A few days ago I sat by the bedside of a wounded sapper—a reservist—and heard the story of life in a signal-box on a branch line in the North of England. The man was dying. I think he knew it. But the zest of his everyday life was still strong in him. He described the manner in which, on leaving the army originally, he had obtained his post on the railway. He told me that there were three trains each way in the day, and mentioned that on Winter nights the last train was frequently very late. This meant a late supper, but his wife saw to it that everything was kept hot. Sometimes his wife came to the box to meet him if it was a dry night.
In the next bed there was a young Scotsman from a Highland district which I know very well. We were friends so soon as he learned that I knew his home. He was a roadman, and we talked of his roads and the changes which had been wrought in them of late years by motor traffic.

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