Rev. Rupert Inglis ^ 173 



go well. I and the men seemed to be singing different tunes. 

 . . . The rest of the day I was kept busy censoring letters. 

 I had half an hour off to meet Field-Marshal French ; he came 

 to visit the hospital." 



July 28. — " An ambulance train (Princess Christian's) 

 came in last night, or rather early this morning. It came the 

 same time as the telegram announcing its arrival. It brought 

 us one hundred patients, most of them wounded, some of them 

 terribly. I have only seen the bad cases at present. I hear 

 there are some West Kents in. 



" I would like to condemn the German Emperor to spend the 

 rest of his life going round a hospital looking at the newly 

 wounded, and to make him look at them. It is a pitiful sight, 

 and with the really bad cases one can do so little for them. The 

 one blessing is they are splendidly looked after, and everything 

 that can be done is done. One of the surgeons has performed a 

 wonderful operation. He has saved the man's life — though 

 his spinal cord was almost completely severed by a bullet — but 

 the man must be an invalid to the end of his life. I think I 

 should have left the poor fellow alone, but everyone says it is 

 marvellous. They are the saddest cases of all ; they may live 

 for years and will always be paralysed. 



" The gramophone arrived this morning ; it is now in 

 Ward 21, which is full of patients. You never saw anything 

 like their delight with it. It really was a treat to see their 

 happy faces. 



" I am writing quite early this morning ; they called me up 

 about three o'clock. Another convoy had come in ; some of the 

 men had been in a hospital near the front and the Germans had 

 shelled it, and as far as I could make out some had been wounded 

 a second time. The hospital had to be emptied." 



August 6. — " We had another convoy in last night, but 

 only twenty stretcher cases. I armed myself with a big box of 

 cigarettes and went to meet them. It is really wonderful how 

 quickly they transfer men from the trains to the ambulance, 

 and do it so smoothly. I never saw anything in the nature of a 

 jolt, so the poor things are not made to suffer more than is 

 absolutely necessary. They had a terrible long journey, as 

 some had been in the train for twelve hours, and were just dog- 



