The occupants of the stretchers possess the almost universal feature of a six days’ beard—­always excepting those who are of an age which is not troubled by such manly accretions.  They lie very still—­not with the stillness of exhaustion or dejection, but with the comfortable resignation of men who have made good and have suffered in the process; but who now, with their troubles well behind them, are enduring present discomfort under the sustaining prospect of clean beds, chicken diet, and ultimate tea-parties.  Such as possess them are wearing Woodbine stumps upon the lower lip.

They are quite ready to compare notes.  Let us approach, and listen, to a heavily bandaged gentleman who—­so the label attached to him informs us—­is Private Blank, of the Manchesters, suffering from three “G.S.” machine-gun bullet wounds.

“Did the Fritzes run?  Yes—­they run all right!  The last lot saved us trouble by running towards us—­with their ’ands up!  But their machine-guns—­they gave us fair ’Amlet till we got across No Man’s Land.  After that we used the baynit, and they didn’t give us no more vexatiousness.  Where did we go in?  Oh, near Albert.  Our objective was Mary’s Court, or some such place.” (It is evident that the Battle of the Somme is going to add some fresh household words to our war vocabulary.  ‘Wipers’ is a veteran by this time:  ‘Plugstreet,’ ‘Booloo,’ and ‘Armintears’ are old friends.  We must now make room for ‘Monty Ban,’ ‘La Bustle,’ ‘Mucky Farm,’ ‘Lousy Wood,’ and ‘Martinpush.’)

“What were your prisoners like?”

“’Alf clemmed,” said the man from Manchester.

“No rations for three days,” explained a Northumberland Fusilier close by.  One of his arms was strapped to his side, but the other still clasped to his bosom a German helmet.  A British Tommy will cheerfully shed a limb or two in the execution of his duty, but not all the might and majesty of the Royal Army Medical Corps can force him to relinquish a fairly earned ‘souvenir.’  In fact, owing to certain unworthy suspicions as to the true significance of the initials, “R.A.M.C.,” he has been known to refuse chloroform.

“They couldn’t get nothing up to them for four days, on account of our artillery fire,” he added contentedly.

“‘Barrage,’ my lad!” amended a rather superior person with a lance-corporal’s stripe and a bandaged foot.

Indeed, all are unanimous in affirming that our artillery preparation was a tremendous affair.  Listen to this group of officers sunning themselves upon the upper deck.  They are ‘walking cases,’ and must remain on board, with what patience they may, until all the’stretcher cases’ have been evacuated.

“Loos was child’s play to it,” says one—­a member of a certain immortal, or at least irrepressible Division which has taken part in every outburst of international unpleasantness since the Marne.  “The final hour was absolute pandemonium.  And when our new trench-mortar batteries got to work too,—­at sixteen to the dozen,—­well, it was bad enough for us; but what it must have been like at the business end of things, Lord knows!  For a few minutes I was almost a pro-Boche!”