Children know the different aeroplanes by sight, and one little girl, when I ask her for news, gives me a list of the “obus” that have arrived, and which have “s’eclate,” and which have not.  One can see that she despises those which “ne s’eclatent pas.”  One says “Bon soir, pas des obus,” as in English one says, “Good-night, sleep well.”

10 January.—­Prince Alexander of Teck dined at the hospital last night, and we had a great spread.  Madame Sindici did wonders, and there were hired plates and finger-bowls, and food galore!  We felt real swells.  An old General—­the head of the Army Medical Corps—­gave me the most grateful thanks for serving the soldiers.  It was gracefully and delightfully done.

I am going home for a week’s holiday.

14 January.—­I went home via Calais.  Mr. Bevan and Mr. Morgan took me there.  It was a fine day and I felt happy for once, that is, for once out here.

Some people enjoy this war.  I think it is far the worst time, except one, I ever spent.  Perhaps I have seen more suffering than most people.  A doctor sees a hospital, and a nurse sees a ward of sick and wounded, but I see them by the hundred passing before me in an endless train all day.  I can make none of them really better.  I feed them, and they pass on.

One reviews one’s life a little as one departs.  Always I shall remember Furnes as a place of wet streets and long dark evenings, with gales blowing, and as a place where I have been always alone.  I have not once all this time exchanged a thought with anyone.  I have lived in a very damp attic, and talked French to some kind middle-class people, and I have walked a mile for every meal I have had.  So I shall always think of Furnes as a wet, dark place, and of myself with a lantern trudging about its mean streets.

CHAPTER IV

WORKING UNDER DIFFICULTIES

I have not written my diary for some weeks.  I went home to England and stayed at Rayleigh House.  On my way home I met Mr. F. Ware, who told me submarines were about.  As I had but just left a much-shelled town, I think he might have held his peace.  The usual warm welcome at Rayleigh House, with Mary there to meet me, and Emily Strutt.

I wasn’t very tired when I first arrived, but fatigue came out on me like a rash afterwards.  I got more tired every day, and ended by having a sort of breakdown.  This rather spoilt my holiday, but it was very nice seeing people again.  It was difficult, I found, to accommodate myself to small things, and one was amazed to find people still driving serenely in closed broughams.  It was like going back to live on earth again after being in rather a horrible other world.  I went to my own house and enjoyed the very smell of the place.  My little library and an hour or two spent there made my happiest time.  Different people asked me to things, but I wasn’t up to going out, and the weather was amazingly bad.