pened to pass at that moment it might appear that these orderlies had nothing else to do but lift stretchers out of ambulances and carry them indoors. The squad of orde

ps into the building. He was kind enough to praise the rapidity with which the job was done-but he held it to be a job which hardly justified the enlistment of so considerable a company of able-bodied males. What, exactly, we did with ourselves during the long ho

rtly to report to the sergeant-in-charge. The telephone has notified us of the hour at which the ambulances may be expected; the hospital's internal telephone system has passed on the tidings to the various officials concerned; and, five minutes before the patients are due, all the orderlies likely to be required must "down tools," so to speak, and line-up at the door. They come streaming from every corner of the hospital and of its grounds. Some have been working in wards, s

nd, finds, at the gate, that he is turned back by the sentry. In vain he displays his pass, properly signed, stamped and dated: the telephone has warned the sentry (or "R.M.P."-Regimental Military Policeman) that the passes have been countermanded. Un

s free, and certain other free times, which are nearly as sure as the sun's rising. The hospital orderly is never-in theory at any rate-off duty. His free moments are regarded not as a right but as a favour: no freedom, at any time, can be guaranteed. He is liable to be called on in the middle of the night, or at the instant when he is going off dut

it had already, months before the newspaper agitation, been combed out five times; and this in spite of the fact that, at the period when I enlisted, our Colonel declined to look at any recruit who was not either over age or had been rejected for active service. The unit was thus made up, even then, of elderly men and of "crocks." (This was before the start of the Derby Scheme and, of course, considerably before the introduction of Universal Service.) Perhaps it is allowable to point the moral against the "shirker"-discovering armchair patriots aforesaid: that no small proportion of our unit was composed of over-age recruits who, instead of informing the world at large that they wished they were younger, "And, by Gad, I envy the lads their chance to do anything in the country's cause," did not rest until they had found an opening. In my own hut there were two recruits over sixty years

cy you will find very, very few who would not go on active service if they could. On the occasions when we have had calls for overseas volunteers, the response has always exceeded the demand. The people who, looking at a party of hospital orderlies, remark-it sounds incredible, but there are people who make the remark-"These fellows should be out at the front," may further be reminded that "these fellows" now have no say in the choice of their own whereabouts. Not a soldier in the land can decide where or how he shall serve. That small matter is not for him, but for the authorities. He may be thirsting for the gore of Brother Boche, and an inexorable fate condemns him to scrub the gore of Brother Briton off the tiles of the operating theatre. He may (but I never met one who did) elect to sit snugly on a st