HOSPITALS AND TRAINS
No. 7 Canadian General was only one of a group of hospitals situated
along the highway that led from Etaples to Camiers. There were seven or
eight large hospitals in all, though only two were Canadian, the others
being British. Although I was quartered at No. 7, I had also to attend
the other Canadian Hospital, No. 1. There were about 2,500 beds in No.
7, and about 2,000 in No. 1.
At one end of No. 1, there was a marquee chapel-tent and at the rear of
No. 7 there was a low wooden chapel called “Church of Our Lady, Help of
Christians,” but this was used mostly by the British Catholics.
The military hospital in France usually consisted of a number of long,
low, detached one-story huts, built in rows, each row behind the
other. Between the rows ran little lanes just wide enough to permit
two ambulances to pass. There was a door in each end of every hut,
so that it was very easy to go from one hut into the other. Each hut
was a ward; in some hospitals they were numbered; in others they were
lettered. Down each side of the aisle, running from door to door, was
a row of beds--low iron beds covered with army blankets. In most of
the hospitals there were no counterpanes, but there were always clean
white sheets and pillow-cases. At one end of the ward were two small
cubicles, one of which was the nurses’ office, the other a kind of
pantry and emergency kitchen, though nearly all the cooking was done in
the general kitchen, which was a special hut.
Into these large, quiet wards, far away from the roar of the heavy
guns, the crackle of machine-guns and rifles, the wounded lads came,
carried by train and ambulance.
Many who will read these lines have seen the troop-trains, with their
hundreds of khaki-clad lads leaning out from car windows, cheering,
singing, and waving, as they were carried swiftly by on their way to
seaport or training-camp. Perhaps they have watched long companies of
soldier boys march up dusty roads, while flags waved and bands played
and people cheered, to the lines of cars waiting for them. If so, they
will recall the great buoyancy of the lads--their gaiety as they passed
on their way to training-camp or port of embarkation for overseas.
This light-heartedness accompanied them across the sea and went with
them up through France as they journeyed in other troop-trains to the
front. And whenever thirsty engines stopped at watertanks, or when
a halt was made to exchange a tired engine, little French children
assembled and gazed wide-eyed at the soldiers who had come from across
the seas. They wondered, too, what those words meant that some one on
the troop-trains always called out and which brought such a thundering
response. Many trains went up along the same way through France and
stopped, as others had stopped, and always some voice called out those
words, and always hundreds of voices roared back, “No!” So in time the
French children learned them, and whenever the trains slowed into a
station the little ones would run to the cars, and one of their number
would call out, “Har we doon-hearted?” Then, mingled with the laughter
of the khaki-clad lads, would come thundering the answer, “No!”
After awhile trains bearing soldiers began to come down from the line.
But when the engines stopped at watering-tanks or stations the little
French children that gathered about them noticed certain differences
between these trains and the ones that went up to the front. Everything
seemed very silent, save for the slow panting of the engine. On the
side of every car was painted, in the middle of a large white circle,
a red cross. No groups of laughing faces appeared at open car windows;
though now and again the white, drawn face of some one lying in a berth
peered out through the glass. Sometimes a white bandage was tied around
the head, and sometimes on the white bandage was a dark-red patch. No
one called out, “Are we downhearted?”
Trains kept coming down from the front somewhat irregularly; silent
trains with red crosses painted on white circles on the sides of the
cars. Then one day there was a slight change in the appearance of
these hospital trains. The red cross was still there, but painted near
one end, on the side of the car, was an oblong of red, white and blue
about three feet long and two wide. The little children knew well
what this was--the tricolor of France. But they did not know what the
oblong of red, white and blue painted on the side, at the other end of
the car, represented. The disposition of the color was different, and
the formation of the colored parts was not the same. There were more
stripes in this oblong, and the stripes were narrower and red and white
in color. In the upper corner was a small blue square with many white
stars on it. Then one day some one told the little children that this
was the flag of the Americans who had come from so far across the seas
to help their fathers and brothers in the war.
As I write these words I recall the passing of the trains of France.
Those that went up took light-hearted lads who leaned from car windows
and sang and cheered as they went through French villages. And
the trains that came down, with red crosses on them, had for their
passengers quiet lads who lay in berths, bandaged in every conceivable
way. But although they suffered much, and although occasionally a low
moan escaped through pain-drawn lips, those wonderful lads were still
“not downhearted.”
They passed through many different hands after they were wounded and
always they were well treated. First, stretcher-bearers picked them up
and carried them to the regimental aid post, which was usually a dugout
in one of the support trenches. Here they received treatment from the
medical officer of the battalion and his staff. Then they were carried
by other stretcher-bearers down the trenches to the field station,
from which places motor ambulances took them to the advanced dressing
station where bandages were re-arranged or improved. Then they went to
the clearing station, where they remained for perhaps two or three days
until there was a clearing for the hospital to which they were to go.
Ambulances took them to the Red Cross trains and stretcher-bearers
carried them gently to berths in the cars, and then they began their
long journey to the base hospital--the big quiet hospital far away from
the roar of the guns. From time to time medical officers passed down
the aisle of the car, and sometimes a Red Cross nurse, clad in light
grey uniform, gave medicine to the wounded lads or examined a dressing.
The journey from the casualty clearing station to the base hospital
often took many hours. It was usually evening when the long line of
Red Cross cars came slowly into the smooth siding that had been built
since the war. The bugle call would sound and many hospital orderlies
and stretcher-bearers would assemble, as, one after another, the big
green ambulances, each one driven by a woman, came swiftly down to the
siding. Gradually their speed slackened, and they moved slowly down the
line of hospital cars, in the sides of which doors opened. Then gently
and carefully the wounded lads, wrapped in thick brown army blankets
and lying on stretchers, were lowered from the cars and carried to the
open ends of the ambulances, where the stretchers were fitted into
racks running their full length--two above and two below. As soon as
the stretchers were securely strapped the machine slowly moved off to
the hospital, which was just a few hundred yards away.