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Once again I entered a hospital-train, but this time I would have no mussing round me as if I were a helpless child, but went upright, as a man should, though on crutches. When we journeyed to the port there was one of our good old Australian coasters waiting to bear us back again Home.
The mother runs a hospital-train for the wounded in the intervals of hunting wolves. Her son has been dead for some months, and she says she hasn't had time to bury him yet! One assumes he is embalmed! Yet I can't help saying they were charming people to meet, so we must suppose they are somewhat cracked. The daughter is lovely, and they were all in deep mourning for the unburied relative.
Once a mule got shot, but it's a wonder that other flesh less valuable was not occasionally punctured, for these incinerators were just on the edge of the camp and generally had a group round them of those who preferred being fire-tenders to ramrod-shovers. The hospital-train bore us with many interruptions and frequent side-trackings toward the Channel and "Blighty."
We could not make out what was the matter with them, until somebody noticed that their buttons shone. We drew up in the square, the happiest crew imaginable, but with a dignity such as befitted chosen N.C.O.'s and officers. That was the first time I saw St Omer. When last I came to it I saw little, because I arrived in a motor-ambulance and left in a hospital-train.
I suggested that he go and tell him that if he did not shut up he would be sent into the ward with his own privates. He did so and there was not another squeak from him. After breakfast warm sweaters, helmets, scarfs, and mitts were issued to each of us and we were wrapped in warm blankets and carried out to a hospital-train near by.
We could smile with appreciation and not much surprise at the Tommy who remarked; "Say, Bill, don't the gas-works smell lovely!" By hospital-train, the most comfortable ever devised, did we run into Waterloo Station doors were opened, and men in gorgeous uniforms much gold braid and silver buttons came aboard.
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