Having furnished the preliminary statements which lay the foundation of this compendious memoir, the walking-case thankfully finishes his cocoa, picks up the package of “blues” which has been put at his side, and departs, with his fellows, to the bathroom.  Here he is tackled by the Pack Store orderlies, who take from him, and enter in their books, his khaki clothes.  These he must leave in exchange for the blue slop uniform which, pro tem., is to be his only wear.  When he emerges from the bathroom he is attired in what is now England’s most honourable livery—­the royal blue of the war-hospital patient.  And (though perhaps the matter is not mentioned to him in so many words) his own suit is already ticketed with an identification label and on its way to the fumigator.  This is no reflection on the owner of the suit ... but there are some things we don’t talk about.  Mr. Fumigator-Wallah is not the least busy of the more retiring members of a war-hospital staff.  He is not in the limelight; but you might come to be very sad and sorry if he took it into his head to neglect his unapplauded part off-stage.

The walking-cases are still splashing and dressing in the bathroom when the ambulances with the cot-cases begin to appear.  Now is the orderlies’ busy time.  Each stretcher must be quickly but gently removed from the ambulance and carried into the receiving hall.

Four orderlies haul the stretcher from its shelf in the ambulance; two orderlies then take its handles and carry it indoors.  At the entrance to the receiving hall they halt.  The Medical Officer bends over the patient, glances at the label which is attached to him, and assigns him to a ward. (Certain types of cases go to certain groups of wards.) The attendant sergeant promptly picks a metal ticket from a rack and lays it on the stretcher.  The ticket has, punched on it, the number of the patient’s ward and the number of the patient’s bed in that ward.  This ceremony completed, the orderlies proceed, with their burden, up the aisle between the beds in the receiving hall.

Arrived at the bed, they lower their stretcher until it is at such a level that the patient, if he is active enough, can move off it on to the bed; if he is too weak to help himself he is lifted on to the bed by orderlies under the direction of the receiving-hall Sister.  The stretcher is promptly removed and restored to its ambulance.  If the patient is in an exceptionally suffering condition he is not placed on the receiving-hall bed; instead—­the Medical Officer having given his permission—­his stretcher is put on a wheeled trolley and he is taken straight away to his ward, so that he will only undergo one shift of position between the ambulance and his destination.  The majority of stretcher-cases, however, reach us in a by no means desperate state, for, as I say, they seldom come to England without having been treated previously at a base abroad (except during the periods of heavy fighting).  And it