fresh bandages. "They've been shelling the poor beggars, knocking all
the slates off the roof."
As he spoke some shrapnel crashed against the roof of our cottage,
sending a few tiles rattling to the ground. The doctor looked up.
"I think we're all right here," he said. "We've got a double roof. I
always try to pick a cottage with a double roof. But those poor devils
over the way are getting awful scared; I think I'll slip across to
them."
The bit of road he had to "slip across" was catching most of the shells
which the cottage did not, and was also the channel for a steady stream
of rifle and machine-gun fire. I began to see there wasn't much in it,
whether one was a doctor or a platoon commander.
More especially did I realize a doctor's difficulties when, later in
the day, just as our doctor had finished looking at my dressings, a
message came that the field-dressing station belonging to the regiment
on our left had been set alight by a shell. He hastily organized a
party of stretcher-bearers and orderlies and went off at once. Later
he came back. He said it had been terrible to see the wounded lying
helpless in the barn waiting for the flames, but somehow they had
managed to rescue all and move them to a safer place, though the whole
operation had to be carried out under rifle and shell fire. Each time a
regiment is seriously engaged with the enemy at least 100 men are hit,
often four times the number. The regimental doctor is supposed to bind
up each one of these, and often when times are slack and a stray man
here or there gets hit he will be sent for to come up to the trenches.
"'Allo, Jock," loud greetings were shouted by every one in the room to
a little man standing in the doorway with a bandolier across his chest
and rifle with bayonet still fixed. He was a grubby little fellow, with
blood and mud caked all down his cheek, ragged clothes, and--as I had
seen as he came up the cottage steps--a pronounced limp. It was Private
Mutton, scallawag, humorist, and well-known character in the regiment.
"Yus, they got me," he said in answer to inquiries, "fro' me calf," he
pointed to his leg, "and right acrost the top of me 'ead"--he raised
his cap and showed where a bullet had parted his hair, grazing the
scalp. "But I give the bloke somethink what did it." Private Mutton
grinned at his bayonet. "Got 'im fair, right fro' 'is stomick."
I could not help feeling delighted, for I recognized in the muddy,
gory, highly-pleased-with-himself little man the original of Thomas
Atkins, of whose doings along the Indian frontier I had read thrilling
accounts by Mr. Kipling, and whose quaint mannerisms I had often
laughed at as represented on the stage of music-halls at home....
At 9 P.M. the ambulances came up.
The doctor went round quickly attending to each man. He bound up my
wounds afresh and had me carried into an inner room. I lay there all
day, and never shall I forget the experience. I could see nothing
except a bit of the wall on the opposite side of the street. But I
could hear. Just after I had been brought in fresh firing broke out.
Rifle fire this time, sharp and insistent. Then there was a sound of
stamping feet, and I heard an officer rallying the men at the corner
of the street. The firing continued all day and sometimes seemed to
rage almost at the door of the cottage. I gathered that the Germans
were attacking the village in masses, and that it was touch-and-go
whether we could hold out. Sometimes there would be a rush of men
outside the window, and I would look to see if the pale grey uniform
was there or if khaki still held the place. Every now and then a shower
of shrapnel struck the roof of the cottage, and tiles went rattling to
the road. All the while a section of our artillery fired incessantly.
How gallant those guns of ours sound--Boom-boom-boom. They were
fighting to their last shell. If the village went, they went with it.
No horses could be brought up to draw them away in such an inferno.
The doctor worked on quietly. His work extended now to houses on the
left and right. He said it was terrible to see the fear of death on the
faces of men shot through the stomach. He found time once to have a cup
of tea with me and smoke a cigarette. Night began to fall and the room
grew dark. I was glad of his company for five minutes. We were in the
same boat, he told me--if the Germans got the village he was going to
stay behind with the wounded.
At half-past five Evans came in with a smashed arm.
"Goyle has gone," he said. "He was hit twice before during the day.
He was holding out with a few men there and got a third through the
chest which did him. Edwards was shot through the knee, and we had
to leave him. All the company officers are down. A company has been
surrounded and cut off. Whew! you can't live out there." As he spoke
the firing swelled to a din unequalled through the day. We heard shouts
and curses. The Germans were making a final tremendous effort to break
through.
"Our boys may do it," said Evans, "but there are not many left." I
lay back against the wall, pulled out a cigarette, and threw one to
Evans. We could only wait. Suddenly outside we heard a stamp of feet, a
hoarsely yelled order, "Fix bayonets!" another word of command, and a
mass of men rushed past the window up the street, cheering madly.
"That's the ----s," cried a stretcher-bearer, who came in excitedly.
"They have been sent up from the reserve."
The doctor came in. "We've got two more regiments up; we shall be all
right now," he said.
For a moment the firing continued, then died down. Night came and found
us still holding the village, and at ten o'clock the ambulance took us
away.
XX. "AND THENCE TO BED"
The horse ambulance took us back some three miles to the field
ambulance, where we spent the night after being given some food and
tea and having our wounds dressed. The accommodation was rough, just
some straw on the floor, but to feel there were three miles between
ourselves and the enemy gave one quite a feeling of being rested.
At these field ambulances the work of dressing the wounded goes on
incessantly day and night, and it is here that many a case of lockjaw
or gangrene is prevented by the timely application of antitetanus
injection or iodine. Among the wounded was a young German boy, not more
than eighteen years old. The other wounded Tommies and the orderlies
were very good to him, making quite a pet of the boy and giving him tea
and cigarettes and asking him what he thought about the war. He had
only had six weeks' training before being sent into the firing-line,
and was a gentle enough creature bewildered by the fierce struggle
into which he had been thrown.
In the morning a fleet of motor ambulances came to take us to the
clearing hospital at railhead. Most of these ambulances were private
cars fitted up at their owners' expense and driven in many cases by
the owners too. Only those who have been wounded and travelled in a
Government horse ambulance can appreciate the good work done by these
volunteer Red Cross workers and their cars. After the lumbering horse
vehicle rubber tyres and the well-hung body of a private car are an
unspeakable relief to broken bones. Our driver was a young fellow who
looked as though he had just left Oxford or Cambridge. He drove us very
slowly and carefully over the twelve miles of bumpy road, and took us
straight to the station in time to have us put on a hospital train
which was leaving that morning for the base. How often at the beginning
of the war on my way up to the Front had I seen these hospital trains
go by and wondered--with a very pious hope that it might be so--if it
would ever be my lot to take a passage in one. In those days as now
every one knew that it was only a question of time before they were
killed or wounded--few last long enough to become diseased--and to be
stowed safely away in a hospital train labelled for England was the
best fate that could befall anyone.
It was, then, with a feeling of supreme contentment that I allowed
myself to be laid along the seat of a first-class carriage and
propped up behind with a greatcoat and a pillow. On the opposite
seat was a young gentleman not nearly so contented. He had been hit
in the shoulder. He said his wound was hurting him; that he was not
comfortable on the seat of the carriage; and that he considered tinned
stew (which had just been brought us) a very nasty luncheon. I thought
him a peevish and graceless cub and, when he snapped at the orderly who
came to clear away lunch, rebuked him.
I said that he ought to be thankful for being where he was at all;
that his wound was nothing compared to those of others in the train;
that his whining and peevishness brought discredit on his uniform and
regiment; and that he ought to be ashamed of himself for making such a
fuss. As he was a second lieutenant just fresh from Sandhurst and I was
an elderly subaltern of several years' service he did not argue with
me, but looked at the floor, while I scowled at him from time to time
across the carriage.
Eventually the train started and we began our journey to Boulogne. We
had been told it would take about nine hours, and so prepared to make
ourselves as comfortable as possible and sleep. Except for a visit
from the doctor to ask if we wanted anything, and from a hospital
nurse, nothing much happened for the rest of the day. The visit from
the hospital nurse is one of the things I remember most clearly from
an otherwise clouded period. It was the first taste of the infinite
sympathy and solicitude which women give to men returned from the war.
All who have experienced it--as every wounded man has in abundant
measure--must have felt that anything he has suffered was worth such a
reward.
After the visit from the hospital nurse we had some dinner and settled
down for the night. About this time I began to notice that the blanket
which had been folded in four and placed under my injured leg was
slightly rucked at the corner. I could not reach it to adjust it
myself and after the scene with my stable mate did not like to ask his
assistance. Presently an orderly came by and I called him in to put it
right. Half an hour later the same thing happened again and I had to
call in another orderly. The little subaltern, who was dozing, opened
one eye and looked at me reproachfully, but said nothing. Later, when
the train pulled up with a jerk which nearly threw us off our seats,
we both groaned softly, and when it did the same thing again I swore,
and received a grateful look from the rebuked grumbler. In fact, to
shorten the story, by noon the next day, when we were finally taken out
of the train, I was half hysterical with pain, discomfort, and fatigue,
and the little subaltern had nearly forgotten his troubles in his
efforts to adjust my blankets with his sound arm and running to and fro
fetching the orderly: the moral of this story needs no pointing....
At Boulogne we were taken by motor ambulance to one of the base
hospitals. The hospital was a marvellous example of efficient emergency
organization. Three days before it had been a hotel; and in this space
of time--_i.e._ three days--the entire building had been converted
into a thoroughly modern hospital with wards and operating-theatre.
Most of the work had been done by the members of the hospital staff
themselves, and, as we were taken in, the last bits of hotel furniture
were still standing in the hall waiting to be removed.
By this time I was rather exhausted, and I cannot remember more than
a matron in a dark silk dress with a very gentle, pretty face bending
over me and asking me if I was comfortable, and my replying in a
voice that was little above a whisper that it was good to be in bed.
I think she said, too, something to the nurse about "not putting him
to bed like that." I had been in the same clothes for a fortnight and
they were very muddy, and I remember having my breeches cut off and
being helped into a flannel night-shirt. I woke later to find a nurse
beside me with a basin of water. "Would you like to wash?" she asked.
I gazed at her apathetically. "Come on then, I'll do it for you," she
said kindly. She dipped a piece of flannel in the basin and rubbed it
gently over my face. Then she took one of my hands and rubbed that;
then streaks of white appeared down my fingers as the caked mud was
cleared. "There, I think that is all we'll do for the present," she
said, and feeling beautifully clean--though in reality with ten days'
beard and looking perfectly filthy--I lay back on the pillow.
After tea I sat up, accepted a cigarette from my neighbour, and took
stock of the rest of the ward.
In the bed on my right was a man with a bandaged head; he had an
orderly beside him and was dictating a letter. He was evidently feeling
very weak, for he spoke with an obvious effort. The letter was about
some lost baggage, and dictated with the utmost precision and detail.
He ended by saying, "Signed James Brown, Captain and Adjutant"; and
I couldn't help smiling, for it was so like an Adjutant to dictate a
precise letter about some lost baggage, but it seemed so funny for him,
weakened by his wounds as he was, to be lying there in bed doing it,
and I felt sure it was more from force of habit than anything else.
At eight o'clock the day-sister made a round of the wards with the
night-sister, handing over her patients till the next day. The
night-sister was followed by a sort of understudy who, I remember,
was tall and thin with rather a long nose. This understudy, who was
referred to as "nurse" by the other two, was, I gathered, a sort of
probationer, and not allowed to take much responsibility on herself.
By ten the ward was in darkness except for one green-shaded light, and
I think I must have dozed a little, for I remember looking up suddenly
to see the night-sister's understudy standing at the foot of my bed
and gazing at me with a puzzled expression. Seeing me open my eyes she
stretched out her arm and pulled towards her a glass-topped table with
a bowl of dressings on it. Then she studied me again. I was still half
asleep and watched her with half-closed eyes.
"Is it your _feet_?" she asked.
I nodded.
She lifted the bedclothes back from the foot of the bed and surveyed
my bandaged feet for a minute or two. Then with a sudden air of
determination she bent down and, catching my right foot by the big toe,
lifted it deftly off the pillow on which it was resting. I gave one
piercing scream which woke the whole ward and brought the night-sister
running in. For the rest of the night I lay with one eye peeping over
the sheet prepared to yell for help at the top of my voice if the young
lady assistant came near my bed. The next day she returned to England
for further instruction.
The following afternoon I was operated on and the bullet extracted from
my ankle. A sergeant brought it me wrapped in cotton-wool and left me
feeling quite reassured about the success of the operation....
I remember very well on the way up to the Front seeing a hospital
ship leave one of the base ports. She was a beautiful looking vessel,
painted white, with a great red cross painted on either side amidships.
That hospital ship certainly looked comfortable, and I don't mind
admitting that, at the time, I wished most heartily I was on board her
with my job done instead of having to go up to the firing-line and do
it. The wounded men on board all looked so happy and comfortable.
However, everything comes to him who waits--nothing more quickly
than a bullet in these sanguinary days--and after a week at the base
hospital at Boulogne I was given a ticket marked "cot case" and told
I was going to be put on board a hospital ship for England. I smiled
gratefully at the doctor, tied the ticket round my neck, put on a
woollen waistcoat, muffler, and dressing-gown (all presented to me
by the hospital) over my pyjamas, and waited my turn to be carried
downstairs. In due course, with three others, I was taken in a motor
ambulance to the ship, and from thenceforward was in the charge of the
naval authorities.
We were carried up the gangway on our stretchers and placed on a sort
of luggage lift which in the twinkling of an eye transported us below,
where we were lifted on to swinging cots arranged in a large saloon.
The quick, handy way in which everything was done was typical of the
Navy, and having once spent six weeks on board a battleship, I felt
quite at home again. Dinner was brought round soon after getting on
board, and I ate soup, fish, roast mutton, and apple tart with the
heartiest of appetites. Unfortunately, also, in the happiness of the
moment, I drank a large bottle of Bass which seriously affected my
slumbers during the night.
We did not leave until the following night, arriving at Plymouth at
nine o'clock the next morning. However, it was no hardship to be aboard
the hospital ship.
The cots were just as comfortable as beds; there was every appliance
for dressing our wounds, and the nurses and doctors looked after us
indefatigably. In such surroundings aspects of the war which are taken
more seriously elsewhere are made light of. The patients made jokes
about each other's wounds and their own, and all were so glad to be
alive that pain and suffering were almost forgotten. There was one
fellow in the cot next to mine who in the middle of a silence suddenly
uttered an exclamation of annoyance. Asked what was the matter, he said
he wanted to know the time and had just discovered he had lost his
watch. It was a wrist watch, he explained, and must have been left on
the arm they had amputated at the field ambulance.
At Plymouth we were taken on board a launch and landed at a quay close
by the naval hospital. The ingenious cots devised by the Navy enable
a wounded man to be moved bodily in his bed, all wrapped up and warm,
to the bed in the hospital. They are so made that they can either
be carried as stretchers, or slung from a ship's side, or put on
hand-trolleys and wheeled. The Naval Hospital at Plymouth is a model
of neatness and smartness, each patient in the officers' quarters gets
a small room to himself which is called a cabin; the orderlies are all
ex-sailors and handy and obliging as only sailors can be; and the naval
nurses in their smart blue uniforms are a pleasure to watch.
I stayed at Plymouth for five days, when I was allowed to travel to
London.
PRINTED AT
THE BALLANTYNE PRESS
LONDON & EDINBURGH
SOLDIERS' TALES OF THE GREAT WAR
Each Volume Crown 8vo, Cloth, 3s 6d net
I
WITH MY REGIMENT
By "PLATOON COMMANDER"
[_Ready_
_To be followed by_
II
DIXMUDE
A chapter in the History of the Naval Brigade, Oct.-Nov. 1914
By CHARLES LE GOFFIC
_Illustrated_
III
IN THE FIELD (1914-15)
The Impressions of an Officer of Light Cavalry
IV
IN THE DARDANELLES AND SERBIA
Notes of a French Army Doctor
_Illustrated_
LONDON: WILLIAM HEINEMANN
21 Bedford Street, W.C.