thanks to the Train Comforts Fund's last whack, I had some. One said
solemnly that he had a "coosin" to avenge, and now his chance had come.
They both had shining eyes, and not a rollicking but an eager excitement
as they asked when the train would get "there," and looked as if they
could already see the shells and weren't afraid.
_Sunday, March 7th._--We are stuck in the jolly place close to G.H.Q.,
but can't leave the train as there are no orders. I've been having a
French class, with the wall of the truck for a blackboard, and
occasional bangs from a big gun somewhere.
_Tail-end of Monday, March 8th._--On way down to Êtretat, where No.--
G.H. is, which we shall reach to-morrow about tea-time. A load of
woundeds this time; very busy all day till now (midnight), and haven't
had time to hear many of their adventures. They seem to all come from
a line of front where the Boches are persistently hammering to break
through, and though they don't get any forrarder they cause a steady
leakage. We heard guns all the while we were loading. A
dressing-station five miles away had just been shelled, and a major,
R.A.M.C., killed and two other R.A.M.C. officers wounded.
I have a man wounded in eight places, including a fractured elbow and a
fractured skull, which has been trephined. What is left of him that
hasn't stopped bullets is immensely proud of his bandages! He was one of
nineteen who were in a barn when a shell came through the roof and burst
inside, spitting shrapnel bullets all over them; all wounded and one
killed. We have just put off an emergency case of gas gangrene, temp.
105, who came on as a sitter! They so often say after a bad dressing,
"I'm a lot of trouble to ye, Sister."
_Later._--Just time for a line before I do another round and then call
my relief. It is an awfully cold night.
_Tuesday, March 9th, 12 noon._--We are passing through glorious country
of wooded hills and valleys, with a blue sky and shining sun, and all
the patients are enjoying it. It is still very cold, and there is a
little snow about. They call their goatskin coats "Teddy Bears." One
very ill boy, wounded in the lungs, who was put off at Abbeville, was
wailing, "Where's my Mary Box?" as his stretcher went out of the window.
We found it, and he was happy.
_Wednesday, March 10th._--We got to Êtretat at about 3 P.M. yesterday
after a two days' and one night load, and had time to go up to the
hospital, where I saw S. The Matron was away. We only saw it at night
last time, so it was jolly getting the afternoon there. The sea was a
thundery blue, and the cliffs lit up yellow by the sun, and with the
grey shingle it made a glorious picture to take back to the train. It
had been a heavy journey with bad patients, and we were rather tired, so
we didn't explore much.
We woke at Sotteville near Rouen this morning, and later in the day had
a most fatiguing and much too exciting adventure over catching the
train. Two of the Sisters and I walked into Rouen about 10.30, and found
No.-- A.T. marked up as still at Sotteville (in the R.T.O.'s office),
and so concluded it would be there all day. So we did our businesses of
hair-washing, Cathedral, lunch, &c., and then took the tram back to
Sotteville. The train had gone! The Sotteville R.T.O. (about a mile off)
told us it was due to leave Rouen loaded up for Havre at 2.36; it was
then 2.15, and it was usually about three-quarters of an hour's walk up
the line (we'd done it once this morning), so we made a desperate dash
for it. Sister M. walks very slowly at her best, so we decided that I
should sprint on and stop the train, and she and the other follow up.
The Major met me near our engine, and was very kind and concerned, and
went on to meet the other two. The train moved out three minutes after
they got on. Never again!--we'll stick on it all day rather than have
such a narrow shave.
We are full of convalescents for Havre to go straight on to the boat.
They are frightfully enthusiastic about the way the British Army is
looked after in this war. "There's not much they don't get for us," they
said.
There are crowds of primroses out on the banks. Our infant R.A.M.C.
(Officer's Mess) cook (a boy of about twenty, who looks sixteen and
cooks beautifully) has just jumped off the train while it was going,
grabbed a handful of primroses, and leapt on to the train again some
coaches back. He came back panting and rosy, and said, "I've got some
for you, Sister!" We happened not to be going fast, but there was no
question of stopping. I got some Lent lilies in Rouen, and have some
celandines growing in moss, so it looks like spring in my bunk.
_Thursday, March 11th._--Yesterday we took a long time getting to the
ship from R., and unloaded at 10 P.M. Why we had no warning about the
departure of the train (and so nearly got left behind) was because it
was an emergency call suddenly to clear the hospitals at R. to make room
for 600 more expected from the Front.
We are being rushed up again without being stopped at Rouen for the
first time on record, so I suppose there is a good deal doing. (There
was--at Neuve Chapelle.)
It is a comfort to remember that the men themselves don't grudge or
question what happens to them, and the worse they're wounded the more
they say, "I think I'm lucky; my mate next me got killed."
The birds are singing like anything now, and all the buds are coming
out, and the banks and woods are a mass of primroses.
_Friday, March 12th._--We came straight through Boulogne in the night,
and have been stuck half way to the Front all day; I don't know why.
_Saturday, March 13th._--We woke at the railhead for Béthune this
morning, and cleared there and at the next place, mostly wounded and
some Indians.
It was frightfully interesting up there to-day; we saw the famous German
prisoners taken at Neuve Chapelle being entrained, and we could hear our
great bombardment going on--the biggest ever known in any war. The
feeling of Advance is in the air already, and even the wounded are
exulting in it. The Indians have bucked up like anything. We are on our
way down now, and shall probably unload at B.
No time for more now.
11 P.M.--We unloaded at B. by 10 P.M., and are now on our way up again;
shortest time we've ever waited--one hour after the last patient is off.
A.T.'s have been tearing up empty and back full all day, and are all
being unloaded at B., so that they can go quickly up again. B. has been
emptied before this began.
They were an awfully brave lot of badly woundeds to-day, but they
always are. Just now they don't mind anything--even getting hit by our
artillery by mistake. Some of them who were near enough to see the
effect of our bombardment on the enemy's trenches say they saw men,
legs, and arms shot into the air. And the noise!--they gasp in telling
you about it. "You could never believe it," they say. An officer told
me exactly how many guns from 9.2's downwards we used, all firing at
once. And poor fat Germans, and thin Germans, and big Germans, and
little Germans at the other end of it.
A man of mine with his head shattered and his hand shot through was
trephined last night, and his longitudinal sinus packed with gauze. He
was on the train at 9 this morning, and actually improved during the
day! He came to in the afternoon enough to remark, as if he were doing a
French exercise, "You-are-a-good-Nurse!" The next time he woke he said
it again, and later on with great difficulty he gave me the address of
his girl, to whom I am to write a post-card. I do hope they'll pull him
through.
_Sunday, March 14th_, 4 P.M.--Just bringing down another load. I have a
hundred and twenty wounded alone; the train is packed.
No time for more--the J.J.'s are swarming.
We unloaded at B. yesterday evening, and were off again within an hour
or two.
_Monday, March 15th_, 2.30 A.M.--Woke up just as we arrived at Bailleul
to hear most incessant cannonade going on I ever heard, even at Ypres.
The sky is continually lit up with the flashes from the guns--it is a
pitch-dark night--and you can hear the roar of the howitzers above the
thud-thud of the others. I think we are too far N. for there to be any
French 75's in it. I had to wake Sister D. to see it, as she had never
seen anything like it before. We are only a few miles away from it.
Must try and sleep now, as we shall have a heavy day to-day, but it is
no lullaby.
4.30 P.M.--Just time for a scrawl. The train is packed with wounded,
most of whom, including the poor sitting-ups, are now dead asleep from
exhaustion. The British Army is fighting and marching all night now. The
Clearing Hospitals get 800 in at a time, many with no dressings on. We
have twenty-seven officers on this train alone.
I have a boy of 22 with both legs off. He is dazed and white, and wants
shifting very often. Each time you fix him up he says, "That's
champion."
Forty of them were shelled in their billets.
The Germans are said to be, some of them, fighting in civilian clothes
till they get their uniforms. The men say there are hundreds of young
boys and old men among them; they are making a desperate effort and
bringing everything they've got into it now.
_Later._--We also have mumps, measles, scarlet fever, and diphtheria in
the infectious coach.
A baby lieut. with measles showed me some marvellous sketch-maps of
German trenches and positions he'd made from observations through a
periscope. He also had the very latest thing in sectional war maps,
numbered in squares, showing every tree, farm, and puddle and trench: a
place with four cross-roads was called "Confusion Corner," leading to a
farm called "Rest-and-be-Thankful."
10 P.M.--Just got them all off after a strenuous day, and we are to go
up again at 11 P.M.
The two German divisions that reinforced are giving us a tremendous lot
to do.
It is just as well that this department was prepared for this, as it all
goes like clockwork and an enormous amount of suffering is saved by
their preparedness.
The amount that cannot be saved is grim enough.
Must go to bed.
_Tuesday, March 16th._--We loaded up very early this morning with 316
Indians, and are just getting into Boulogne. I expect we shall be sent
up again this evening.
One of the Sikhs wailed before, during, and after his hand was dressed.
A big Mussulman stuffed his hanky between his teeth and bit on it, and
never uttered, and it was a much worse one. What was he to do with
crying, he said; it was right for it to be done. May God bring blessings
on my head; whereas it was full of pain, lo, now it was atcha.
_Wednesday, March 17th._--I didn't tell you that yesterday a kind I.M.S.
colonel at the place where we took the Indians on showed us a huge pile
of used shell cases near the station, and we all had some. I've got a
twelve-pounder and a sixteen-pounder, like my pom-poms, only huge. Next
time he's going to get us some Gurkha's kukries. On the way down a
little Gurkha happened to get off the train for a minute, and when he
looked round the train had gone past him. He ran after it, and perched
on one of the buffers till the next stop, when he reappeared, trembling
with fright, but greeted with roars of amusement by the other Gurkhas.
We had some more to-day, including twelve with mumps, and one who
insisted on coming with his mumpy friend though quite well himself!
We woke this morning at Merville, one of the railheads for Neuve
Chapelle, and loaded up very early--guns going as hard as ever. Mine
were a very bad lot--British (except the twelve native mumpers),
including some brave Canadians. They kept me very busy till the moment
of unloading, which is a difficult and painful business with these bad
ones; but the orderlies are getting very gentle and clever with them. I
had among them eight Germans, several mere boys. One insisted on kissing
my hand, much to the orderlies' amusement.
(A truckful of pigs outside is making the most appalling noise. 11 P.M.
I am writing in bed. We generally move up about 11.30 P.M.)
Every journey we hear thrilling accounts, rumours, and forecasts, most
of which turn out to be true. We have had a lot of the St Eloi people.
There were several versions of a story of some women being found in a
captured German trench. One version said they were French captives,
another that they were German wives.
In one compartment were five Tommies being awfully kind to one German;
and yet if he had a rifle, and they had theirs, he'd be a dead man.
The hospitals at Boulogne are so busy that no one goes off duty, and
they are operating all night.
We had time for a blow across the bridge after unloading, and I happened
to meet my friend S. (who was at Havre). She is on night duty, and they
are grappling with those awful cases all night as hard as they can go.
Four were taken out of the motor ambulances dead this week; the jolting
is the last straw for the worst ones; it can't possibly be helped, "but
it seems a pity."
In all this rush we happen to have had nights in bed, which makes all
the difference.
The pigs still squeal, but I must try and go to sleep.
_Thursday, March 18th._--We have had an off-day to-day at the place of
woods and commons, which I hope and trust means that things are
slackening off. It doesn't do to look ahead at what must be coming, now
the ground is drying up before the job is finished; but we can be
thankful for the spells of rest that come for the poor army.
We had a heavenly ramble this morning, and found blue periwinkles and
anemones in the woods, but no primroses. Lots of palm and gorse. Robins,
willow-wrens, and yellow-hammers were singing, the darlings, much
prettier music than guns, and it is good to get away from the sound of
motors and trains and whistles.
We also had home-made bread and butter to-day out of the village, which
caused more excitement than the Russian successes. We are having much
nicer food since the French chef left, and it costs us exactly half as
much.
_Friday, March 19th._--On the way down. Woke up at Bailleul, and loaded
early wounded and sick. Not such severe cases among the wounded, but
several pneumonias, enterics, &c., besides measles, diphtheria, and
scarlet.
Very cold windy day, with snow on the ground and showers of snow at
intervals.
Some of mine are from the St Eloi, fighting last Sunday and Monday.
Some of N.'s regiment were badly caught between two ruined houses, each
containing Maxims and machine-guns. They had just been reinforced by
some young recruits of K.'s Army who detrained that night to go straight
into the charge. "They come on well, them youngsters," said an old
soldier, "but they got terrible mowed down. We lost nine officers in a
quarter of an hour."
It has been a very costly splash altogether.
One officer on the train has fourteen wounds.
_Saturday, March 20th, Boulogne._--The hospitals here have been pretty
well emptied home now, and are ready for the next lot.
Here we have been standing by all day while a big Committee at Abbeville
is settling whether our beloved and beautiful No.-- A.T. is to be handed
back to the French railway; and if so, whether it will be replaced by
inferior French carriages, or whether one of the four new British trains
that are coming will be handed over to us, or whether all the
_personnel_ will be disbanded and dispersed. I have a feeling that its
day is over, but perhaps things will turn out better than that.
I have been for five walks to-day, including a bask in the sun on the
sands, and a bath at the Club and a visit to the nice old R.C. church
and the flower-market.
_Tuesday, March 23rd_, 9 P.M.--Waiting all day at G.H.Q.; things are
unusually quiet; one train has been through with only ninety, and
another with a hundred. We went for a walk along the canal this morning
with the wee puppy, and this afternoon saw over the famous jute factory
Convalescent Home, where they have a thousand beds under one roof: it is
like a town divided into long wards,--dining-rooms, recreation rooms,
dressing station, chiropodist, tailor's shop, &c.--by shoulder-high
canvas or sailcloth screens; they have outside a kitchen, a boiler, a
disinfector for clothes, and any amount of baths. They have a concert
every Saturday night. The men looked so absolutely happy and contented
with cooked instead of trench food, and baths and games and piano, and
books and writing, &c. They stay usually ten days, and are by the tenth
day supposed to be fit enough for the trenches again; it often saves
them a permanent breakdown from general causes, and is a more economical
way of treating small disablements than sending them to the Base
Hospitals. Last week they had five hundred wounded to treat, and two of
the M.O.'s had to take a supply-train of seven hundred slightly wounded
down to Rouen with only two orderlies. They had a bad journey. I had a
French class after tea. We are now expecting to-day's London papers,
which are due here about 9 P.M.
Have got some Hindustani to learn for my next lesson (from Sister B.),
so will stop this.
_Wednesday, March 24th._--Moved on at 11 P.M. and woke up at Chocques; a
few smallish guns going. Loaded up there very early and at two other
places, and are now nearly back to Boulogne, mostly wounded and a few
Indians; some of them are badly damaged by bombs.
The men in the Neuve Chapelle touch were awfully disappointed that they
weren't allowed to push on to Lille. The older men say wonderful things
of K.'s boys: "The only fault we 'ave to find wi' 'em is that they
expose theirselves too much. 'Keep your 'eads down!' we 'ave to say all
the time. All they wants is to charge."
According to the men, we shall be busy again at the end of this week.
_Midnight._--On way to coast near Havre where No.-- G.H. is. Put all
worst cases off at B., the rest mostly sleeping peacefully. Passed a
place on coast not far S. of B., where six hundred British workmen are
working from 7 A.M. to 10 P.M. building hospital huts for 12,000 beds, a
huge encampment, ready for future business.
Have seen cowslips and violets on wayside. Lovely moonlight night. Train
running very smoothly.
_Thursday, March 25th._--There is a great deal of very neat and
elaborate glass market-gardening going on round Rouen: it looks from the
train an unbroken success; thousands of fat little plants with their
glass hats off and thousands more with them on, and very little labour
that can be seen. But the vegetables we buy for our mess are not
particularly cheap.
9 P.M., _R._--There are three trains waiting here, or rather at S.,
which means a blessed lull for the people in the firing line.
There was a day or two after Neuve Chapelle when the number of wounded
overflowed the possibilities of "collection"; the stretcher-bearers were
all hit and the stretchers were all used, and there were not enough
medical officers to cope with the numbers (extra ones were hurried up
from the Base Hospitals very quickly), and if you wanted to live you had
to walk or crawl, or stay behind and die. We had a Canadian on who told
me last night that he should never forget the stream of wounded dragging
themselves along that road from Neuve Chapelle to Estaires who couldn't
be found room for in the motor ambulances. Two trains picked them up
there, and there were many deaths on the trains and in the motor
ambulances. The "Evacuation" was very thorough and rapid to the bases
and to the ships, but in any great battle involving enormous casualties
on both sides there must be some gaps you can't provide for.
_Friday, March 26th._--At Sotteville all day.
_Saturday, March 27th._--Ditto. Piercing cold winds and no heating for a
month past.
_Sunday, March 28th._--Ditto.
_Monday, March 29th._--Ditto.
_Tuesday, March 30th._--Ditto. This cold wind has dried up the mud
everywhere, and until to-day there's been a bright sun with it.
The men clean the train and play football, and the M.O.'s take the puppy
out, and everybody swears a great deal at a fate which no one can alter,
and we are all craving for our week-old mails.
_Wednesday, March 31st._--We actually acquired an engine and got a move
on at 4 o'clock this morning, and are now well away north. Just got out
where we stopped by a fascinating winding river, and got some brave
marsh-marigolds.
5 P.M.--Just getting into Boulogne.
IX.
With No.-- Field Ambulance (1)
BILLETS: LIFE AT THE BACK OF THE FRONT
_April 2, 1915, to April 29, 1915_
"The fighting man shall from the sun
Take warmth, and life from the glowing earth;
Speed with the light-foot winds to run,
And with the trees to newer birth;
And find, when fighting shall be done,
Great rest, and fulness after dearth."
--JULIAN GRENFELL.
IX.
With No.-- Field Ambulance (1).
BILLETS: LIFE AT THE BACK OF THE FRONT.
_April 2, 1915, to April 29, 1915._
Good Friday and Easter, 1915--The Maire's Château--A walk to Beuvry--The
new billet--The guns--A Taube--The Back of the Front--A soldier's
funeral--German Machine-guns--Gas fumes--The Second Battle of Ypres.
_Good Friday, April 2nd._--We got into Boulogne on Wednesday from
Sotteville at 5 P.M., and as soon as the train pulled up a new Sister
turned up "to replace Sister ----," so I prepared for the worst and
fully expected to be sent to Havre or Êtretat or Rouen, and began to
tackle my six and a half months' accumulation of belongings. In the
middle of this Miss ---- from the Matron-in-Chief arrived with my
Movement Orders "to proceed forthwith to report to the O.C. of No.--
Field Ambulance for duty," so hell became heaven, and here I am at
railhead waiting for a motor ambulance to take me and my baggage to
No.-- F.A. wherever it is to be found.
The Railway Transport Officer at Boulogne let me come up as far as St
Omer (or rather the next waiting place beyond), on No.-- A.T., and get
sent on by the R.T.O. there. We waited there all yesterday, lovely sunny
day, and in the evening the R.T.O. sent me on in a supply train which
was going to the railhead for No.-- F.A. The officer in charge of it was
very kind, and turned out of his carriage for me into his servant's, and
apologised for not having cleared out every scrap of his belongings. The
Mess of No.-- saw me off, with many farewell jokes and witticisms.
This supply train brings up one day's rations to the 1st Corps from
Havre, and takes a week to do it there and back. This happens daily for
one corps alone, so you can imagine the work of the A.S.C. at Havre. At
railhead he is no longer responsible for his stuff when the lorries
arrive and take up their positions end on with the trucks. They unload
and check it, and it is done in four hours. That part of it is now going
on.
When we got to railhead at 10.15 P.M. the R.T.O. said it was too late to
communicate with the Field Ambulance, and so I slept peacefully in the
officer's bunk with my own rugs and cushion. We had tea about 9 P.M. I
had had dinner on No.--.
This morning the first thing I saw was No.-- A.T. slumbering in the sun
on the opposite line, so I might just as well have come up in her,
except that there was another Sister in my bed.
After a sketchy wash in the supply train, and a cup of early tea from
the officer's servant, I packed up and went across to No.-- for
breakfast; many jeers at my having got the sack so soon.
The R.T.O. has just been along to say that Major ---- of No.-- Clearing
Hospital here will send me along in one of his motor ambulances.
11 A.M.--Had an interesting drive here in the M.A. through a village
packed with men billeted in barns and empty houses--the usual aeroplane
buzzing overhead, and a large motor ambulance convoy by the wayside.
We are in the town itself, and the building is labelled No.-- F.A.
Dressing Station for Officers. The men are in a French Civil Hospital
run very well by French nuns, and it has been decided to keep the French
and English nurses quite separate, so the only difference between the
two hospitals is that the one for the men has French Sisters, with
R.A.M.C. orderlies and M.O.'s, and the other for officers has English
Sisters, with R.A.M.C. orderlies and M.O.'s. There are forty-seven beds
here (all officers). One Army Sister in charge, myself next, and two
staff nurses--one on night duty. There are two floors; I shall have
charge of the top floor.
We are billeted out, but I believe mess in the hospital.
All this belongs to the French Red Cross, and is lent to us.
The surgical outfit is much more primitive even than on the train, as
F.A.'s may carry so little. The operating theatre is at the other
hospital.
As far as I can see at present we don't have the worst cases here,
except in a rush like Neuve Chapelle.