* * * * *

The voyage had been wonderful.  Not for one moment of the forty-eight hours that it took to reach Southampton did the wavelets upset the equilibrium of the vessel.  Only the faintest vibration showed him that she was moving at all.  The food had been good and plentiful, the attendance matchless.  All things seemed to be “working together for good.”

While engrossed in this reverie, he awoke to the fact that well-known landscapes were rolling past his window.

Tidshot!  There was the familiar landmark—­the tree-crested hill and the church.  The station flashed by, and then the well-known training areas.

“Just as if I were going up to town for the week-end!” he told himself.

The familiar suburbs whizzed past.  Clapham Junction, Vauxhall, the grinding of brakes, and the train was gliding quietly along Waterloo platform.

An Officer boarded the train, and, in spite of a great deal of discussion and requests, succeeded in thrusting scraps of paper into every one’s hand.

“The Something Hospital, Chester Square,” some one read.

“What?  Oh, I thought you said ‘The Empire Hospital, Leicester Square!’” yelled half-a-dozen wits almost simultaneously.

He was carried out on his stretcher, slid into a St. John Ambulance, and driven to the address on the piece of paper, which was “not a hundred miles from Berkeley Square,” as the Gossip writers put it.

The Ambulance Stretcher Bearers carried him into the hall of what was evidently a private house “turned” into a hospital.  A great many ladies were standing about, all in Red Cross uniform.  A man was there, too.  Curiously enough, he was wearing just the coat and hat that his father would wear.  Could it be possible?  He turned round; lo and behold, it was his father!

“Hallo, Father!” he said.

The man came up.

Both of them seemed at a loss for words.  It was neither emotion nor sentimentality; it was just the lack of something to say.  Taking advantage of the pause, the crowd bore down upon him, and by reason of their superior numbers drove him away, offering promises about “the day after to-morrow.”

They carried the Subaltern upstairs, and placed him in a room where two other Officers who had arrived on the same boat were already established.

The Hospital was “run” by the Hon. Mrs. Blank, who was placing her entire house at the disposal of the War Office.  She did everything herself:  the feeding, equipping, providing the staff.  The expense must have been huge.  She worked night and day as general manageress of the establishment.  There ought to be some special honour and knighthood for such women on this earth, and a special heaven in the next.  The Subaltern used to feel positively ashamed of himself when he thought of the money, kindness and care that she was lavishing upon them.

The whole Hospital was a glorious, pulsating, human organisation.  What was wanted was done, not what was “laid down” in some schedule.  Indeed, their wishes were gratified before they had time to form in the mind.  It was a fairyland, and of course the fairies were the nurses.  The Subaltern and his two companions held a conference on their respective merits.