'Daily Mails,' and asked for soap, so what you sent came in handy. They
went in to the town to buy grapes for us in return. This place is famous
for grapes--huge monster purple ones--but the train went out before they
came back. We had got some earlier, though.
9 P.M.--We are nearly back at Boulogne and haven't taken up any sick or
wounded anywhere. One of the trains has taken Indians from Boulogne
down to Marseilles--several days' journey.
_Monday, December 7th._--Pouring wet day. Still standing by; nothing
doing anywhere. It is a blessed relief to know that, and the rest does
no one any harm. Had a grand mail to-day.
There is a heart-breaking account of my beautiful Ypres on page 8 of
December 1st 'Times.' There was a cavalry officer looking round the
Cathedral with me that day the guns were banging. I often wonder where
the Belgian woman is who showed me the way and wanted my S.A. ribbons as
a souvenir. She showed me a huge old painting on the wall of the
Cathedral of Ypres in an earlier war.
I all but got left in Boulogne to-day. We are dry-docked about five
miles out, not far from Ambleteuse.
It was bad luck not seeing the King. We caught him up at St Omer, and
saw his train; and from there he motored in front of us to all our
places. Where we went, they said, "The King was here yesterday and gave
V.C.'s." We haven't seen the "d--d good boy" either.
_Tuesday, December 8th._--Got up to Bailleul by 11 A.M., and had a good
walk on the line waiting to load up. Glorious morning. Aeroplanes
buzzing overhead like bees, and dropping coloured signals about. Only
filled up my half of the train, both wounded and sick, including some
very bad enterics. An officer in the trenches sent a man on a horse to
get some papers from us. Luckily I had a batch of 'The Times,'
'Spectator,' and 'Punches.'
We have come down very quickly, and hope to unload to-night, 9.30.
_Wednesday, December 9th._--In siding at Boulogne all day. Pouring wet.
_Thursday, December 10th._--Left for Bailleul at 8 A.M. Heard at St Omer
of the sinking of the three German cruisers.
Arrived at 2 P.M. Loaded up in the rain, wounded and sick--full load.
They were men wounded last night, very muddy and trenchy; said the train
was like heaven! It is lovely fun taking the sweets round; they are such
an unexpected treat. The sitting-ups make many jokes, and say "they
serve round 'arder sweets than this in the firing line--more explosive
like."
One showed us a fearsome piece of shell which killed his chum next to
him last night. There is a good deal of dysentery about, and acute
rheumatism. The Clearing Hospitals are getting rather rushed again, and
the men say we shall have a lot coming down in the next few days. A
hundred men of one regiment got separated from their supports and came
up against some German machine-guns in a wood with tragic results. We
are shelling from Ypres, but there is no answering shelling going on
just now, though the Taubes are busy.
We are wondering what the next railhead will be, and when. Some charming
H.A.C.'s are on the train this time, and a typically plucky lot of
Tommies. One of the best of their many best features is their unfailing
friendliness with each other. They never let you miss a man out with
sweets or anything if he happens to be asleep or absent.
_Friday, December 11th._--They wouldn't unload us at 11 P.M. at Boulogne
last night, but sent us on to the Duchess of Westminster's Hospital at a
little place about twenty miles south of B., and we didn't unload till
this morning. It was my turn for a whole night in bed. Not that this
means we are having many nights up, but that when the load doesn't
require two Sisters at night, two go to bed and the other two divide the
night. After unloading we had a poke round the little fishing village,
and of course the church. A company of Canadian Red Cross people
unloaded us. The hospital has not been open very long. It was all
sand-dunes and fir-trees on the way, very attractive, and cement
factories.
Mail in again.
9 P.M.--We came back to B. to fill up with stores after lunch, and
haven't been sent out again yet; but we often go to bed here, and wake
up and ask our soldier servants (batmen), who bring our jugs of hot
water it the morning, where we are. I like the motion of the train in
bed now, and you get used to the noise.
_Saturday, December 12th._--The French engine-drivers are so erratic
that if you're long enough on the line it's only a question of time when
you get your smash up. Ours came last night when they were joining us up
to go out again. They put an engine on to each end of one-half of the
train (not the one our car is in), and then did a tug-of-war. That
wasn't a success, so they did the concertina touch, and put three
coaches out of action, including the kitchen. So we're stuck here now
(Boulogne) till Heaven knows when. Fortunately no casualties.
_Sunday, December 13th._--We've been hung up since Friday night by the
three damaged trucks, and took the opportunity of getting some good
walks yesterday, and actually going to church at the English church this
morning.
Sister B. has been ordered to join the hospital; she mobilised to-day,
and we had to pack her off this morning. The staffs of the trains (which
have all been shortened) have been put down from four to three. Very
glad I wasn't taken off.
We saw a line of graves with wooden crosses, in a field against the
skyline, last journey.
We have seen a lot of the skin coats that the men are getting now.
Sheepskin, with any sort of fur or skin sleeves, just the skins sewn
together; you may see a grey or white coat with brown or black fur or
astrakhan sleeves. Some wear the fur inside and some outside; they
simply love them.
Reduced to pacing the platform in the dark and rain to get warm. It is
368 paces, so I've done it six times to well cover a mile, but it is not
an exciting walk! Funny thing, it seems in this war that for many
departments you are either thoroughly overworked or entirely hung up,
which is much worse. In things like the Pay Department or the
Post-Office or the Provisioning for the A.S.C. it seldom gets off the
overworked line, but in this and in the fighting line it varies very
much.
"The number of victims of the Taube attack on Hazebrouck on Monday
is larger than was at first supposed. Five bombs were thrown and
nine British soldiers and five civilians were killed, while 25
persons were injured."--'Times,' Dec. 9th.
We were at H. on that day.
_Monday, December 14th._--Got off at last at 3.30 A.M. Loaded up 300 at
Merville, a place we've only been to once before, near the coalmines.
Guns were banging only four miles off.
Had a good many bad cases, medical and surgical, this time: kept one
busy to the journey's end. We are unloaded to-night, so they will soon
be well seen to, instead of going down to Rouen or Havre, which two
other trains just in have got to do.
We have a good many Gordons on; one was hugging his bagpipes, and we had
him up after dinner to play, which he did beautifully with a wrapt
expression.
We are going up again to-night. "Three trains wanted immediately"--been
expecting that.
_Tuesday, December 15th._--We were unloaded last night at 9.30, and
reported ready to go up again at 11 P.M., but they didn't move us till 5
A.M. Went to same place as yesterday, and cleared the Clearing Hospitals
again; some badly wounded, with wounds exposed and splints padded with
straw as in the Ypres days.
The Black Watch have got some cherub-faced boys of seventeen out now.
The mud and floods are appalling. The Scotch regiments have lost their
shoes and spats and wade barefoot in the water-logged trenches. This is
a true fact.
I'm afraid not a few of many regiments have got rheumatism--some
acute--that they will never lose.
The ploughed fields and roads are all more or less under water, and each
day it rains more.
We have got a Red Cross doctor on the train who was in the next village
to the one we loaded from this morning. It has been taken and retaken by
both sides, and had a population of about 2000. The only living things
he saw in it to-day besides a khaki supply column passing through were
one cat and some goldfish. In one villa a big brass bedstead was hanging
through the drawing-room ceiling by its legs, the clothes hanging in the
cupboards were slashed up, and nothing left anywhere. He says at least
ten well-to-do men of 50 are doing motor-ambulance work with their own
Rolls-Royces up there, and cleaning their cars themselves, at 6 A.M.
I happened to ask a man, who is a stretcher-bearer belonging to the
Rifle Brigade, how he got hit. "Oh, I was carrying a dead man," he said
modestly. "My officer told me not to move him till dark, because of the
sniping; but his face was blown off by an explosive bullet, and I didn't
think it would do the chaps who had to stand round him all day any good,
so I put him on my back, and they copped me in the leg. I was glad he
wasn't a wounded man, because I had to drop him."
He told me some French ladies were killed in their horse-and-cart on the
road near their trenches the other day; they would go and try and get
some of their household treasures. Two were killed--two and a man--and
the horse wounded. He helped to take them to the R.A.M.C.
dressing-station.
_Wednesday, December 16th._--We are on our way up again to-day, and by a
different and much jollier way, to St Omer, going south of Boulogne and
across country, instead of up by Calais. We came back this way with
patients from Ypres once. It is longer, but the country is like
Hampshire Downs, instead of the everlasting flat swamps the other way.
Of course it is raining.
6 P.M.--For once we waited long enough at St Omer to go out and explore
the beautiful ruined Abbey near the station. We went up the town--very
clean compared with the towns farther up--swarming with grey
touring-cars and staff officers. Headquarters of every arm labelled on
different houses, and a huge church the same date as the Abbey, with
some good carving and glass in it. We kept an eye open for Sir J.F. and
the P. of W., but didn't meet them. Saw the English military church
where Lord Roberts began his funeral service. For once it wasn't
raining.
_Thursday, December 17th._--Left St O. at 11 P.M. last night, and woke
up this morning at Bailleul. Saw two aeroplanes being fired at,--black
smoke-balls bursting in the air. Heard that Hartlepool and Scarboro'
have been shelled--just the bare fact--in last night's 'Globe.' R. will
have an exciting time. We're longing to get back for to-day's 'Daily
Mail.'
There has been a lot of fighting in our advance south-east of Ypres
since Sunday.
The Gordons made a great bayonet charge, but lost heavily in officers
and men in half an hour; we have some on the train. The French also lost
heavily, and lie unburied in hundreds; but the men say the Germans were
still more badly "punished." They tell us that in the base hospitals
they never get a clean wound; even the emergency amputations and
trephinings and operations done in the Clearing Hospitals are septic,
and no one who knew the conditions would wonder at it. We shall all
forget what aseptic work is by the time we get home. The anti-tetanus
serum injection that every wounded man gets with his first dressing has
done a great deal to keep the tetanus under, and the spreading gangrene
is less fatal than it was. It is treated with incisions and injections
of H_{2}O_{2}, or, when necessary, amputation in case of limbs. You
suspect it by the grey colour of the face and by another sense, before
you look at the dressing.
At B. a man at the station greeted me, and it was my old theatre orderly
at No. 7 Pretoria. We were very pleased to see each other. I fitted him
out with a pack of cards, post-cards, acid drops, and a nice grey pair
of socks.
A wounded officer told us he was giving out the mail in his trench the
night before last, and nearly every man had either a letter or a parcel.
Just as he finished a shell came and killed his sergeant and corporal;
if they hadn't had their heads out of the trench at that moment for the
mail, neither of them would have been hit. The officer could hardly get
through the story for the tears in his eyes.
VI.
On No.-- Ambulance Train (4)
CHRISTMAS AND NEW YEAR ON THE TRAIN
_December 18, 1914, to January 3, 1915_
"Judge of the passionate hearts of men,
God of the wintry wind and snow,
Take back the blood-stained year again,
Give us the Christmas that we know."
--F.G. SCOTT,
_Chaplain with the Canadians_.
VI.
On No.-- Ambulance Train (4).
CHRISTMAS AND NEW YEAR ON THE TRAIN.
_December 18, 1914, to January 3, 1915._
The Army and the King--Mufflers--Christmas Eve--Christmas on the
train--Princess Mary's present--The trenches in winter--"A typical
example"--New Year's Eve at Rouen--The young officers.
_Friday, December 18th_, 10.30 A.M.--We've had an all-night journey to
Rouen, and have almost got there. One of my sitting-ups was 106° this
morning, but it was only malaria, first typical one I have met since
S.A. A man who saw the King when he was here said, "They wouldn't let
him come near the trenches; if a shell had come and hit him I think the
Army would 'a gone mad; there'd be no keeping 'em in the trenches after
that."
This place before Rouen is Darnetal, a beautiful spiry town in a valley,
pronounced by the Staff of No.-- A.T. "Darn it all."
6 P.M.--We unloaded by 12, and had just had time to go out and get a
bath at the best baths in France.
Shipped a big cargo of J.J. this journey, but luckily made no personal
captures.
Got to sleep this afternoon, as I was on duty all yesterday and up to 2
A.M. this morning.
Pouring cats and dogs as usual.
No time to see the Cathedrals.
We had this time a good many old seasoned experienced men of the Regular
Army, who had been through all the four months (came out in August).
They are very strong on the point of mixing Territorials (and K.'s Army
where it is not composed of old service men) and Indians well in with
men like themselves.
One Company of R.E. lost all its officers in one day in a charge. A
H.L.I. man gave a chuckling account of how they got to fighting the
Prussian Guard with their fists at Wypers because they were at too close
quarters to get in with their bayonets. They really enjoyed it, and the
Germans didn't.
_Saturday, 19th._--We are dry-docked to-day at Sotteville, outside
Rouen. Z. and I half walked and half trammed into Rouen this morning.
It is lovely to get out of the train. This afternoon No.-- played a
football match against the Khaki train and got well beaten. They've only
been in the country six weeks, and only do about one journey every eight
days, so they are in better training than ours, but it will do them a
lot of good: we looked on.
_Sunday, 20th_, 6 P.M.--At last we are on our way back to Boulogne and
mails, and the News of the War at Home and Abroad. At Rouen, or rather
the desert four miles outside it, we only see the paper of the day
before, and we miss our mails, and have no work since unloading on
Friday. This morning was almost a summer day, warm, still, clear and
sunny. We went for a walk, and then got on with painting the red crosses
on the train, which can only be done on fine days, of which we've had
few. The men were paraded, and then sent route-marching, which they much
enjoyed. It was possible, as word was sent that the train was not going
out till 1.30. It did, however, move at 12, which shows how little you
can depend on it, even when a time is given. They had a mouth-organ and
sang all the way.
_Monday, December 21st._--Got to Boulogne early this morning after an
exceptionally rackety journey, all one's goods and chattels dropping on
one's head at intervals during the night. Engine-driver rather _ivré_,
I should think. Off again at 10.30 A.M.
Mail in.
Weather appallingly cold and no chauffage.
On way up to Chocques, where we shall take up Indians again. How utterly
miserable Indians must be in this eternal wet and cold. The fields and
land generally are all half under water again. We missed the last two
days' papers, and so have heard nothing of the war at home, except that
the casualties are over 60,000. Five mufflers went this afternoon to
five men on a little isolated station on the way here. When I said to
the first boy, "Have you got a muffler?" he thought I wanted one for
some one on the train.
"Well, it's not a real muffler; it's my sleeping-cap," he said,
beginning to pull it off his neck; "but you're welcome to it if it's any
use!"
What do you think of that? He got pink with pleasure over a real muffler
and some cigarettes. You start with two men; when you come back in a
minute with the mufflers the two have increased to five silent expectant
faces.
_Wednesday, 23rd._--We loaded up at Lillers late on Monday night with
one of the worst loads we've ever taken, all wounded, half Indians and
half British.
You will see by Tuesday's French communiqués that some of our trenches
had been lost, and these had been retaken by the H.L.I., Manchesters,
and 7th D.G.'s.
It was a dark wet night, and the loading people were half-way up to
their knees in black mud, and we didn't finish loading till 2 A.M., and
were hard at it trying to stop hæmorrhage, &c., till we got them off the
train at 11 yesterday morning; the J.J.'s were swarming, but a large
khaki pinny tying over my collar, and with elastic wristbands, saved me
this time. One little Gurkha with his arm just amputated, and a wounded
leg, could only be pacified by having acid drops put into his mouth and
being allowed to hug the tin.
Another was sent on as a sitting-up case. Half-way through the night I
found him gasping with double pneumonia; it was no joke nursing him with
seven others in the compartment. He only just lived to go off the train.
Another one I found dead about 5.30 A.M. We were to have been sent on to
Rouen, but the O.C. Train reported too many serious cases, and so they
were taken off at B. It was a particularly bad engine-driver too.
I got some bath water from a friendly engine, and went to bed at 12 next
day.
We were off again the same evening, and got to B. this morning, train
full, but not such bad cases, and are on our way back again now: expect
to be sent on to Rouen. Now we are three instead of four Sisters, it
makes the night work heavier, but we can manage all right in the day. In
the last journey some of the worst cases got put into the top bunks, in
the darkness and rush, and one only had candles to do the dressings by.
One of the C.S.'s was on leave, but has come back now. All the trains
just then had bad loads: the Clearing Hospitals were overflowing.
The Xmas Cards have come, and I'm going to risk keeping them till
Friday, in case we have patients on the train. If not, I shall take them
to a Sister I know at one of the B. hospitals.
We have got some H.A.C. on this time, who try to stand up when you come
in, as if you were coming into their drawing-room. The Tommies in the
same carriage are quite embarrassed. One boy said just now, "We 'ad a
'appy Xmas last year."
"Where?" I said.
"At 'ome, 'long o' Mother," he said, beaming.
_Xmas Eve, 1914._--And no fire and no chauffage, and cotton frocks;
funny life, isn't it? And the men are crouching in a foot of water in
the trenches and thinking of "'ome, 'long o' Mother,"--British, Germans,
French, and Russians. We are just up at Chocques going to load up with
Indians again. Had more journeys this week than for a long time; you
just get time to get what sleep the engine-driver and the cold will
allow you on the way up.
8 P.M.--Just nearing Boulogne with another bad load, half Indian, half
British; had it in daylight for the most part, thank goodness! Railhead
to-day was one station further back than last time, as the ----
Headquarters had to be evacuated after the Germans got through on
Sunday. The two regiments, Coldstream Guards and Camerons, who drove
them back, lost heavily and tell a tragic story. There are two men (only
one is a boy) on the train who got wounded on Monday night (both
compound fracture of the thigh) and were only taken out of the trench
this morning, Thursday, to a Dressing Station and then straight on to
our train. (We heard the guns this morning.) Why they are alive I don't
know, but I'm afraid they won't live long: they are sunken and
grey-faced and just strong enough to say, "Anyway, I'm out of the trench
now." They had drinks of water now and then in the field but no
dressings, and lay in the slush. Stretcher-bearers are shot down
immediately, with or without the wounded, by the German snipers.
And this is Christmas, and the world is supposed to be civilised. They
came in from the trenches to-day with blue faces and chattering teeth,
and it was all one could do to get them warm and fed. By this evening
they were most of them revived enough to enjoy Xmas cards; there were
such a nice lot that they were able to choose them to send to Mother and
My Young Lady and the Missis and the Children, and have one for
themselves.
The Indians each had one, and salaamed and said, "God save you," and "I
will pray to God for you," and "God win your enemies," and "God kill
many Germans," and "The Indian men too cold, kill more Germans if not
too cold." One with a S.A. ribbon spotted mine and said, "Africa same
like you."
_Midnight._--Just unloaded, going to turn in; we are to go off again at
5 A.M. to-morrow, so there'll be no going to church. Mail in, but not
parcels; there's a big block of parcels down at the base, and we may get
them by Easter.
With superhuman self-control I have not opened my mail to-night so as to
have it to-morrow morning.
_Xmas Day_, 11 A.M.--On way up again to Béthune, where we have not been
before (about ten miles beyond where we were yesterday), a place I've
always hoped to see. Sharp white frost, fog becoming denser as we get
nearer Belgium. A howling mob of reinforcements stormed the train for
smokes. We threw out every cigarette, pipe, pair of socks, mits,
hankies, pencils we had left; it was like feeding chickens, but of
course we hadn't nearly enough.
Every one on the train has had a card from the King and Queen in a
special envelope with the Royal Arms in red on it. And this is the
message (in writing hand)--
"_With our best wishes for Christmas, 1914._
_May God protect you and bring you home safe._
MARY R. GEORGE R.I."
That is something to keep, isn't it?
An officer has just told us that those men haven't had a cigarette since
they left S'hampton, hard luck. I wish we'd had enough for them. It is
the smokes and the rum ration that has helped the British Army to stick
it more than anything, after the conviction that they've each one got
that the Germans have got to be "done in" in the end. A Sergt. of the
C.G. told me a cheering thing yesterday. He said he had a draft of young
soldiers of only four months' service in this week's business. "Talk of
old soldiers," he said, "you'd have thought these had had years of it.
When they were ordered to advance there was no stopping them."
After all we are not going to Béthune but to Merville again.
This is a very slow journey up, with long indefinite stops; we all got
bad headaches by lunch time from the intense cold and a short night
following a heavy day. At lunch we had hot bricks for our feet, and hot
food inside, which improved matters, and I think by the time we get the
patients on there will be chauffage.
The orderlies are to have their Xmas dinner to-morrow, but I believe
ours is to be to-night, if the patients are settled up in time.
Do not think from these details that we are at all miserable; we say
"For King and Country" at intervals, and have many jokes over it all,
and there is the never-failing game of going over what we'll all do and
avoid doing After the War.
7 P.M.--Loaded up at Merville and now on the way back; not many badly
wounded but a great many minor medicals, crocked up, nothing much to be
done for them. We may have to fill up at Hazebrouck, which will
interrupt the very festive Xmas dinner the French Staff are getting
ready for us. It takes a man, French or British, to take decorating
really seriously. The orderlies have done wonders with theirs.
Aeroplanes done in cotton-wool on brown blankets is one feature.
This lot of patients had Xmas dinner in their Clearing Hospitals to-day,
and the King's Xmas card, and they will get Princess Mary's present.
Here they finished up D.'s Xmas cards and had oranges and bananas, and
hot chicken broth directly they got in.