I am going back to-morrow to the station, with its train-loads of wounded men.  I want to go, and to give them soup and comforts and cigarettes, but just ten days’ illness and idleness have “balmed my soul.”

22 February.—­Waited all day for a car to come and fetch me away.  It was dull work as I could never leave the flat, and all my things were packed up, and there was no coal.

23 February.—­Waited again all day.  I got very tired of standing by the window looking out on a strip of beach at the bottom of the street, and on the people passing to and fro.  Then I went down to the dock to try and get a car there, but the new police regulations made it impossible to cross the bridge.  I went to the airmen opposite.  No luck.

There is a peculiar brutality which seems to possess everyone out here during the war.  I find it nearly everywhere, and it entails a good deal of unnecessary suffering.  Always I am reminded of birds on a small ledge pushing each other into the sea.  The big bird that pushes another one over goes to sleep comfortably.

I remember one evening at Dunkirk when we couldn’t get rooms or food because the landlady of the hotel had lost all her servants.  The staff at the ——­ gave me a meal, but there was a queer want of courtesy about it.  I said that anything would do for my supper, and I went to help get it myself.  I spied a roll of cold veal on a shelf, and said helpfully that that would do splendidly, but the answer was:  “Yes, but I believe that is for our next meal.”  However, in the end I got a scrap, consisting mostly of green stuffing.

“But when thou art bidden, go and sit down in the lowest room”—­ah, my dear Lord, in this world one may certainly take the lowest place, and keep it.  It is only the great men who say, “Friend, come up higher.”

“You can’t have it,” is on everyone’s lips, and a general sense of bustle goes with the brutality.  “You can’t come here,” “We won’t have her,” are quite common phrases.  God help us, how nasty we all are!

I find one can score pretty heavily nowadays by being a “psychologist.”  All the most disagreeable people I know are psychologists, notably ——­, who breaks his promises and throws all his friends to the wolves, but who can still explain everything in his sapient way by saying he is a psychologist.

One thing I hope—­that no one will ever call me “highly strung.”  I wish good old-fashioned bad temper was still the word for highly strung and nervy people.

...  I am longing for beautiful things, music, flowers, fine thoughts....

[Page Heading:  LA PANNE]

La Panne. 25 February.—­At last I have succeeded in getting away from Dunkirk!  The Duchess of Sutherland brought me here in her car.  Last night I dined with Mrs. Clitheroe.  She was less bustled than usual, and I enjoyed a chat with her as we walked home through the cold white mist which enshrouded La Panne.