One of them, Jock, explained that, being from
the North, he had desired to seize this opportunity of seeing the sights
of London. Jock, I may remind you, is totally blind. Jock's guide, the
man who had volunteered to show him the sights and who had only once
been in London before, could see very faintly the difference between
light and dark.... Thus this pair of irresponsibles had fared forth into
the dusk of Regent Street.
* * * * *
It sounds a very horrible fate to be blinded. But somehow the blind men
themselves seldom seem to be overwhelmed by its horribleness. If you
want to hear the merriest banter in a war hospital, visit the blind
men's wards. The pathos of them lies less in the sadness of the victims
than in the triumphant, wonderful fact that they are _not_ sad. I wish
we others all inhabited the same mysteriously jocund spiritual realm as
Jock and his comrades, who come tramp-tramping to the concert-room down
the corridor from the D wards.
VI
WHEN THE WOUNDED ARRIVE
The receiving hall of the hospital is its clearing house of patients.
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