I have an interesting job now, and it is my own, which is rather a mercy, as I never know which is most common, dirt or muddle.  I can have things as clean as I like, and my soup is getting quite a name for itself.  The first convoy of wounded generally comes into the station about 11 a.m.  It may number anything.  Then the men are put into the train, and there begins a weary wait for the poor fellows till more wounded arrive and the train is loaded up, and sometimes they are kept there all day.  The stretcher cases are in a long corridor, and the sitting-up cases in ordinary third-class carriages.  The sitters are worn, limping men, with bandaged heads, and hands bound up, who are yet capable of sitting up in a train.

The transport is well done, I think (far better than in South Africa), but more women are wanted to look after details.  To give you one instance:  all stretchers are made of different sizes, so that if a man arrives on an ambulance, the stretchers belonging to it cannot go into the train, and the poor wounded man has to be lifted and “transferred,” which causes him (in the case of broken legs or internal injuries especially) untold suffering.  It also takes up much room, and gives endless trouble for the sake of an inch and a half of space, which is the usual difference in the size of the stretchers, but that prevents them slipping into the sockets on the train.

Another thing I have noticed is, that no man, even lying down in the train, ever gets his boots taken off.  The men’s feet are always soaked through, as they have been standing up to their knees in water in the trenches; but, of course, slippers are unheard of.  I do wonder if ladies could be persuaded to make any sort of list or felt or even flannel slippers?  I saw quite a good pattern the other day, and will try to send you one, in case Eastbourne should rise to the occasion.  Of course, there must be hundreds of pairs, and heaps would get lost.  I do believe other centres would join, and the cost of material for slippers would be quite trifling.  A priest goes in each corridor train, and there is always a stove where the boots could be dried.  I believe slippers can be bought for about a shilling a pair.  The men’s feet are enormous.  Cases should be marked with a red cross, and sent per S.S. Invicta, Admiralty Pier, Dover.

[Page Heading:  THE SHELLING OF LAMPERNESSE]

The fighting has had a sort of lull here for some time, but there are always horrible things happening.  The other day at Lampernesse, 500 soldiers were sleeping on straw in a church.  A spy informed the Germans, who were twelve miles off, but they got the range to an inch, and sent shells straight into the church, killing and wounding nearly everyone in it, and leaving men under the ruins.  We had some terrible cases that day.  The church was shelled at 6 a.m., and by 11 a.m. all the wounded were having soup and coffee at the station.  I thought their faces were more full of horror than any I had seen.