It is built in ‘the Renaissance style’ (I won’t pretend that means anything much to me, dear), is fitted out in expensive mahogany, and is very hushed, or supposedly so, because of the nervous cases. The men wear pale blue uniforms, and are all inveterate smokers. Jim hardly smoked before the war, but now he is ‘on’, as he told me yesterday while sitting up in bed, a packet a day. His cigarettes are called Virginians Select. They are horribly smelly, and of course they’re doing him no good at all.

There is a tower here: fifty stairs to the top of it, where a terrace with a low railing overlooks the River Swale and Ilkley Moor, which as you know is practically a mountain. According to the notices in the lobby, ‘the well-wooded hillside of the Moor affords pleasant walks’. There are in addition ‘tranquil lanes’ for strolling by the river, and walkways among the gardens and grounds; and it is boasted everywhere that we are only ten minutes’ walk from the station.

Dear Lillian, half the men here can’t walk.

The lying down cases are kept on the second floor (which doesn’t seem very logical) and are carried down by the orderlies on long chairs. They are then very often taken directly to the billiard room where they watch or play… well not billiards, evidently, but snooker. It is a game that can at a pinch be played by a man on crutches, but they must take care at the beginning. The first thing that happens in the game as played properly is that the player smashes the white ball into all the others. This is called breaking off (I think). Now there are men here – the nervous cases – who can hear the crash of those balls from anywhere in the house and the noise is capable of bringing on a collapse. So the snooker players do not ‘break off’ but scatter the balls with their hands to get the game going. At all times, the men are careful not to make a commotion. They do not talk to each other very much, but play their snooker and cards, and sit and smoke. They all understand each other perfectly, and without need of conversation. They have all been ‘through it’, over there in France, even though they were not all in the same places. Those who have not been there cannot possibly be expected to understand.