some extraordinary types of people.  For example, the hotel where my aunt was staying refused to take me in, even for one night, on the score that “they didn’t want any invalids!” I could not help wondering a little bitterly where these same people would have been but for the many who were now permanent invalids and for those others, as Kipling reminds us, “whose death has set us free.”  I could not help noticing that at home one either came up against extreme sympathy and kindness or else utter callousness—­there seemed to be no half-measures.

In March I again hoped to go to Roehampton, but my luck was dead out.  I could still bear no pressure on the wretched nerve, and another operation was performed almost immediately.

The W.A.A.C.s’ ward was all very well as an experience, but the noise and shaking, not to mention the thought of the broom catching my bed regularly every morning, was too much to face again.  The surgeon who was operating tried to get me into his hospital for officers where there were several single rooms vacant at the time.

Vain hope.  Again the familiar phrase rang out, and once more I apologised for being a female, and was obliged to make arrangements to return to the private nursing home where I had been in August.  The year was up, and here I was still having operations.  I was disgusted in the extreme.

When I was at last fit to go to Roehampton the question of accommodation again arose.  I never felt so sick in all my life I wasn’t a man—­committees and matrons sat and pondered the question.  Obviously I was a terrible nuisance and no one wanted to take any responsibility.  The mother superior of the Sacred Heart Convent at Roehampton heard of it and asked me to stay there.  Though I was not of their faith they welcomed me as no one else had done since my return, and I was exceedingly happy with them.  It was a change to be really wanted somewhere.

In time I got fairly hardened to the stares from passers-by, and it was no uncommon thing for an absolute stranger to come up and ask, “Have you lost your leg?” The fact seemed fairly obvious, but still some people like verbal confirmation of everything.  One day in Harrod’s, just after the 1918 push, one florid but obviously sympathetic lady exclaimed, “Dear me, poor girl, did you lose your leg in the recent push?” It was then the month of June (some good going to be up on crutches in that time!) Several staff officers were buying things at the same counter and turned at her question to hear my reply.  “No, not in this last push,” I said, “but the one just before,” and moved on.  They appeared to be considerably amused.

How I loathed crutches!  One nightmare in which I often indulged was that I found, in spite of having lost my leg, I could really walk in some mysterious way quite well without them.  I would set off joyfully, and then to my horror suddenly discover my plight and fall smack.  I woke to find the nerve had been at its old trick again.  Sometimes I was seized with a panic that when I did get my leg I should not be able to use it, and worse still, never ride again.  That did not bear thinking of.