came south from the French lines; it rocked the whole neighborhood for
miles. The ground here is a kind of quicksand for a few feet down, and
shock is easily transmitted, the whole ground being honeycombed with
mines, old trenches, shafts, saps made by French, Belgians, Germans and
our own people.
The use for timber of any description is manifold; every little bit is
used up. Our chief source of supply of dry wood is from the smashed-up
chateaux. Langhof, my home, has been punished almost every day, and after
the bombardment lets up men from the neighborhood come to collect the wood
torn up by the shelling. The men of the Tenth East Yorks came up this
morning and climbed to the remains of the second story, ripping up the
floor boards. The enemy evidently saw them, for the shelling soon started.
We have been shelled often here before, but it was nothing compared to
this. The shells were carefully placed and came over with disgusting
regularity. The buildings rocked and the whole neighborhood shook.
Fountains of bricks, mortar, and dirt were spewed up into the air. Trees
were torn to shreds, a wall in front of me was hit—and disappeared, a lead
statue of Apollo in the garden was hurled through the air and landed fifty
yards away crumpled up against the balustrade of the moat.
We were in our cellars, and gradually the shelling crept up towards us.
Slowly a solemn dread which soon moulded into a sordid fear took
possession of my being. In a flash I began to devise a philosophy of death
for my chances were fading with every crash. I took out my pocketbook,
containing some letters from my mother and some personal things, and put
them on one of the beams, so that, being in another part of the building,
they might perhaps be found some day. The shelling continued and shells
dropped completely round the cellars, demolishing nearly everything in
sight. The enemy evidently wanted to obliterate the whole place. The smell
of the smoke and the dirt from the debris was choking, and every minute we
expected to be our last. Suddenly it stopped. Philosophy and fear
disappeared simultaneously as I sputtered out a choking laugh of relief.
Then Hawkins, my servant, in a scared voice started, and the others joined
in, singing the old marching refrain of the Training Camps:—
“Hail, hail, the gang’s all here,
What the hell do we care!
What the hell do we care!
Hail, hail, the gang’s all here,
What the hell do we care NOW!”
When a man has lived night after night in a trench, he gradually finds it
quite possible to snatch a good night’s sleep. In other words, it is
merely a case of becoming acclimated to rackets, smells and food. I had
always been able to sleep, but on the night following the bombardment of
the chateau I just could not doze off. I thrashed about continuously, and
while in this restless state harbored the notion that trouble was brewing
for me. Every one has had that feeling, the feeling that hangs in your
bones and warns you to watch out. Well, that is how I felt.
At last the sun rose and with it came a beautiful morning, warm and sunny.
I walked out amongst the ruins to see the extent of the damage caused by
the shelling of the previous day. I was waiting for the stew which was
cooking on a little fire near the side of the cellar. The “dixie” was
resting on two old bayonets, and they in turn rested on bricks at either
side. Towards noon a big shell came over and landed in the moat, covering
everything around with a coat of evil-smelling, black mud. This shell was
followed by another, arriving in the part of the ruins where once a
cow-shed stood. I was talking to Hawkins, my batman, when I saw him dive
across my front and fall flat on his face. At the same time I was in the
center of an explosion, a great flame of light and then bricks, wood and
cement flew in all directions. For a few seconds I thought I was dead,
then I picked myself up and saw that blood was pouring down the front of
my jacket. I followed up the stream and found that my right hand was
smashed and hanging limp. My men rushed out and I told them it was
nothing, but promptly fell in a heap. When I came to, my hand was wrapped
up in an emergency bandage, and a stretcher was coming down from Bedford
House, an advanced dressing-station, the next house back. To the delight
of the men who were carrying it, I waved them away and told them I could
walk. Assisted up to the dressing-station by one of my men, I made it. I
then made a discovery. A soldier is a man until he’s hit, then he’s a
case. I first had an injection of “anti-tetanus” in the side, and the fact
was recorded on a label tied to my left-hand top pocket button. The doctor
tied me up, then said: “You’ll soon be all right. Will you have a bottle
of English beer or a drop of whiskey?” I had the whiskey. I needed it. All
the time I was there the wounded poured in. Seeing them I felt ashamed to
be there with only a smashed hand. A corporal came in with both hands
blown off and fifty-six other wounds. He had tried to save the men in his
bay by throwing back a German bomb and it had gone off in his hands.
Hawkins came up later on with my helmet and the fuse head of the shell
which blew me up. We were all collected together and waited in the dugouts
of the dressing station until dusk. Several shells came close to us. I
tried to write to my mother with my left hand, so that when she received
the War Office cable she would know I was able to write.
Dusk came, then night, and finally the Ford ambulance cars which were to
take us out of Hell. It was a beautiful night. Belgium looked lovely. The
merciful night had thrown a veil over the war scars on the land and a moon
was shining. I was told to sit up in the seat with the driver. We traveled
along one road, then the shelling became so bad that the drivers decided
to go back and take another road which was running nearly parallel. Back
over the line the planes of the Royal Flying Corps were bombing the Forest
of Houltholst, and the bursting of the shrapnel from the German
anti-aircraft guns pierced the velvet of the sky like stars as we went out
of Belgium into France.
-------------------------------------
Several times shells burst on the road, and from the inside of the car
came the stifled groans of the men as the Ford hit limbs of trees and
shell-holes.
Our first stop was a ruined windmill, the walls of which were nearly six
feet thick. Here the dangerous cases were taken off and attended to. The
last I saw of the corporal was after they had cut off his coat at the
seams and the doctors were taking a piece of wire out of his chest. While
I was waiting a chaplain asked me if I would like a cup of coffee or some
whiskey, realising that it would take some time to get the coffee made I
had some more whiskey.
I was given two more tags, which this time were tied on buttons at the top
of my jacket. I stayed here about two hours, then I was sent to a clearing
hospital. It was here that I met the first nurses. They were two fine,
splendid women who were wearing the scarlet hoods of the British Regular
Army nurse. They were both strong and quite capable of handling a man,
even if he became delirious. One of them quickly got me into bed. I
apologized for my terribly dirty state, but I was told that it made no
difference; they were used to it. To be between clean sheets again was
wonderful. I felt I wanted to go to sleep forever. Suddenly a roar, and a
terrible explosion. The hospital was being bombed; a bomb had dropped
within a hundred yards of my tent. This was the German reprisal for our
bombing Houltholst. They deliberately bombed a hospital. The doctor at
this hospital next day looked at my hand and said in a nonchalant way,
“Looks as though you will lose it.” At that time it didn’t strike me as a
great loss to lose a hand, even if it was my “painting hand.”
The hospital train of the next day was crowded and the nurse in charge of
my coach was named Keene. We tried in the little spare time she had to see
if we couldn’t work out our genealogy and find out if we were even
remotely connected, but before we did we came to the station of Étaples
and then went to the Duchess of Westminster Hospital at Latouquet. Here I
was operated on. A piece of Krupp’s steel was taken out of my hand and a
rubber drainage tube inserted instead. The Duchess used to come round a
great deal and won everybody’s affection. She used to sit on my bed and
talk to me about pleasant things. So unlike many people who visit
hospitals and ask the patients silly war questions, such as: “How does it
feel to be wounded?” or “Which hurts more, a bayonet or a shell wound?”
One exasperated Tommy, when asked if the shell hit him, said: “Naw, it
crept up behind and bit me.”
FINIS