Knight duty finished yesterday morning at 7 AM. It is dull work. I was in a women’s medical ward and at 10 PM began the night’s work. There are a view dim lights, & one has to talk in whispers all the time. The hours drag by very slowly and a great struggle with sleep goes on, it is fearfully difficult to keep awake, especially as there is so very little to do. At 4 we begin to get the ward ready for breakfast, and at 5.20 the patients awake and are washed, and at 6 have their breakfast, such as it is, only bread & butter & tea. So dull for them poor dears.

Yest. morning after my breakfast here, I went out to the Cathedral for service & then for a walk & bought some Christmas presents. In the afternoon Mary came into tea & we were out again.

There has been a most fearful battle in Poland all this week, but every day the papers give us a different version of it. Sometimes it is a Russian victory & sometimes a German victory. To day we are told that the Germans have taken Lodz.

Our King has been to the front, just to cheer up our men, the fact that he was able to get across the Channel shows that we are still the mastery of the sea. Soon I hope we shall hear of a decided advance on the part of the allies.