The blue-uniformed volunteers who form a portion of the London Ambulance Column are nicknamed the Bluebottles in allusion to their dress.  It is a nickname which, let me say at once, any man might be proud of.  I know not whether the history of the Bluebottles has yet been written, but certain it is that their doings have got into newspaper print less often than they deserved.  For theirs is a double role which truly merits the country’s admiration.  While carrying on the commerce of the Empire—­that vital commerce without which there would be bankruptcy and no sinews of war, nor indeed any England left to defend—­they have vowed themselves also, of their own free-will, to the helping of the wounded.  Day or night the Bluebottle is liable to be called from his desk or his home by the telephone:  like the Florentine Brother of the Misericordia he must instantly hurry into his uniform and rush to the place appointed.  He may be busy or he may be tired; no matter:  his vow holds good.  Off he goes, to the railway-station to meet the hospital train and evacuate its stretchers.

Myself, I have the deepest respect for the Bluebottles and for their energy in a cause which must often be not only fatiguing, but, from a commercial point of view, extremely inconvenient.  It would be absurd to pretend, nevertheless, that the less responsible khaki-wearing R.A.M.C. do not cherish a mild contempt for all Bluebottles.  There is no reason for that contempt.  It is idiotic, childish—­a humiliating exhibition of the silliness of masculine human nature.  Members of our station-party who had enlisted but a week back, and who knew nothing whatever of their work, would, in a whisper, mock the Bluebottles—­although every Bluebottle had taken first-aid classes and passed examinations at which most of the mockers would have boggled.  The Bluebottles were “civilians” ... there you have it.  We—­who would probably never do any battlefield soldiering in our lives—­looked down on all civilians who had the impudence to wear a uniform of any sort.  Such is the behaviour of the sterner sex at a moment when its sole thought should be of sensible and efficient co-operation in the performance of duty.

For of course it was our duty to co-operate with the Bluebottles.  The theory with which we beguiled ourselves, that the Bluebottles were physically starvelings and required our Herculean aid to lift the stretchers up the stairs, was palpably nonsense.  Still we told ourselves that we, as disciplined soldiers, were here to give a hand to a civilian mob who might otherwise faint and fail.  A singular delusion!  Time has proved its falsity, for with the issue of fresh orders our station-parties ceased to function:  the Bluebottles now make shift without us—­and without, as far as I know, any mishap.

The hospital train was eventually signalled.  We were ranked, at attention, at the foot of the stairs.  The Bluebottles stood by their stretchers.  There was hurrying hither and thither of officials.  Sometimes our Colonel, having motored from the hospital, appeared on the platform to see that all was well, and you may be sure that we endeavoured to look alert in his august presence.  And finally the train glided into the station.