For a long week the roar of guns had echoed incessantly in our
corridors and wards, and a continuous stream of motor-lorries,
guns, and ammunition waggons had rumbled past our doors;
whilst at night the flash of the guns lit up the horizon with an
angry glare. The flood of wounded had abated, and we were
just beginning to get the hospital into some sort of shape when
the order came to evacuate.
It had been no easy task transforming bare rooms into
comfortable wards, arranging for supplies of food and stores,
and fitting a large staff into a cubic space totally inadequate to
hold them. But wonderful things can be accomplished when
everyone is anxious to do their share, and the most hopeless
sybarite will welcome shelter however humble, and roll himself
up in a blanket in any corner, when he is dead tired. For the first
few days the rush of wounded had been so tremendous that all
we could do was to try to keep our heads above water and not
be drowned by the flood.
But towards the end of the week the numbers diminished, not
because there were not as many wounded, but because the
situation was so critical that the Belgian authorities did not dare
to leave any large number of wounded in Furnes. Supplies
were coming out from England in response to urgent telegrams,
and, through the kind offices of the Queen of the Belgians, we
had been able to obtain a number of beds from the town, in
addition to twenty which she had generously given to us herself.
So that we were gradually beginning to take on the appearance
of an ordinary hospital, and work was settling down into a
regular routine. The sleepy little town of Furnes had been for
some weeks in a state of feverish activity. After the evacuation
of Antwerp and the retirement of the Belgian Army from Ostend,
it had become the advanced base of the Belgian troops, and it
was very gay with Staff officers, and of course packed with
soldiers. The immense Grand Place lined with buildings, in
many cases bearing unmistakable signs of a birth in Spanish
times, was a permanent garage of gigantic dimensions, and the
streets were thronged day and night with hurrying cars. We in
the hospital hoped that the passage of the Yser would prove
too much for the Germans, and that we should be left in peace,
for we could not bear to think that all our labour could be thrown
to the winds, and that we might have to start afresh in some
other place. But one of the massed attacks which have formed
such a prominent feature of this terrible war had temporarily
rolled back the defence in the Dixmude district, and it was
deemed unwise to submit the hospital to the risk of possible
disaster.
We were fortunate in having Dr. Munro's ambulance at our
disposal, and in rather over two hours more than a hundred
wounded had been transferred to the Red Cross train which lay
at the station waiting to take them to Calais. An evacuation is
always a sad business, for the relations between a hospital and
its patients are far more than professional. But with us it was
tragic, for we knew that for many of our patients the long
journey could have only one conclusion. Only the worst cases
were ever brought to us, in fact only those whose condition
rendered the long journey to Calais a dangerous proceeding,
and we felt that for many of them the evacuation order was a
death warrant, and that we should never see them again. They
were brave fellows, and made the best of it as they shook
hands with smiling faces and wished us "Au revoir," for though
they might die on the way they preferred that to the danger of
falling into the hands of the Germans. And they were right. They
knew as well as we did that we are not fighting against a
civilized nation, but against a gang of organized savages.
Three hours later we were mingling with the crowds who
thronged the road, wondering with them where our heads would
rest that night, and filled with pity at the terrible tragedy which
surrounded us. Carts, wheelbarrows, perambulators, and in fact
any vehicle which could be rolled along, were piled to overflowing
with household goods. Little children and old men and women
struggled along under loads almost beyond their powers, none
of them knowing whither they went or what the curtain of fate
would reveal when next it was drawn aside. It was a blind flight
into the darkness of the unknown.
Our orders were to make for Poperinghe, a little town lying
about fifteen miles due south of Furnes, in the direction of
Ypres. For the first ten miles we travelled along the main road to
Ypres, a fine avenue running between glorious trees, and one
of the chief thoroughfares of Belgium. Here we made our first
acquaintance with the African troops, who added a touch of
colour in their bright robes to the otherwise grey surroundings.
They were encamped in the fields by the side of the road, and
seemed to be lazily enjoying themselves seated round their
camp-fires. At Oostvleteren we parted company with the main
road and its fine surface, and for the next six miles we bumped
and jolted along on a bad cross-road till our very bones rattled
and groaned.
There was no suggestion now of the horrors of war. Peaceful
villages as sleepy as any in our own country districts appeared
at frequent intervals, and easy prosperity was the obvious
keynote of the well-wooded and undulating countryside. We
were in one of the great hop districts, and the contrast with the
flat and unprotected country round Furnes was striking. One
might Almost have been in the sheltered hopfields of Kent. Little
children looked up from their games in astonishment as we
rolled by, and our response to their greetings was mingled with
a silent prayer that they might be spared the terrible fate which
had befallen their brothers and sisters in far-off Lou vain. The
contrasts of war are amazing. Here were the children playing by
the roadside, and the cattle slowly wending their way home, and
ten miles away we could hear the roar of the guns, and knew
that on those wasted fields men were struggling with savage
fury in one of the bloodiest battles of the war.
In the great square of Poperinghe the scene was brilliant in the
extreme. Uniforms of every conceivable cut and colour rubbed
shoulder to shoulder; ambulance waggons, guns, ammunition
trains, and picketed horses all seemed to be mixed in inextricable
confusion; while a squadron of French cavalry in their bright
blue and silver uniforms was drawn up on one side of the
square, waiting patiently for the orders which would permit
them to go to the help of their hard-pressed comrades. It seemed
impossible that we could find shelter here, for obviously every
corner must have been filled by the throng of soldiers who
crowded in the square. But we were quite happy, for had we
not got Madame with us, and had her genius ever been known
to fail, especially in the face of the impossible? Others might
go without a roof, but not we, and others might go to bed
supperless, but in some miraculous way we knew that we should
sit down to a hot dinner. We were not deceived. The whole nursing
staff was soon comfortably housed in a girls' school, while the men
were allotted the outhouse of a convent, and there, rolled up in our
blankets and with our bags for pillows, we slept that night as soundly
as we should have done in our own comfortable beds in England.
There was ample room in the courtyard for our heavily laden
ambulances, for we had brought all our stores with us; and a
big pump was a welcome sight, for grime had accumulated
during the preceding twelve hours. By the side of the friendly
pump, in a railed-off recess, a life-size image of Our Lady of
Lourdes, resplendent in blue and gold, looked down with a
pitying smile on a group of pilgrims, one of whom bore a little
child in her arms; whilst a well-worn stone step spoke of the
number of suppliants who had sought her aid.
We had fasted for many hours, and while we were doing our
part in unpacking the small store of food which we had brought
with us, Madame, with her usual genius, had discovered on the
outskirts of Poperinghe an obscure cafe, where for a small sum
the proprietor allowed us to use his kitchen. There we were
presently all seated round three tables, drinking coffee such as
we had rarely tasted, and eating a curiously nondescript, but
altogether delightful, meal. There were two little rooms, one
containing a bar and a stove, the other only a table. Over the
stove presided a lady whose novels we have all read, cooking
bacon, and when I say that she writes novels as well as she
cooks bacon it is very high praise indeed--at least we thought
so at the time. Some genius had discovered a naval store in the
town, and had persuaded the officer in charge to give us
cheese and jam and a whole side of bacon, so that we fed like
the gods. There was one cloud over the scene, for the terrible
discovery was made that we had left behind in Furnes a large
box of sausages, over the fate of which it is well to draw a veil;
but Madame was not to be defeated even by that, and a wonderful
salad made of biscuits and vinegar and oil went far to console
us. And that reminds me of a curious episode in Furnes. For
several days the huge store bottle of castor oil was lost. It was
ultimately discovered in the kitchen, where, as the label was
in English, it had done duty for days as salad oil! What is
there in a name after all?
We had not been able to bring with us all our stores, and as
some of these were wanted two of us started back to Furnes
late at night to fetch them. It was a glorious night, and one had
the advantage of a clear road. We were driving northwards, and
the sky was lit up by the flashes of the guns at Nieuport and
Dixmude, whilst we could hear their dull roar in the distance. All
along the road were encamped the Turcos, and their camp-
fires, with the dark forms huddled around them, gave a picturesque
touch to the scene. Half-way to Furnes the road was lit up
by a motor-car which had caught fire, and which stood blazing
in the middle of the road. We had some little difficulty in passing
it, but when we returned it was only a mass of twisted iron by
the roadside. There was no moon, but the stars shone out
all the more brilliantly as we spun along on the great Ypres
road. It was long after midnight when we reached the hospital,
and it was not a little uncanny groping through its wards in the
darkness. There is some influence which seems to haunt the
empty places where men once lived, but it broods in redoubled
force over the places where men have died. In those wards,
now so dark and silent, we had worked for all the past days amid
sights which human eyes should never have seen, and the
groans of suffering we had heard seemed to echo through the
darkness. We were glad when we had collected the stores
we required and were again in the car on our way back to Poperinghe.
Next morning we called at the Hotel de Ville in Poperinghe, and
there we learnt that the Queen, with her usual thoughtfulness,
was interesting herself on our behalf to find us a building in
which we could make a fresh start. She had sent the Viscomtesse
de S. to tell us that she hoped to shortly place at our disposal
either a school or a convent. On the following day, however,
we heard that the situation had somewhat settled, and an order
came from General Mellis, the Chief of the Medical Staff,
instructing us to return to Furnes. A few hours later found
us hard at work again, putting in order our old home.
There was one rather pathetic incident of our expedition to
Poperinghe. Five nuns who had fled from Eastern Belgium--
they had come, I think, from a convent near Louvain--had
taken refuge in the school in Furnes in which we were established.
When we were ordered to go to Poperinghe, they begged to
be allowed to accompany us, and we took them with us in the
ambulances. On our return they were so grateful that they asked
to be allowed to show their gratitude by working for us in the
kitchen, and for all the time we were at Furnes they were our
devoted helpers. They only made one request, that if we left
Furnes we would take them with us, and we promised that we
would never desert them.