There were four operation-marquees pitched under the naval ridge on the
day of Colenso, one connected with each of the field hospitals. There
is little about these marquees or about the work done in the shadow of
them that is of other than professional interest. They were crowded,
and overcrowded, on December 15th, and the surgeons who worked in them
worked until they were almost too tired to stand. Every preparation had
been completed hours before the first wounded man arrived, and the
equipment of each hospital was ample and excellent. To my thinking, a
great surgical emergency, great beyond any expectation, was never more
ably met than was this on the day of the first battle.
The marquee is small. It accommodates the operation-table in the centre
between the two poles, while along the sides are ranged the field
panniers which serve as tables for instruments and dressings.
It is needless to say that the operation-tent is very unlike an
operating theatre in a London hospital, but then the open veldt is very
unlike the Metropolis. The floor of the tent is much-trodden grass,
and, indeed, much-stained grass, for what drips upon it cannot be wiped
up. There are no bright brass water-taps, but there is a brave display
of buckets and tin basins. Water is precious, more precious than any
other necessity, for every drop has to be brought by train from Frere.
There is little room in the tent for others than the surgeon, his
assistant, the anaesthetist, and a couple of orderlies. The surgeon is
in his shirtsleeves, and his dress is probably completed by riding
breeches and a helmet. The trim nurses, with their white caps and
aprons, who form the gentlest element in the hospital theatre, are
replaced by orderlies, men with burnt sienna complexions and unshaven
chins, who are clad in the unpicturesque army shirt, in shorts, putties,
and the inevitable helmet or "squasher" hat. They are, however, strong
in the matter of belts, which vary from a leather strap or piece of
string to an elaborate girdle, worked, no doubt, by the hands of some
cherished maiden. From the belt will probably be hanging a big knife or
a tin-opener, in place of the nurse's chatelaine, and from the breeches
pocket may be projecting the bowl of a pipe. The orderly in a field
hospital--who is for the most part a "good sort"--look's a little like
one of the _dramatis personae_ of Bret Harte's tales, and is a curious
substitute for the immaculate dresser and the dainty nurse.
Still, appearances do not count for much, and the officers and men of
the Royal Army Medical Corps did as sterling good work on December 15th
as any body of men could do, and they were certainly not hampered by the
lack of a precise professional garb.
The wounded are brought into the marquee one by one. Not all are cases
for operation, but all have to be examined, and an examination is more
easily carried out on a table than on a stretcher or the bare ground.
Moreover, to make the examination painless, an anaesthetic is usually
required. I wonder how much chloroform and morphia were used on that
day, and on the night and day that followed! The drugs would fill one
scale of a balance in the other scale of which would be found the dull
weight of pain they were destined to obliterate. The horrors of war are
to some small extent to be measured by the lists of the wounded and the
dead, but a more graphic representation would be provided by the hideous
total of the drops of chloroform and the grains of morphia which have
come from the surgeon's store.
The flies of the operation-marquee are wide open, for the heat is
intense, and access must be easy. As it is, there is much mopping of
brows and many "pulls" of dirty lukewarm water from precious
water-bottles. Unhappily the scenes within the shadow of the canvas
cannot be quite hidden from those who are lying in the sun outside
waiting their turn. As one man after another is carried in there is
sure to be some comrade on the ground who will call out as the stretcher
goes by: "Keep yer chivey up, Joe"; "Don't be down on your luck"; "They
will do you a treat"; "Good luck to yer, old cock, you won't feel
nothing."
One instance of the limited capacity of the marquee I may be pardoned
for recounting. The amputation of a leg was in progress when the
pressure of work was at its height. Beneath the table at the time of
the operation was the prostrate figure of a man. He had been shot
through the face. His big moustache was clotted with blood, his
features were obliterated by dust and blood, his eyes were shut, and his
head generally was enveloped in bandages. I thought he was dead, and
that in the hurry of events he was merely awaiting removal. The limb
after amputation was unfortunately dropped upon this apparently
inanimate figure when, to my horror, the head was raised and the eyes
were opened to ascertain the nature of the falling body. This poor
fellow was attended to as soon as the table was free. I was glad to see
him some weeks after in the Assembly Hotel at Pietermaritzburg hearty
and well. He was a gallant officer in a Natal regiment, and when I
recalled this gruesome incident to him, he owned that, feeble as he was
at the time, it gave him a "shake up."