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FIELD HOSPITAL AND FLYING COLUMN
Being the Journal of an English Nursing Sister in Belgium & Russia
by
VIOLETTA THURSTAN
London and New York
G. P. Putnam's Sons
1915
First Impression April 1915
M. R.
_Allons! After the great Companions, and to belong to them.
They too are on the road.
They are the swift and majestic men, they are the greatest women.
They know the universe itself as a road, as many roads,
As roads for travelling souls.
Camerados, I will give you my hand,
I give you my love more precious than money.
Will you give me yourselves, will you come travel with me?
Shall we stick by each other as long as we live?_
Contents
CHAPTER PAGE
I. THE BEGINNING OF IT ALL 1
II. CHARLEROI AND ROUND ABOUT 16
III. OUR HOSPITAL AND PATIENTS 37
IV. THE RETURN TO BRUSSELS 53
V. A MEMORABLE JOURNEY 76
VI. A PEACEFUL INTERLUDE 92
VII. OUR WORK IN WARSAW 113
VIII. THE BOMBARDMENT OF LODZ 128
IX. MORE DOINGS OF THE FLYING COLUMN 144
X. BY THE TRENCHES AT RADZIVILOW 161
INDEX 179
I
THE BEGINNING OF IT ALL
War, war, war. For me the beginning of the war was a torchlight tattoo
on Salisbury Plain. It was held on one of those breathless evenings in
July when the peace of Europe was trembling in the balance, and when
most of us had a heartache in case--_in case_ England, at this time of
internal crisis, did not rise to the supreme sacrifice.
It was just the night for a tattoo--dark and warm and still. Away across
the plain a sea of mist was rolling, cutting us off from the outside
world, and only a few pale stars lighted our stage from above.
The field was hung round with Chinese lanterns throwing weird lights and
shadows over the mysterious forms of men and beasts that moved therein.
It was fascinating to watch the stately entrance into the field,
Lancers, Irish Rifles, Welsh Fusiliers, Grenadiers and many another
gallant regiment, each marching into the field in turn to the swing of
their own particular regimental tune until they were all drawn up in
order.
There followed a very fine exhibition of riding and the usual torchlight
tricks, and then the supreme moment came. The massed bands had thundered
out the first verse of the Evening Hymn, the refrain was taken up by a
single silver trumpet far away--a sweet thin almost unearthly note more
to be felt than heard--and then the bands gathered up the whole melody
and everybody sang the last verse together.
The Last Post followed, and then I think somehow we all knew.
* * * * *
A week later I had a telegram from the Red Cross summoning me to London.
London was a hive of ceaseless activity. Territorials were returning
from their unfinished training, every South Coast train was crowded with
Naval Reserve men who had been called up, every one was buying kits,
getting medical comforts, and living at the Army and Navy Stores. Nurses
trained and untrained were besieging the War Office demanding to be
sent to the front, Voluntary Aid Detachment members were feverishly
practising their bandaging, working parties and ambulance classes were
being organized, crowds without beginning and without end were surging
up and down the pavements between Westminster and Charing Cross, wearing
little flags, buying every half-hour edition of the papers and watching
the stream of recruits at St. Martin's. All was excitement--no one knew
what was going to happen. Then the bad news began to come through from
Belgium, and every one steadied down and settled themselves to their
task of waiting or working, whichever it might happen to be.
I was helping at the Red Cross Centre in Vincent Square, and all day
long there came an endless procession of women wanting to help, some
trained nurses, many--far too many--half-trained women; and a great many
raw recruits, some anxious for adventure and clamouring "to go to the
front at once," others willing and anxious to do the humblest service
that would be of use in this time of crisis.
Surely after this lesson the Bill for the State Registration of Trained
Nurses cannot be ignored or held up much longer. Even now in this
twentieth century, girls of twenty-one, nurses so-called with six
months' hospital training, somehow manage to get out to the front,
blithely undertaking to do work that taxes to its very utmost the skill,
endurance, and resource of the most highly trained women who have given
up the best years of their life to learning the principles that underlie
this most exacting of professions. For it is not only medical and
surgical nursing that is learnt in a hospital ward, it is discipline,
endurance, making the best of adverse circumstances, and above all the
knowledge of mankind. These are the qualities that are needed at the
front, and they cannot be imparted in a few bandaging classes or
instructions in First Aid.
This is not a diatribe against members of Voluntary Aid Detachments.
They do not, as a rule, pretend to be what they are not, and I have
found them splendid workers in their own department. They are not
half-trained nurses but fully trained ambulance workers, ready to do
probationer's work under the fully trained sisters, or if necessary to
be wardmaid, laundress, charwoman, or cook, as the case may be. The
difficulty does not lie with them, but with the women who have a few
weeks' or months' training, who blossom out into full uniform and call
themselves Sister Rose, or Sister Mabel, and are taken at their own
valuation by a large section of the public, and manage through influence
or bluff to get posts that should only be held by trained nurses, and
generally end by bringing shame and disrepute upon the profession.
* * * * *
The work in the office was diversified by a trip to Faversham with some
very keen and capable Voluntary Aid Detachment members, to help
improvise a temporary hospital for some Territorials who had gone sick.
And then my turn came for more active service. I was invited by the St.
John Ambulance to take out a party of nurses to Belgium for service
under the Belgian Red Cross Society.
Very little notice was possible, everything was arranged on Saturday
afternoon of all impossible afternoons to arrange anything in London,
and we were to start for Brussels at eight o'clock on Tuesday morning.
On Monday afternoon I was interviewing my nurses, saying good-bye
to friends--shopping in between--wildly trying to get everything
I wanted at the eleventh hour, when suddenly a message came
to say that the start would not be to-morrow after all. Great
excitement--telephones--wires--interviews. It seemed that there
was some hitch in the arrangements at Brussels, but at last it
was decided by the St. John's Committee that I should go over
alone the next day to see the Belgian Red Cross authorities before
the rest of the party were sent off. The nurses were to follow the
day after if it could be arranged, as having been all collected in
London, it was very inconvenient for them to be kept waiting long.
Early Tuesday morning saw me at Charing Cross Station. There were not
many people crossing--two well-known surgeons on their way to Belgium,
Major Richardson with his war-dogs, and a few others. A nurse going to
Antwerp, with myself, formed the only female contingent on board. It was
asserted that a submarine preceded us all the way to Ostend, but as I
never get further than my berth on these occasions, I cannot vouch for
the truth of this.
Ostend in the middle of August generally means a gay crowd of bathers,
Cook's tourists tripping to Switzerland and so on; but our little party
landed in silence, and anxious faces and ominous whispers met us on our
arrival on Belgian soil. It was even said that the Germans were marching
on Brussels, but this was contradicted afterwards as a sensational
canard. The Red Cross on my luggage got me through the _douane_
formalities without any trouble. I entered the almost empty train and we
went to Brussels without stopping.
At first sight Brussels seemed to be _en fête_, flags were waving from
every window, Boy Scouts were everywhere looking very important, and the
whole population seemed to be in the streets. Nearly every one wore
little coloured flags or ribbons--a favourite badge was the Belgian
colours with the English and French intertwined. It did not seem
possible that war could be so near, and yet if one looked closer one saw
that many of the flags giving such a gay appearance were Red Cross
flags denoting that there an ambulance had been prepared for the
wounded, and the Garde Civile in their picturesque uniform were
constantly breaking up the huge crowds into smaller groups to avoid a
demonstration.
The first thing to arrange was about the coming of my nurses, whether
they were really needed and if so where they were to go. I heard from
the authorities that it was highly probable that Brussels _would_ be
occupied by the Germans, and that it would be best to put off their
coming, for a time at any rate. Private telegrams had long been stopped,
but an official thought he might be able to get mine through, so I sent
a long one asking that the nurses might not be sent till further notice.
As a matter of fact it never arrived, and the next afternoon I heard
that twenty-six nurses--instead of sixteen as was originally
arranged--were already on their way. There were 15,000 beds in Brussels
prepared for the reception of the wounded, and though there were not
many wounded in the city just then, the nurses would certainly all be
wanted soon if any of the rumours were true that we heard on all sides,
of heavy fighting in the neighbourhood, and severe losses inflicted on
the gallant little Belgian Army.
It was impossible to arrange for the nurses to go straight to their work
on arrival, so it was decided that they should go to a hotel for one
night and be drafted to their various posts the next day. Anyhow, they
could not arrive till the evening, so in the afternoon I went out to the
barriers to see what resistance had been made against the possible
German occupation of Brussels. It did not look very formidable--some
barbed-wire entanglements, a great many stones lying about, and the
Gardes Civiles in their quaint old-fashioned costume guarding various
points. That was all.
In due time my large family arrived and were installed at the hotel.
Then we heard, officially, that the Germans were quite near the city,
and that probably the train the nurses had come by would be the last to
get through, and this proved to be the case. _Affiches_ were pasted
everywhere on the walls with the Burgomaster's message to his people:
A SAD HOUR! THE GERMANS ARE AT OUR GATES!
PROCLAMATION OF THE BURGOMASTER OF BRUSSELS
CITIZENS,--In spite of the heroic resistance of our
troops, seconded by the Allied Armies, it is to be feared that the
enemy may invade Brussels.
If this eventuality should take place, I hope that I may be able to
count on the calmness and steadiness of the population.
Let every one keep himself free from terror--free from panic.
The Communal Authorities will not desert their posts. They will
continue to exercise their functions with that firmness of purpose
that you have the right to demand from them under such grave
circumstances.
I need hardly remind my fellow-citizens of their duty to their
country. The laws of war forbid the enemy to force the population
to give information as to the National Army and its method of
defence. The inhabitants of Brussels must know that they are within
their rights in refusing to give any information on this point to
the invader. This refusal is their duty in the interests of their
country.
Let none of you act as a guide to the enemy.
Let every one take precautions against spies and foreign agents,
who will try to gather information or provoke manifestations.
The enemy cannot legitimately harm the family honour nor the life
of the citizens, nor their private property, nor their philosophic
or religious convictions, nor interfere with their religious
services.
Any abuse committed by the invader must be immediately reported to
me.
As long as I have life and liberty, I shall protect with all my
might the dignity and rights of my fellow-citizens. I beg the
inhabitants to facilitate my task by abstaining from all acts of
hostility, all employment of arms, and by refraining from
intervention in battles or encounters.
Citizens, whatever happens, listen to the voice of your Burgomaster
and maintain your confidence in him; he will not betray it.
Long live Belgium free and independent!
Long live Brussels!
ADOLPHE MAX.
All that night refugees from Louvain and Termonde poured in a steady
stream into Brussels, seeking safety. I have never seen a more pitiful
sight. Little groups of terror-stricken peasants fleeing from their
homes, some on foot, some more fortunate ones with their bits of
furniture in a rough cart drawn by a skeleton horse or a large dog. All
had babies, aged parents, or invalids with them. I realized then for the
first time what war meant. We do not know in England. God grant we never
may. It was not merely rival armies fighting battles, it was
civilians--men, women, and children--losing their homes, their
possessions, their country, even their lives. This invasion of
unfortunates seemed to wake Brussels up to the fact that the German army
was indeed at her gate. Hordes of people rushed to the Gare du Nord in
the early dawn to find it entirely closed, no trains either entering or
leaving it. It was said that as much rolling-stock as was possible had
been sent to France to prevent it being taken by the Germans. There was
then a stampede to the Gare du Midi, from whence a few trains were still
leaving the city crammed to their utmost capacity.
In the middle of the morning I got a telephone message from the Belgian
Red Cross that the Germans were at the barriers, and would probably
occupy Brussels in half an hour, and that all my nurses must be in their
respective posts before that time.
Oh dear, what a stampede it was. I told the nurses they must leave their
luggage for the present and be ready in five minutes, and in less than
that time we left the hotel, looking more like a set of rag-and-bone men
than respectable British nursing sisters. One had seized a large
portmanteau, another a bundle of clean aprons, another soap and toilet
articles; yet another provident soul had a tea-basket. I am glad that
the funny side of it did not strike me then, but in the middle of the
next night I had helpless hysterics at the thought of the spectacle we
must have presented. Mercifully no one took much notice of us--the
streets were crowded and we had difficulty in getting on in some
places--just at one corner there was a little cheer and a cry of "Vive
les Anglais!"
It took a long time before my flock was entirely disposed of. It had
been arranged that several of them should work at one of the large
hospitals in Brussels where 150 beds had been set apart for the wounded,
five in another hospital at the end of the city, two in an ambulance
station in the centre of Brussels, nine were taken over to a large
fire-station that was converted into a temporary hospital with 130 beds,
and two had been promised for a private hospital outside the barriers.
It was a work of time to get the last two to their destinations; the
Germans had begun to come in by that time, and we had to wait two hours
to cross a certain street that led to the hospital, as all traffic had
been stopped while the enemy entered Brussels.
It was an imposing sight to watch the German troops ride in. The
citizens of Brussels behaved magnificently, but what a bitter
humiliation for them to undergo. How should we have borne it, I wonder,
if it had been London? The streets were crowded, but there was hardly a
sound to be heard, and the Germans took possession of Brussels in
silence. First the Uhlans rode in, then other cavalry, then the
artillery and infantry. The latter were dog-weary, dusty and
travel-stained--they had evidently done some forced marching. When the
order was given to halt for a few minutes, many of them lay down in the
street just as they were, resting against their packs, some too
exhausted to eat, others eating sausages out of little paper bags
(which, curiously enough, bore the name of a Dutch shop printed on the
outside) washed down with draughts of beer which many of the inhabitants
of Brussels, out of pity for their weary state, brought them from the
little drinking-houses that line the Chaussée du Nord.
The rear was brought up by Red Cross wagons and forage carts,
commissariat wagons, and all the miscellaneous kit of an army on the
march. It took thirty-six hours altogether for the army to march in and
take possession. They installed themselves in the Palais de Justice and
the Hôtel de Ville, having requisitioned beds, food and everything that
they wanted from the various hotels. Poor Madame of the Hotel X. wept
and wrung her hands over the loss of her beautiful beds. Alas, poor
Madame! The next day her husband was shot as a spy, and she cared no
longer about the beds.
In the meantime, just as it got dark, I installed my last two nurses in
the little ambulance out beyond the barriers.
II
CHARLEROI AND ROUND ABOUT
The Germans had asked for three days to pass through the city of
Brussels; a week had passed and they showed no signs of going. The first
few days more and more German soldiers poured in--dirty, footsore, and
for the most part utterly worn out. At first the people of Brussels
treated them with almost unnecessary kindness--buying them cake and
chocolate, treating them to beer, and inviting them into their houses to
rest--but by the end of the week these civilities ceased.
Tales of the German atrocities began to creep in--stories of Liège and
Louvain were circulated from mouth to mouth, and doubtless lost nothing
by being repeated.
[Illustration: MAP OF BELGIUM]
There was no _real_ news at all. Think how cut off we were--certainly it
was nothing in comparison with what it was afterwards--but we could
not know that then--and anyway we learnt to accommodate ourselves to the
lack of news by degrees. Imagine a Continental capital suddenly without
newspapers, without trains, telephones, telegraphs; all that we had
considered up to now essentials of civilized life. Personally, I heard a
good deal of Belgian news, one way and another, as I visited all my
flock each day in their various hospitals and ambulances stationed in
every part of the city.
The hospital that we had to improvise at the fire-station was one of the
most interesting pieces of work we had to do in Brussels. There were 130
beds altogether in six large wards, and the Sisters had to sleep at
first in one, later in two large dormitories belonging to firemen absent
on active service. The firemen who were left did all the cooking
necessary for the nursing staff and patients, and were the most charming
of men, leaving nothing undone that could augment the Sisters' comfort.
It is a great strain on temper and endurance for women to work and sleep
and eat together in such close quarters, and on the whole they stood
the test well. In a very few days the fire-station was transformed into
a hospital, and one could tell the Sisters with truth that the wards
looked _almost_ like English ones. Alas and alas! At the end of the week
the Germans put in eighty soldiers with sore feet, who had over-marched,
and the glorious vision of nursing Tommy Atkins at the front faded into
the prosaic reality of putting hundreds of cold compresses on German
feet, that they might be ready all the sooner to go out and kill our
men. War is a queer thing!!
* * * * *
On the following Tuesday afternoon the Burgomaster of Charleroi came
into Brussels in an automobile asking for nurses and bringing with him a
permit for this purpose from the German authorities. Charleroi, which
was now also in German hands, was in a terrible state, and most of the
city burnt down to the ground. It was crammed with wounded--both French
and German--every warehouse and cottage almost were full of them, and
they were very short of trained people.
The Central Red Cross Bureau sent a message, asking if three of us
would go back with him. _Would we!_ Was it not the chance we had been
longing for. In ten minutes Sister Elsie, Sister Grace and I were in
that automobile speeding to Charleroi. I had packed quickly into a
portmanteau all I thought I was likely to want in the way of uniform and
other clothing, with a few medical comforts for the men, and a little
tea and cocoa for ourselves. The two Sisters had done likewise--so we
were rather horrified when we got to Hal, where we had to change
automobiles, the Burgomaster said he could not possibly take any of our
luggage, as we must get into quite a small car--the big one having to
return to Brussels. He assured us that our things would be sent on in a
few days--so back to Brussels went my portmanteau with all my clean
aprons and caps and everything else, and I did not see it again for
nearly a week. But such is war!
We waited nearly an hour at Hal while our German permits were examined,
and then went off in the small car. It was heart-breaking to see the
scenes of desolation as we passed along the road. Jumet--the
working-class suburb of Charleroi--was entirely burnt down, there did
not seem to be one house left intact. It is indeed terrible when
historic and consecrated buildings such as those at Louvain and Rheims
are burnt down, but in a way it is more pathetic to see these poor
little cottages destroyed, that must have meant so much to their owners,
and it makes one's heart ache to see among the crumbling ruins the
remains of a baby's perambulator, or the half-burnt wires of an old
four-post bed. Probably the inhabitants of Jumet had all fled, as there
was no one to be seen as we went through the deserted village, except
some German sentries pacing up and down.
Parts of Charleroi were still burning as we got to it, and a terrible
acrid smoke pervaded everything. Here the poorer streets were spared,
and it was chiefly the rich shops and banks and private houses that had
been destroyed. Charleroi was the great Birmingham of Belgium--coal-pits
all round, with many great iron and steel works, now of course all idle,
and most of the owners entirely ruined. The town was absolutely crammed
with German troops as we passed through; it had now been occupied for
two or three days and was being used as a great military depot.
But Charleroi was not to be our final destination--we went on a few more
kilometres along the Beaumont road, and drew up at a fairly large
building right out in the country. It was a hospital that had been three
parts built ten years ago, then abandoned for some reason and never
finished. Now it was being hastily fitted up as a Red Cross hospital,
and stretcher after stretcher of wounded--both French and German--were
being brought in as we arrived.
The confusion that reigned within was indescribable. There were some
girls there who had attended first-aid lectures, and they were doing
their best; but there were no trained nurses and no one particularly in
command. The German doctor had already gone, one of the Belgian doctors
was still working there, but he was absolutely worn out and went off
before long, as he had still cases to attend to in the town before he
went to his well-earned bed. He carried off the two Sisters with him,
till the morning, and I was left alone with two or three Red Cross
damsels to face the night. It is a dreadful nightmare to look back at.
Blood-stained uniforms hastily cut off the soldiers were lying on the
floor--half-open packets of dressings were on every locker; basins of
dirty water or disinfectant had not been emptied; men were moaning with
pain, calling for water, begging that their dressings might be done
again; and several new cases just brought in were requiring urgent
attention. And the cannon never ceased booming. I was not accustomed to
it then, and each crash meant to me rows of men mown down--maimed or
killed. I soon learnt that comparatively few shells do any damage,
otherwise there would soon be no men left at all. In time, too, one gets
so accustomed to cannon that one hardly hears it, but I had not arrived
at that stage then: this was my baptism of fire.
Among the other miseries of that night was the dreadful shortage of all
hospital supplies, and the scarcity of food for the men. There was a
little coffee which they would have liked, but there was no possibility
of hot water. The place had been hastily fitted up with electric light,
and the kitchen was arranged for steam cooking, so there was not even a
gas-jet to heat anything on. I had a spirit-lamp and methylated spirit
in my portmanteau, but, as I said, my luggage had been all wafted away
at Hal.
But the night wore away somehow, and with the morning light came plans
of organization and one saw how things could be improved in many ways,
and the patients made more comfortable. The hospital was a place of
great possibilities in some ways; its position standing almost at the
top of a high hill in its own large garden was ideal, and the air was
gloriously bracing, but little of it reached the poor patients as
unfortunately the Germans had issued a proclamation forbidding any
windows to be open, in case, it was said, anyone should fire from
them--and as we were all prisoners in their hands, we had to do as we
were bid.
At nine o'clock the Belgian doctor and the German commandant appeared,
and I went off with the former to help with an amputation of arm, in one
of the little temporary ambulances in the town of M----, three
kilometres away. The building had been a little dark shop and not very
convenient, and if the patient had not been so desperately ill, he
would have been moved to Charleroi for his operation. He was a French
tirailleur--a lad about twenty, his right arm had been severely injured
by shrapnel several days before, and was gangrenous right up to the
shoulder. He was unconscious and moaning slightly at intervals, but he
stood the operation very well, and we left him fairly comfortable when
we had to return to the hospital.
We got back about twelve, which is the hour usually dedicated to
patients' dinner, but it was impossible to find anything to eat except
potatoes. We sent everywhere to get some meat, but without success,
though in a day or two we got some kind of dark meat which I thought
must be horse. (Now from better acquaintance with ancient charger, I
know it to have been so.) There was just a little milk that was reserved
for the illest patients, no butter or bread. I was beginning to feel
rather in need of food myself by that time. There had been, of course,
up to then no time to bother about my own meals, and I had had nothing
since breakfast the day before, that is about thirty hours ago, except
a cup of coffee which I had begged from the concierge before starting
with the doctor for the amputation case.
Well, there was nothing to eat and only the dirtiest old woman in all
the world to cook it, but at three o'clock we managed to serve the
patients with an elegant dish of underdone lentils for the first course,
and overdone potatoes for the second, and partook ourselves gratefully
thereof, after they had finished. In the afternoon of that day a meeting
of the Red Cross Committee was held at the hospital, and I was sent for
and formally installed as Matron of the hospital with full authority to
make any improvements I thought necessary, and with the stipulation that
I might have two or three days' leave every few weeks, to go and visit
my scattered flock in Brussels. The appointment had to be made subject
to the approval of the German commandant, but apparently he made no
objection--at any rate I never heard of any.
And then began a very happy time for me, in spite of many difficulties
and disappointments. I can never tell the goodness of the Committee and
the Belgian doctor to me, and their kindness in letting me introduce all
our pernickety English ways to which they were not accustomed, won my
gratitude for ever. Never were Sisters so loyal and unselfish as mine.
The first part of the time they were overworked and underfed, and no
word of grumbling or complaint was ever heard from them. They worked
from morning till night and got the hospital into splendid order. The
Committee were good enough to allow me to keep the best of the Red Cross
workers as probationers and to forbid entrance to the others. We had
suffered so much at their hands before this took place, that I was truly
grateful for this permission as no discipline or order was possible with
a large number of young girls constantly rushing in and out, sitting on
patients' beds, meddling with dressings, and doing all kinds of things
they shouldn't.
I am sure that no hospital ever had nicer patients than ours were. The
French patients, though all severely wounded and prisoners in the hands
of the Germans, bore their troubles cheerfully, even gaily. We had a
great variety of regiments represented in the hospital: Tirailleurs,
Zouaves, one Turco from Algeria--our big good-natured Adolphe--soldiers
from Paris, from Brittany and from Normandy, especially from Calvados.
The German soldiers, too, behaved quite well, and were very grateful for
everything done for them--mercifully we had no officers. We had not
separate rooms for them--French and German soldiers lay side by side in
the public wards.
One of the most harrowing things during that time was the way all the
Belgians were watching for the English troops to deliver them from the
yoke of their oppressor. Every day, many times a day, when German rules
got more and more stringent and autocratic, and fresh tales of
unnecessary harshness and cruelty were circulated, they would say over
and over again, "Where are the English? If only the English would come!"
Later they got more bitter and we heard, "Why don't the English come and
help us as they promised? If only the English would come, it would be
all right." And so on, till I almost felt as if I could not bear it any
longer. One morning some one came in and said English soldiers had been
seen ten kilometres away. We heard the sound of distant cannon in a new
direction, and watched and waited, hoping to see the English ride in.
But some one must have mistaken the German khaki for ours, for no
English were ever near that place. There was no news of what was really
happening in the country, no newspapers ever got through, and we had
nothing to go upon but the German _affiches_ proclaiming victories
everywhere, the German trains garlanded with laurels and faded roses,
marked "Destination--Paris," and the large batches of French prisoners
that were constantly marched through the town. An inscription written
over a doorway in Charleroi amused us rather: "Vive Guillaume II, roi de
l'univers." Not yet, not yet, William.
Later on the Belgians issued a wonderful little newspaper at irregular
intervals of three or four days, typewritten and passed from hand to
hand. The most amazing news was published in it, which we always firmly
believed, till it was contradicted in the next issue. I collected two or
three copies of this paper as a curiosity, but unfortunately lost them
later on, with all my papers and luggage. One or two items I remember
quite well. One gave a vivid account of how the Queen of Holland had
killed her husband because he had allowed the Germans to pass through
Maestricht; another even more circumstantial story was that England had
declared war on Holland, Holland had submitted at once, and England
imposed many stringent conditions, of which I only remember two. One
was, that all her trade with Germany should cease at once; secondly,
that none of her lighthouses should show light at night.
One of the German surgeons who used to operate at our hospital was
particularly ingenious in inventing tortures for me; I used to have to
help him in his operations, and he would recount to me with gusto how
the English had retreated from Mons, how the Germans were getting nearer
and nearer to Paris, how many English killed, wounded and prisoners
there were, and so on. One morning he began about the Fleet and said
that a great battle was going on in the North Sea, and going very badly
for the English. I had two brothers fighting in the North Sea of whom I
had no news since the war began, and I could bear it no longer, but fled
from the operating-room.
Charleroi and its neighbourhood was just one large German camp, its
position on the railway making it a particularly valuable base for them.
The proclamations and rules for the behaviour of the inhabitants became
daily more and more intolerant. It was forbidden to lock the door, or
open the window, or pull down the blinds, or allow your dog out of the
house; all German officers were to be saluted--and if there was any
doubt, any German soldier was to be saluted, and so on, day after day.
One really funny one I wish I could reproduce. It forbade anyone to
"wear a menacing look" but it did not say who was to be the judge of
this look.
Every one was too restless and unhappy to settle to anything, all the
most important shops were burnt down, and very few of those that were
left were open. The whole population seemed to spend all their time in
the street waiting for something to happen. Certainly the Germans seem
to have had a special "down" on Charleroi and its neighbourhood, so many
villages in its vicinity were burnt down and most abominable cruelties
practised on its inhabitants. The peasants who were left were simply
terrorized, as no doubt the Germans meant them to be, and a white flag
hung from nearly every cottage window denoting complete submission. In
one village some German soldier wrote in chalk on the door of a house
where he had been well received, "Güte Leute hier," and these poor
people got chalk and tried to copy the difficult German writing on every
door in the street. I am afraid that did not save them, however, when
their turn came. It was the utter ruthlessness and foresight with which
every contingency was prepared for that appalled me and made me realize
what a powerful enemy we were up against. Everything was thought out
down to the last detail and must have been prepared months beforehand.
Even their wagons for transport were all painted the same slate-grey
colour, while the English and Belgians were using any cart they could
commandeer in the early days, as I afterwards saw in a German camp
Pickford's vans and Lyons' tea carts that they had captured from us.
Even their postal arrangements were complete; we saw their grey
"Feld-Post" wagons going to and fro quite at the beginning of the war.
Several people in Charleroi told me that the absolute system and
organization of destruction frightened them more than the actual fire
itself. Every German soldier had a little hatchet, and when Charleroi
was fired, they simply went down the street as if they had been drilled
to it for months, cutting a square hole in the panel of each door, and
throwing a ball of celluloid filled with benzine inside. This exploded
and set the house on fire, and later on the soldiers would return to see
if it was burning well. They were entirely indifferent as to whether
anyone were inside or not, as the following incident, which came under
my notice, will show. Two English Red Cross Sisters were working at an
ambulance in Charleroi, and lodging with some people in the centre of
the city. When the town was being burnt they asked leave to go and try
to save some of their possessions. They arrived at the house, however,
and found it entirely burnt down, and all their things destroyed. They
were returning rather sorrowfully to their hospital when an old woman
accosted them and told them that a woman with a new-born infant was
lying in bed in one of the burning houses.
The house was not burning badly, and they got into it quite easily and
found the woman lying in bed with her little infant beside her, almost
out of her wits with terror, but too weak to move. The nurses found they
could not manage alone, so went down into the street to find a man. They
found, after some trouble, a man who had only one arm and got him to
help them take the woman to the hospital. One of the nurses was carrying
the baby, the other with the one-armed man was supporting the mother,
when the German soldiers fired at the little party, and the one-armed
man fell bleeding at the side of the road. The Sisters were obliged to
leave him for the moment, and went on with the mother and infant to the
hospital, got a stretcher and came back and fetched the man and brought
him also to the hospital. It was only a flesh wound in the shoulder and
he made a good recovery, but what a pitiful little group to waste
ammunition on--a newly confined mother and her infant, two Red Cross
Sisters and a crippled man.
One can only imagine that they were drunk when they did these kind of
things, for individually the German soldier is generally a decent
fellow, though some of the Prussian officers are unspeakable. Discipline
is very severe and the soldiers are obliged to carry out orders without
troubling themselves about rights and wrongs. It is curious that very
few German soldiers know why they are fighting, and they are always told
such wonderful stories of German victories that they think the war will
soon be over. When they arrived at Charleroi, for instance, they were
told they were at Charleville, and nearly all our wounded German
soldiers thought they were already in France. They also thought Paris
was already taken and London in flames. It hardly seems worth while to
lie to them in this way, for they are bound to find out the truth sooner
or later.
III
OUR HOSPITAL AND PATIENTS
After we had had a long week of night and day work, two more of my
nurses suddenly turned up at the hospital. They had most unexpectedly
got a message that I had sent in by hand to Brussels, begging for nurses
and saying how hard pressed we were, and had got permission to come out
in a Red Cross motor-ambulance. I was, of course, delighted to see them,
and with their help we soon settled down into the ordinary routine of
hospital life, and forgot we were prisoners under strict supervision,
having all kinds of tiresome rules and regulations to keep.
The question of supplies was a very difficult one from the first. We
were short of everything, very short of dressings, chloroform and all
kinds of medical supplies, and especially (even worse in one way) very
short of hospital linen such as sheets and towels and shirts and
drawers, and we had the greatest difficulty in getting anyone to come
and wash for us. One might have thought that with almost every one out
of work, there would have been no lack of women; but the hospital was a
long way from the nearest town and I suppose they were afraid to come;
also, of course, many, very many, had had their houses burnt, lost their
all and fled away. The food question was a very difficult one also. We
had to live just from day to day and be thankful for small mercies.
Naturally for ourselves it would not have mattered at all, but it _did_
matter very much for our poor patients, who were nearly all very ill.
Meat was always difficult often impossible to get, and at first there
was no bread, which, personally, I missed more than anything else;
afterwards we got daily rations of this. Butter there was none; eggs and
milk very scarce, only just enough for the very severely wounded.
Potatoes and lentils we had in great quantities, and on that diet one
would never starve, though it was not an ideal one for sick men.
I remember one morning when we had only potatoes for the men's dinner;
the cook had just peeled an immense bucket of them and was putting them
on to boil when some German soldiers came and took the lot, and this so
infuriated the cook that we had to wait hours before we could get
another lot prepared and cooked for the patients' dinner. The
water-supply was another of our difficulties. All the watercourses in
the neighbourhood were polluted with dead bodies of men and horses and
no water was fit to drink. There was a horrible, greenish, foul-smelling
stream near the hospital, which I suppose eventually found its way into
the river, and it sickened me to imagine what we were drinking, even
though it was well boiled.
It was very hot weather and the men all dreadfully thirsty. There was
one poor Breton soldier dying of septicæmia, who lay in a small room off
the large ward. He used to shriek to every passer-by to give him drink,
and no amount of water relieved his raging thirst. That voice calling
incessantly night and day, "A boire, à boire!" haunted me long after he
was dead. The taste of long-boiled water is flat and nasty, so we made
weak decoctions of camomile-tea for the men, which they seemed to like
very much. We let it cool, and kept a jug of it on each locker so that
they could help themselves whenever they liked.
Some of the ladies of the town were very kind indeed in bringing in wine
and little delicacies for our sick, and for ourselves, too, sometimes.
We were very grateful to them for all their kindness in the midst of
their own terrible trouble and anxieties.
All the first ten days the cannon boomed without ceasing; by degrees it
got more distant, and we knew the forts of Maubeuge were being bombarded
by the famous German howitzers, which used to shake the hospital to its
foundations. The French soldiers in the wards soon taught us to
distinguish the sounds of the different cannon. In a few days we knew as
well as they did whether it was French or German artillery firing.
Our hospital was on the main Beaumont road, and in the midst of our work
we would sometimes glance out and watch the enormous reinforcements of
troops constantly being sent up. Once we saw a curious sight. Two large
motor-omnibuses with "Leipziger lokal-anzeiger" painted on their side
went past, each taking about twenty-five German Béguine nuns to the
battlefield, the contrast between this very modern means of transport
and the archaic appearance of the nuns in their mediæval dress was very
striking.
Suddenly one Sunday morning the cannonading ceased--there was dead
silence--Maubeuge was taken, and the German army passed on into France.
It is difficult to explain the desolating effect when the cannon
suddenly ceases. At first one fears and hates it, then one gets
accustomed to it and one feels at least _something is being done_--there
is still a chance. When it ceases altogether there is a sense of utter
desertion, as if all hope had been given up.
* * * * *
On the morning of September 1 the German commandant suddenly appeared in
the wards at 7 o'clock, and said that all the German wounded were going
to be sent off to Germany at once, and that wagons would be coming in an
hour's time to take them to the station. We had several men who were not
fit to travel, amongst them a soldier who had had his leg amputated only
twelve hours before. I ought to have learnt by that time the futility
of argument with a German official, but I pleaded very hard that a few
of the men might be left till they were a little better able to stand
the journey, for there is no nationality among wounded, and we could not
bear even German patients to undergo unnecessary suffering. But my
remonstrances were quite in vain, and one could not help wondering what
would become of _our_ wounded if the Germans treated their own so
harshly. I heard from other ambulances that it was their experience as
well as mine that the lightly wounded were very well looked after, but
the severely wounded were often very inconsiderately treated. They were
no longer any use as fighting machines and only fit for the scrap-heap.
It is all part of the German system. They are out for one purpose only,
that is to win--and they go forward with this one end in
view--everything else, including the care of the wounded, is a
side-issue and must be disregarded and sacrificed if necessary.
We prepared the men as well as we could for the long ride in the wagons
that must precede the still longer train journey. Once on the
ambulance-train, however, they would be well looked after; it was the
jolting on the country road I feared for many of them. None of us were
permitted to accompany them to Charleroi station, but the driver of one
of the wagons told me afterwards that the man with the amputated leg had
been taken out dead at the station, as he had had a severe hæmorrhage on
the way, which none of his comrades knew how to treat. He also told us
that all the big hospitals at Charleroi were evacuating their German
wounded, and that he had seen two other men taken out of carts quite
dead. We took this to mean very good news for us, thinking that the
Germans must have had a severe reverse to be taking away their wounded
in such a hurry. So we waited and hoped, but as usual nothing happened
and there was no news.
We had a very joyful free sort of feeling at having got rid of the
German patients. The French soldiers began to sing The Marseillaise as
soon as they had gone, but we were obliged to stop them as we feared the
German doctor or commandant, who were often prowling about, might hear.
Losing so many patients made the work much lighter for the time being,
and about this time, too, several of the severely wounded men died. They
had suffered so frightfully that it was a great relief when they died
and were at rest. The curé of the parish church was so good to them,
never minding how many times a day he toiled up that long hill in the
blazing sunshine, if he could comfort some poor soul, or speed them on
their way fortified with the last rites of the Church.
One poor Breton soldier could not bear the thought of being buried
without a coffin--he spoke about it for days before he died, till Madame
D----, a lady living in the town to whom we owe countless acts of
kindness, promised that she would provide a coffin, so the poor lad died
quite happily and peacefully, and the coffin and a decent funeral were
provided in due course, though, of course, he was not able to have a
soldier's funeral. Some of these poor French soldiers were dreadfully
homesick--most of them were married, and some were fathers of families
who had to suddenly leave their peaceful occupations to come to the war.
Jules, a dapper little pastrycook with pink cheeks and bright black
eyes, had been making a batch of tarts when his summons had come. And he
was much better suited to making tarts than to fighting, poor little
man, for he was utterly unnerved by what he had gone through, and used
to have dreadful fits of crying and sobbing which it was very difficult
to stop.
Some of the others, and especially the Zouaves, one could not imagine in
any other profession than that of soldiering. How jolly and cheerful
they were, always making the best of everything, and when the German
patients had gone we really had time to nurse them and look after them
properly. Those who were able for the exertion were carried out to the
garden, and used to lie under the pear-trees telling each other
wonderful stories of what they had been through, and drinking in fresh
health and strength every day from the beautiful breeze that we had on
the very hottest days up on our hill. We had to guard them very
carefully while they were in the garden, however, for if one man had
tried to escape the hospital would have been burnt down and the
officials probably shot. So two orderlies and two Red Cross
probationers were always on duty there, and I think they enjoyed it as
much as the men.
Suddenly a fresh thunderbolt fell.
One Sunday morning the announcement was made that every French patient
was to go to Germany on Monday morning at eight.