Yours truly,
S. MACNAUGHTAN.

CHAPTER V

THE SPRING OFFENSIVE

Villa les Chrysanthemes, La Panne.—­I have been to London for a few days to see about the publication of my little war book.  I got frightful neuralgia there, and find that as soon as I begin to rest I get ill.

I went to a daffodil show, and found myself in the very hall where the military bazaar was held last year.  I saw the place where the Welch had their stall.  What fun we had!  How many of the regiment are left?  Only one officer not killed or wounded.  Lord Roberts, who opened the bazaar, is gone too.  All the soldiers whom I knew best have been taken, and only a few tough women seem to weather the storm of life.

I had to see publishers in London, and do a lot of business, and just when I was beginning to love it all again my holiday was over.  There had been heavy fighting out here, and I felt I must come back.  My dear people didn’t want me to return, and were very severe on the subject, and Mary scolded me most of the time.  It was all affection on their part, although it made “duty” rather a criminal affair!

There was endless difficulty about my passport when I returned.  The French Consulate was besieged by people, and I had to go there at 8.30 a.m. and wait till the doors were opened, and was then told I must first go to the Foreign Office to get an order from Colonel Walker.  I went down to Whitehall from Bedford Square, and was told I must get a letter from Mr. Coventry.  I went to Pall Mall and Mr. Coventry said it was quite impossible to do anything for me without instructions from Mr. Sawyer.  Mr. Sawyer said the only thing he could do (if I could establish my identity) was to send me to a matron who would make every enquiry about me, and perhaps in three days I might get an Anglo-French certificate, through which Mr. Coventry might be induced to give me a letter to give to Colonel Walker, who might then sign the passport, which I could then take to Bedford Square to be vise{4}.

I got Sir John Furley to identify me, and then began a dogged going from place to place and from official to official till at last I got the thing through.  I felt just like a Russian being “broken.”  There is a regular system, I believe, in Russia of wearing people out by this sort of official tyranny.  I do not know anything more tiring or more discouraging!  I had all my papers in order—­my passport{5}, my “laissez passer,” a letter from Mr. Bevan, explaining who I was and asking for “every facility” for me, and my photograph, properly stamped.  I am now so loaded with papers that I feel as if I were carrying a library about with me.  Oh, give me intelligent women to do things for me!  The best-run things I have seen since the war began have been our women’s unit at Antwerp and Lady Bagot’s hospital at Adinkerke.

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