flowers in every available space.  The crossing, as luck would have it, was fairly rough, and one by one the vases were pitched out of their stands on to the floor.  It was a tremendous comfort to me to have old Eva there.  Of course it leaked out as these things will, and there was even the question of quite a serious row over it, but as the captain and everyone else responsible had “positively not seen her,” there was no one to swear she had not overstayed her time and been carried off by mistake!  At Dover I had to say goodbye to her, the sister, and the kindly captain, and very lonely I felt as my stretcher was placed on a trolley arrangement and I was pushed up to the platform along an asphalt gangway.  The orderlies kept calling me “Sir,” which was amusing.  “Your kit is in the front van, sir,” and catching sight of my face, “I mean—­er—­Miss, Gor’blimee! well, that’s the limit!” and words failed them.

I was put into a ward on the train all by myself.  I didn’t care for that train much, it stopped and started with such jolts, otherwise it was quite comfy, and all the orderlies came in and out on fictitious errands to have a look and try and get me anything I wanted.  The consequence was I had no less than three teas, two lots of strawberries, and a pile of books and periodicals I could never hope to read!  I had had lunch on board when we arrived at one o’clock, before I was taken off.  The reason the journey took so long was that the loading and unloading of stretchers from ship to train is a lengthy job and cannot be hustled.  We got to London about five.  The E.M.O. was a cheery soul and came and shook hands with me, and then, joy of joys, got four stretcher-bearers to take me to an ambulance.  With four to carry you there is not the slightest movement, but with two there is the inevitable up and down jog; only those who have been through it will know what I mean.  I had got Eva to wire to some friends, also to Thompson, the section leader who was on leave, and by dint of Sherlock Holmes stunts they had discovered at what station I was arriving.  It was cheering to see some familiar faces, but the ambulance only stopped for a moment, and there was no time to say anything.