I became good friends with that boy, who was a promising young poet, and a joyous creature no more fit for war than a child of ten, hating the muck and horror of it, not ashamed to confess his fear, with a boyish wistfulness of hope that he might not be killed, because he loved life. But he was killed⁠ ⁠… I had a letter from his stricken mother months afterward. The child was “Missing” then, and her heart cried out for him.

Opposite my bed was a middle-aged man from Lancashire⁠—I suppose he had been in a cotton-mill or a factory⁠—a hardheaded, simple-hearted fellow, as good as gold, and always speaking of “the wife.” But his nerves had gone to pieces and he was afraid to sleep because of the dreams that came to him.

“Sister,” he said, “don’t let me go to sleep. Wake me up if you see me dozing. I see terrible things in my dreams. Frightful things. I can’t bear it.”

“You will sleep better tonight,” she said. “I am putting something in your milk. Something to stop the dreaming.”