I had lost all nerve long before. Now, as the last of the flare hissed toward me, I lost consciousness.

(3)

“May I have a drink of water?”

“Did you speak?”

“Yes. May I have a drink, Sister?”

“You may have a glass of champagne, if there is any. Who are you?”

“Ramsay, D., Sergeant, Second Canadian Division.”

“Well, Ramsay-Dee, it’s marvellous to have you with us.”

“Where is this?”

“You’ll find out. Where have you been?”

Ah, where had I been? I didn’t know then and I don’t know yet, but it was such a place as I had never known before. Years later, when for the first time I read Coleridge’s Kubla Khan and came on—

Weave a circle round him thrice,

And close your eyes with holy dread,

For he on honey-dew hath fed,

And drunk the milk of Paradise

—I almost jumped out of my skin, for the words so perfectly described my state before I woke up in hospital. I had been wonderfully at ease and healingly at peace; though from time to time voices spoke to me I was under no obligation to hear what they said or to make a reply; I felt that everything was good, that my spirit was wholly my own, and that though all was strange nothing was evil. From time to time the little Madonna appeared and looked at me with friendly concern before removing herself; once or twice she spoke, but I did not know what she said and did not need to know.

But here I was, apparently in bed, and a very pretty girl in a nurse’s uniform was asking me where I had been. Clearly she meant it as a joke. She thought she knew where I had been. That meant that the joke was on her, for no one, not I myself, knew that.

“Is this a base hospital?”

“Goodness, no. How do you feel, Ramsay-Dee?”

“Fine. What day is this?”

“This is the twelfth of May. I’ll get you a drink.”

She disappeared, and I took a few soundings. It was not easy work. The last time I had been conscious of was November; if this was May I had been in that splendid, carefree world for quite a while. I wasn’t in such a bad place now; I couldn’t move my head very much, but I could see a marvellously decorated plaster ceiling, and such walls as lay in my vision were panelled in wood; there was an open window somewhere, and sweet air—no stink of mud or explosive or corpses or latrines—was blowing through it. I was clean. I wriggled appreciatively—and wished I hadn’t, for several parts of me protested. But here was the girl again, and with her a red-faced man in a long white coat.

He seemed greatly elated, especially when I was able to remember my Army number, and though I did not learn why at once I found out over a few days that I was by way of being a medical pet, and my recovery proved something; being merely the patient, I was never given the full details, but I believe I was written up in at least two medical papers as a psychiatric curiosity, but as I was referred to only as “the patient” I could never identify myself for sure. The red-faced man was some sort of specialist in shell-shock cases, and I was one of his successes, though I rather think I cured myself, or the little Madonna cured me, or some agencies other than good nursing and medical observation.