MISSY ON THE AISNE.
We left Serches at 5 p.m. and retraced our road for about two miles till
we reached the ancient Château-farm of Mont de Soissons. This historic
farm was our headquarters during September and till the date we left in
October 1914, and it was during this eventful period that all the great
stirring events “on the Aisne” took place. “On the Aisne,” how much of
tragedy and pathos, of great deeds, of gallant deaths, stubborn fighting,
and indomitable courage are associated with those words?
On the night after our arrival at Mont de Soissons, the ambulance
officers were sitting about eleven o’clock round a table in the
old dining-room of the Château, when an urgent order arrived from
headquarters to send doctors, stretcher-bearers, and ambulance waggons
with equipment to Missy. The orders were for the ambulances to get to
Missy in the dark, pick up the wounded, and at all costs to come out
again in the dark. To get to Missy, which was situated on the far side
of the Aisne, we would have to cross the river, and,—reading between the
lines of this definite order to get in under cover of darkness and get
out again in the dark,—one could see that our night ride was to be a
somewhat perilous one.
Section C, the section to which I was attached, was ordered to undertake
the task, and at twelve o’clock, on a pitch-dark rainy night, our section
was ready to move off. We had five waggons, with the complete _personnel_
of one section. Major B—— was in command, with Lieutenant I—— and myself
as the other medical officers, and with us Monsignor, the Catholic
chaplain attached to our field ambulance, also came as a volunteer.
Monsignor was the salt of the earth, and whenever he thought that he
could be of service to our wounded men he was there. There was no demand
on him on this wild rainy night to leave the comfortable shelter of the
farmhouse and voyage out towards the enemy lines; but he had a strong
sense of duty, and behind the priest there was more than a _soupçon_ of
the knight-errant, who warmed at the thought of a dangerous adventure.
We were not permitted to light our waggon lamps, and in the darkness
we rumbled off, anxious not to lose any time over our mission, and if
possible complete it under cover of darkness.
Misfortune dogged us from the start. We had but one map; and as nobody
could give us any directions, that was our only guide. We mapped out the
route, Mont de Soissons to Serches—Serches to Venizel on the banks of the
Aisne, where was the bridge by which we were to cross the river—Venizel
to Bucy le Long, and thence to Missy. Altogether, we reckoned that we had
7 or 8 miles at least to go; but it proved to be a “long, long way to
Tipperary.”
After being five minutes on the march we discovered that we were on the
wrong road, and it took twenty minutes to turn the waggons on the narrow,
muddy _pavé_ and get on again. Passing through Serches, we turned to the
left and followed the road through a valley leading to the banks of the
Aisne. Here again we were nearly off on a wrong road, and lost about
another twenty minutes righting ourselves. The country was intersected
with roads not indicated on our map. We now got on to a narrow road
dipping sharply down towards a clump of trees, and here one of our
waggons slipped over the embankment, and one of the horses was killed. We
could not get the waggon up again, so abandoned it and pushed on with our
remaining four waggons, water cart, and supply waggon. The loss of this
waggon was a serious blow to us, as events will show.
As we entered the forest we were challenged by a sentry of the Cameron
regiment, who passed us on. A Cameron officer met us here and told us
that we were going into a bad place, as late that afternoon he had lost
some men from shrapnel at the very spot where we then were. Progress was
very slow for the next 500 yards, as the road was barricaded with felled
trees, and trenches had been dug alongside. After negotiating this nasty
corner we got on quickly to Venizel.
We reached Venizel right on the banks of the Aisne, and learned to our
chagrin that the fine stone bridge had been destroyed by the German
artillery that day. The engineers with superhuman energy had just about
completed a pontoon bridge. We were kept waiting here for an hour. Then,
one waggon at a time, we got across. The bridge was very doubtfully lit
at either end by darkened lanterns, and one seemed to be very close
to the swift current of the Aisne, already in flood. At the far side
of the bridge our progress was again very slow for some time, as we
had to meander gingerly between the trenches dug for the men who were
holding the bridge-end. As we left the pontoon an optimistic engineer
lieutenant, in clothes dripping with water, cheerfully called out “Good
luck. Hope you get back all right.” In reply we warned him that he would
get pneumonia if he didn’t change his clothes, and that it was foolish to
take baths in the Aisne with a uniform on.
Our road lay now along a flat plain, curving to the right. The night was
very dark and ominously silent. Our men were forbidden to talk or smoke
cigarettes, as we were approaching the enemy lines. Reaching Bucy le
Long, we inquired the way from a Scottish officer who was standing near
a stone well on the village street. All his men were alert and under
arms and expecting an attack at any moment. The officer, speaking with
the good Doric accent, indicated our way and told us to hurry on and get
under cover, as Missy was very “nasty” just then and they expected a
German attack.
We realised by this time that we might get into Missy in the dark, but by
no possibility could we bring the wounded out in the dark; and by the
serious preparations for repelling an attack in the village street we
knew that we could not get out in daylight. It looked as if we were soon
to be in the thick of that most sanguinary of all forms of war—street
fighting.
So on we went, and after taking another wrong turn and losing another
half-hour we got on to a straight road leading direct to Missy. It was
extraordinarily difficult to find one’s way, as the night was dark and
everything was strange and unfamiliar. There seemed to be hundreds of
roads, and the greatest care had to be exercised; for a wrong turning
would land us very speedily in the German lines, and none of us wished
our expedition to end in an inglorious pilgrimage to Germany.
As the first doubtful streaks of dawn appeared we reached Missy.
The main street of the village was full of men of the Norfolks and
Cheshires, all up and armed, and awaiting the Germans. There had been a
very hot skirmish outside the village on the previous afternoon, and the
Norfolks and Cheshires had lost heavily. It was the wounded from this
mêlée that we were to get to. A cheery Norfolk sergeant directed us down
a small lane to the right of the street, telling us that there were a
lot of badly hit men somewhere at the bottom of the lane. The lane was
too narrow to admit of our ambulances, so they were parked in front of a
baker’s shop and the horses were taken out. We hurried down the lane and
found the wounded men.
Dawn was breaking and shafts of grey light and shadow were thrusting
through the darkness. Then, like a clap of thunder, the German batteries
opened up, and from that moment till nightfall we lived through one of
the most hellish artillery duels that any mortal man could imagine. A
tornado of shot and shell swept across that beautiful Aisne valley.
It seemed as if all the fiends of hell were let loose. The noise was
deafening, ear-splitting, the bursting of the shells, the mighty
upheavals of earth where the shells struck, the falling trees, falling
masonry, crashing church steeples, the rolling and bounding of stones
from walls struck by these titanic masses of iron travelling at lightning
speed, the concussion of the air, the screeching, whisking, and sighing
of the projectiles in their flight, made an awful scene of destruction
and force. Add to all this the snarling, typewriter note of the Maxims,
the angry phut of the Mauser bullet as it struck a house or a gate,
and the crackling roars from our Lee-Metfords—truly it was the devil’s
orchestra, and the devil himself was whirling the fiery baton. The
steeple of the village church was struck fairly by a German shell, and
with a mighty crash the stones were hurled madly on to the road down
which we had but just passed, and killed one of our horses. Another shell
plunged right into the old church and sent its roof in a clattering hail
over the surrounding houses. A stone house at the top of our alley-way
got another shell and was levelled to the ground, killing two women who
were inside. The corner of the building in which we were located was
struck by a passing shell and a huge hole was ripped out of the solid
masonry. Shrapnel burst over the house, in the garden in front, on the
doors of the house, on the roof, and down the alley. Our red cross flag
and Union Jack were badly holed with shrapnel. At the kitchen door a
large piece of shell fell, sending mud and gravel against the windows
and into the room. A railway line ran past the foot of our garden, and
stretching from this railway line to the banks of the Aisne in the
distance was a wide grassy meadow on which some cows were grazing. A
thicket of tall trees, surrounding a small farmhouse, was situated to the
right of the meadow. This house was the headquarters of Count Gleichen,
the commander of the 15th Brigade. The Germans evidently were aware of
this fact, for the first shots they fired at break of day were at this
house. We could plainly see one shot fall short of the house, but in
a straight line for it. The second shot we thought had really got the
house, but fortunately this was not so. It landed near the door, as we
learned later. After this shot the headquarters galloped off as hard
as they could go, and the enemy tried to reach them with shrapnel, but
without success. Alongside the railway line there was a line of trenches,
and every inch of that line seemed to have been covered during the day by
the German fire. Their artillery practice was perfect, and at this period
of the war the enemy artillery mightily outclassed ours. Our guns from
the ridge on the other side of the Aisne made but a feeble reply to the
terrific German bombardment.
Now for the story of our wounded at Missy. When we got down our alley at
dawn on this eventful morning we found eighty-four grievously wounded
men. In a little stone fowlhouse to the left of the alley, fourteen men
were lying packed close together. There was no place to put one’s foot
in trying to walk over them. To the right of the alley a gate opened
into a gravel yard of a fine two-storied stone house, a very old and
solidly built building. The house formed three sides of a square; a
beautiful flower garden with a rose pergola formed the fourth side.
The gravel yard was in the centre. The lower story of this building,
with the exception of the kitchen and an adjoining room, consisted of
stables, granaries, saddlery rooms, and coachhouse. Lying on the floors
of the stable, kitchen, etc., were wounded men. They had all been wounded
the previous evening in an attack on the enemy concealed in a wood.
The wounded in the small fowlhouse were carried, under shrapnel fire,
across the alley to the big house and placed in the room adjoining the
kitchen and in the saddlery room. The cooks made up a big fire and soon
had hot water boiling. The three medical officers were soon rapidly at
work. The first case attended to was that of a young soldier of the
Norfolks who had been struck by a shell in the abdomen. His intestines
were lying outside the body, and loops were inside the upper part of
his trousers. Under chloroform we did what we could. He died painlessly
four hours afterwards. There were many bad shell wounds of the head; one
necessitating a trephining operation. One poor fellow had his tongue
half blown off. The loose bit was stitched on. The compound fractures
were numerous and of a very bad type, associated with much shattering
of the bone. Four men died during the day, but our arrival and timely
help undoubtedly saved many men. We made the poor fellows as comfortable
as we could, and we were incessantly busy from the moment we entered
this blood-stained place. I personally shall never forget the sight
of these poor, maimed, bleeding, dying and dead men crowded together
in those out-houses, with not a soul near them to help, and I am more
than thankful that I was privileged to be of service and to employ my
professional skill to help them in their dire hour of need. We knew that
we were in a tight corner. We expected that at any moment we would be
all blown to pieces; we did not know how we were to get these men back
to our own lines; but we knew also that whatever happened we would stand
by our helpless countrymen to the last, and if we failed to get them
safely back it would not be our fault. I mentioned previously that when
our ambulance got orders to go to Missy, Monsignor, the Roman Catholic
chaplain, volunteered to come with us. It is difficult to attempt to
write of our brave Monsignor. He was the bravest of the brave. When the
three medical officers were working hard with the wounded—dressing,
operating, anæsthetising—Monsignor was very busy too. He made hot soups,
hot coffee, prepared stimulating drinks, set orderlies to work to see
that every man who could take nourishment got it. One man injured in
the mouth could swallow only with the greatest difficulty. Monsignor
patiently sat by this man, and one way or another with a spoon managed
to give him a pint of hot Oxo soup and a good stiff nip of brandy. This
splendid prelate carried straw with his own hands and made pillows and
beds for our men. He took off boots and cut off bloody coats and trousers
in order to help the work of the surgeons. He rummaged in a cellar in
the house and discovered a box of apples. These he cut into slices for
our men. He stood by our dying men and spoke words of cheer and comfort
to the poor helpless fellows. He was absolutely reckless about himself.
Exposed to shrapnel and shell fire many times during the day, he was too
busy attending to the wounded to think about anything else. Towards dusk,
when our work eased off, we collected some pieces of shell which fell
near him—as souvenirs. I looked at Monsignor many times during the day,
and was struck with his expression of content and his happy smile. He was
exalted and proud and happy to be where a good priest,—and what a good
priest he was!—could be of such great service. I am not a Catholic, but
I honour the Church that can produce such a man as Monsignor, and I very
greatly honour Monsignor.
As darkness came on the hellish artillery fire quietened down and then
ceased altogether. The rifle-firing continued intermittently for a little
while longer and then it too ceased. We were now “up against” the last
and greatest trial of all—the evacuation of our wounded. During the day
some more wounded men had crawled into us, and we had now 102 men to
bring back to our lines. We managed in the darkness to get two large
French country carts to act as ambulances. Our four ambulance waggons
were, of course, not enough, and even with the help of the country carts
we could not accommodate 102 wounded men. Every man wounded in the head
or arms who could walk, was told off to march with our stretcher-bearers.
We packed the wounded lying-down cases into the ambulance waggons and
on to the country carts. Plenty of straw had previously been placed in
these latter. We were compelled to load up our waggons and carts far too
heavily, but our position was a serious one; we had to get the wounded
out somehow, and we had no one to help us. Our troops had retired from
Missy during the day and we were left all alone in front of the Germans
and quite at the mercy of their guns. The _via dolorosa_ of our sorely
wounded was on this night a very pitiable one. Exposed to rain, lying in
the utmost discomfort, compelled to keep for hours a cramped position,
they deserved our pity. The wounded men who had to march were also in a
sorry plight. These poor fellows were not fit to march; weak with shock,
pain, and loss of blood, they ought all to have been in bed; yet they had
to march, for we could not leave them behind.
At last all was ready to start. Strict orders were given against lights
and cigarettes. No talking was allowed, for the Germans were just “over
the way,” and they are people with “long ears.”
Before setting out we buried four officers and five men in a grave by
the railway, near the bottom of the garden. This mournful duty over, the
ambulance moved off.
This time we anticipated no delay, as we knew the road—vain hope. The
night was again very dark, and a drizzle of rain was falling. We had just
emerged from the silent village on the road to Bucy le Long when the
inky blackness of the night was cut through by the powerful beam of a
searchlight played from the German lines. The light swept slowly up and
down our column in a zig-zag wave once, and then a second time, this time
more slowly still. Every detail was illuminated with the brilliant glare.
The light was then fixed ominously on our front waggon, which had a big
red cross painted on its canvas sides. The column kept moving slowly on,
but for ten minutes that sinister, baleful light played all round the
first ambulance. We all thought that our last hour had come—that after
going through such a hellish day in the farmhouse at Missy we were to be
finally scuppered on the muddy road. We knew that the Germans were only
about 800 yards away. With strained nerves we waited, expecting them to
turn a machine-gun on us. The searchlight played up and down the column
once more and then was turned in another direction. My impression is that
the Germans made out the red cross on the leading waggon and so let us
pass. If they wished they could have destroyed us easily. We all breathed
again and continued on our way. After passing through Bucy le Long,
where we again saw our soldiers, we came across some returning-empty
motor lorries. We placed all our marching wounded on to these and eased
off the pressure in the country carts by taking off a few men. At Venizel
we were held up for five hours. The pontoon bridge had given way during
the day under the weight of a piece of heavy French artillery. The gun
had been fished out from the bottom of the Aisne with great difficulty,
but the horses were drowned. The Engineers were straining every nerve
to repair the bridge. It was vitally important to hurry, as this bridge
was the only artery of communication between our advanced troops and
the ammunition supplies. At last we got across and reached Mont de
Soissons, our ambulance headquarters, at nine in the morning. The wounded
were handed over to the other medical officers. Men and officers were
completely done up. We had been marching during two anxious, harassing
nights, and had lived through a bad day, but—we got out our wounded.