Now, war is a military matter, and should be controlled by military authorities.  Mrs. Wynne, Mr. Bevan, and I should not be out here waiting for work.  We ought to be sent where we are needed, and so ought all Red Cross people.  This would put an end, one hopes, to the horrid business of getting “soft jobs.”

7 November.—­Whenever I am away from England I rejoice in the passing of each week that brings me nearer to my return.  I had hardly realised to-day was the 7th, but I am thankful I am one week nearer the grey little island and all the nice people in it.

Yesterday I went to Lady Georgina Buchanan’s soup-kitchen, and helped to feed Polish refugees.  They strike me as being very like animals, but not so interesting.  In the barracks where they lodge everyone crowds in.  There is no division of the sexes, babies are yelling, and families are sleeping on wooden boards.  The places are heated but not aired, and the smell is horrid; but they seem to revel in “frowst.”  All the women are dandling babies or trying to cook things on little oil-stoves.  At night-time things are awful, I believe, and the British Ambassador has been asked to protect the girls who are there.

8 November.—­This afternoon I went to see Mrs. Bray, and then I had an unexpected pleasure, for I met Johnnie{8} Parsons, who is Naval Attache to Admiral Phillimore, and we had a long chat.  When one is in a strange land, or with people who know one but little, these encounters are wonderfully nice.

The other night I dined with the Heron Maxwells, and had a nice evening and a game of bridge.  Some Americans, called de Velter, were there.  I think most people from the States regret the neutrality of their country.

[Page Heading:  VISIONS OF PEACE]

Everyone brings in different stories of the war.  Some say Germany is exhausted and beaten, others say she is flushed with victory, and with enormous reserves of men, food, and ammunition.  I try to believe all the good I hear, and when even children or fools tell me the war will soon be over, I want to embrace them—­I don’t care whether they are talking nonsense or not.  Sometimes I seem to see a great hushed cathedral, and ourselves returning thanks for Peace and Victory, and the vision is too much for me.  I must either work or be chloroformed till that time comes.

9 November.—­I think there is only one thing I dislike more than sitting in an hotel bedroom and learning a new language, and that is sitting in an hotel bedroom and nursing a cold in my head.  Lately I have been learning Russian—­and now I am sniffing.  My own fault.  I would sleep with my window open in this unhealthiest of cities, and smells and marsh produced a feverish cold.

Out in the square the soldiers drill all the time in the snow, lying in it, standing in it, and dressed for the most part in cotton clothing.  Wool can’t be bought, so a close cotton web is made, with the inside teased out like flannelette, and this is all they have.  The necessaries of life are being “cornered” right and left, mostly by the commercial houses and the banks.  The other day 163 railway trucks of sugar were discovered in a siding, where the owners had placed it to wait for a rise.  Meanwhile, sugar has been almost unprocurable.