ON THE AISNE AT MONT DE SOISSONS.
Our Field Ambulance headquarters at the Château-farm of Mont de Soissons
was occupied by us till October. During this time our army was fighting
hard. Most of the days were rainy, and the trenches on the other side of
the river suffered from this. To our right was Braisne on the river, and
to our far right was Reims. To our left was Soissons—about eight miles
away. We were about fifty-eight miles from Paris.
Our billet was a good one. Imagine a huge hollow square surrounded by
stone buildings, and the square itself filled with an enormous manure
heap. One side of the square was taken up by the two-storied old stone
building containing kitchen, hall, sleeping-rooms, and offices. Stables
for sheep, cows, and horses formed two sides. The fourth side was a truly
beautiful and artistic one. It was formed by a wonderful old chapel, and
remains of what was part of the refectory and cellars of a monastery.
These buildings were in a splendid state of preservation, and were now
used to hold straw and cattle fodder. The chapel had been built by the
Knights Templars, and was in its day a place of renown. It is indeed a
pity that such historic buildings are so neglected and forgotten. In
the lofts of the dwelling-house and in a shed outside we put our sick
and wounded men. In a bedroom downstairs we put the wounded officers. We
were principally concerned at this time in the transportation of sick and
wounded to railhead. Although we were at headquarters of an ambulance,
no preparation or effort was made for any special treatment. Very few of
our cases remained more than twelve to twenty-four hours. Motor lorries
arrived at Mont de Soissons every morning, and on these our men piled
straw and placed the men, covering all with a huge tarpaulin cover raised
tent fashion on upright sticks. This method of transporting wounded was
crude and brutal. There were no motor ambulances at this time. The first
motor ambulance arrived after we had been ten days at Mont de Soissons.
Why motor ambulances were not with us from the beginning of the war is a
question which the Army Medical Department will have to answer when the
war is over, and the necessary public washing-day arrives.
Several wounded men and officers died at Mont de Soissons and were
buried in the garden alongside a stone wall. Wooden crosses mark each
grave-head, and two of them have stone crosses erected and engraved
by one of our orderlies. And the women of the house and neighbourhood
attend to the graves, and place flowers on them. It is beautiful to see
how reverently the French women look after our soldiers’ graves. The old
lady—the owner of this farm-château—has the names and dates of burial of
all officers and men interred in this garden, and the relatives of these
dead heroes will be able one day to visit this quiet corner of a garden
in France and will see how beautifully the graves have been tended by the
simple, kindly French peasant women.
[Illustration: MONT DE SOISSONS, SHOWING THE OLD TEMPLARS’ HALL AND
CHURCH.]
Our life at this place was full of interest. In front of us were our own
batteries, behind the ridge; then beyond was the river, and beyond that
our advanced troops in the trenches. To our left, the French occupied
Soissons. The French artillery was continually in action, pounding on
every day _sans cesse_ and generally also through the night, and it was
excellent and well served; but our guns were silent most of the day. At
eleven o’clock in the morning they would open up and leisurely plunge
their shot across the valley at Fort Condé for half an hour; then remain
silent till four or five in the evening, when another bombardment would
commence and continue till dark.
Occasionally they seemed to wake up and become very angry, and on
these occasions would bark and roar and screech for a couple of hours.
The Germans never refused an artillery duel, and when our batteries
seemed to wake up the Germans did too, and hurtled across their shot
at a tremendous pace. The Germans at this time wasted an enormous lot
of ammunition, but they nevertheless were extraordinarily formidable
and effective with this arm. There was a small embankment outside our
farmhouse, and this was a box seat _de luxe_ every afternoon from four
till half-past six o’clock. On our right, stretching on to Reims, and on
our left towards Soissons, the artillery, German, French, and British,
was then at its best. Sometimes the sound would be deafening all along
the line, sometimes it would concentrate itself in our particular corner.
Directly opposite us, on the far side of the river at Fort Condé, the
Germans had a very strong artillery position. Their guns there outranged
ours at first, and used on fine evenings, at the usual concert hour,
to give us some splendid exhibitions. First would come one shot to the
right, and then one to the left. Then four flashes of yellow flame
followed by huge cascades of earth would appear to strike the same
spot, and a few seconds after the dub-dub-dub-dub of the explosions
would reverberate and re-echo across the hills and valleys. They would
sometimes pick out one particular area of ground on our front and simply
cover every yard of it with bursting shells. At other times they would
plant a line of shells right across a particular place. Again they seemed
sometimes to go “shell mad,” and would wildly send shells to all points
of the compass. In the darkness of an autumn night the bursting of the
shells was a terribly magnificent sight. We could see our shells, and
especially the French shells, burst over the German positions. The French
artillery always excited our admiration. The great guns, the men, the
rapidity of fire, the noise, and the terrible bursting charges were all
wonderful. No wonder France is proud of her big guns and her splendid
gunners.
About ten o’clock in the mornings we frequently were surveyed by Taubes.
Many of them were most daring. They were always pursued by our men and
the French; and wonderful pursuits and flights were witnessed. Two of our
aeroplanes often started together after a Taube. One would fly directly
for the enemy craft, and one would circle into the upper blue and try to
get above it. We were told that they used to fire at one another with
carbines, but we never could hear the shots or see any smoke. The Taube
always made off. Sometimes a Taube would be up alone, and after hovering
and circling over our gun positions would make a sudden dash to directly
above a battery, drop a smoke signal, and fly away; this signal would
be rapidly followed by some German shelling. The greatest spectacular
effect of all was to watch the German shots from their anti-aircraft
guns bursting round our aeroplanes. It was like pelting a butterfly
with snowballs. We could see the burst and flash long before the sound
reached us. The bursts produced white and black smoke balls, the black
one appearing a little higher and later than the white. The white smoke
balls unrolled themselves into a curious shape, very like a big German
pipe. There was a huge bulb and a long, curling, thick stem. We stood
often with “our hearts in our mouths” expecting that one of our daring
flyers had been hit. Smoke-bursts would appear below, above, and round
the craft, and then one shot would seem to actually hit it. But no; a
minute afterwards we could make out the little machine flying higher or
emerging swaggeringly from the midst. We watched our own bursts round a
Taube with a different spirit, waiting eagerly for the _coup de grâce_,
and having no humane thoughts for the daring pilot. One afternoon we were
certain that a Taube had been struck, for one burst appeared to be right
on, but when the smoke cleared away the Taube was still going merrily.
Then it began to slowly descend, then ascend again, and then suddenly
plane away to our right. From the last shot she really had “got it in the
neck,” as Tommy Atkins puts it, and the machine plunged down behind the
French lines. The pilot was killed, the observer got a fractured spine,
and was dragged out of the wreckage—paralysed.
On the 19th September, orders from General French were read out
congratulating the British troops upon their valour and tenacity at the
Marne, and commending their courage on the Aisne. We were assured that by
holding on to our present positions the enemy would be forced to retire.
On one Sunday, service was conducted by Monsignor, our Catholic chaplain,
for Catholic soldiers, in one of the stable lofts at the farm. The
preacher and the men had to climb up a ladder placed on the outside of
the building, and get into the loft through a small door. The ladder
was a crazy affair, but Monsignor tested it by going up first. He was a
light-weight and very active, but a burly Falstaffian sergeant looked
very hesitatingly at it, and it certainly creaked and bent considerably
as he slowly mounted. The loft was packed with men, and we heard
afterwards that the floor was not meant for a heavy weight. We were
relieved to learn that there were no casualties at the service, and that
Monsignor and his flock had not gone through the floor and startled the
horses underneath.
I spent one forenoon in an advanced artillery observation post, and tried
to make out the German positions through a telescope. We could make
out some white waggons moving on a road far off, but they were out of
range. The observation officer got to his post by walking up a cutting
and then crawling into a hole, and there he stood for hour after hour
patiently watching the other lines, while his sergeant sat close by, well
concealed, and with a telephone receiver over his head. Any observations
of importance were ’phoned back to the battery. These observation posts
were dangerous “spots,” for they were well within the reach of enemy
shells and afforded very little cover. The observation officer here was
an enthusiast, and I think he was familiar with the outline of every tree
and rock on the other side. It requires some practice to be really expert
with a telescope. General officers occasionally came up to talk to our
observer and peer at the opposite ridge. I met this artillery observation
officer later on in the north of France, and this time he was a patient
in hospital with a scalp wound. He had been in a house well in advance
of our own advanced line, and had made a small hole in the roof through
which he obtained a good view of the enemy dispositions, and directed
the fire of his battery. The German is a wily man, and evidently did not
like the position of this house, for he shelled it out of existence. I
was glad that the major got out with nothing more than a scalp wound,
for good artillerists are worth much to our army to-day. Our artillery
officers seem to enjoy war more than any other branch of the service.
This major told me that one day his own and a French battery got fairly
on to a German battery that had done considerable damage. The Allied
guns destroyed the Germans, and the French were frantically delighted,
their colonel coming over and warmly embracing Major X—— and kissing him
on both cheeks. We told the major that he was a certain starter for the
Legion of Honour. The major was a happy man when he was standing in a
hole, or peering round a piece of rock, telescope to eye, and a sergeant
lying near him with a telephone receiver strapped on his head.
One afternoon on the Aisne we heard that the Norfolks, who were in the
trenches on our front, were hugely delighted. They had just killed a
sniper. This particular sniper had become notorious, for he was a dead
shot and had hit many of the Norfolk boys. Owing to the vigilance of
this particular sniper they could not get hot tea into the trenches, and
several of the Norfolk “Bisleys” were keenly anxious to bag him. One
day a tree was observed to rustle after a sniping shot, and at once the
Norfolks sent a hail of bullets into that particular tree. This brought
the man down, for winged by Norfolk bullets the arboreal Prussian fell
out of the branches like a ripe acorn, amidst the cheers of the men in
the trenches.
It was said that these snipers on the Aisne belonged to the Forest
Guards, who were rangers in the Imperial forests of Eastern Prussia,
and were dead shots, accustomed all their lives to shoot wild pigs and
wolves. They were highly unpopular amongst our men.
Sniping is quite in accordance with the rules of war, but the soldiers
feel that sniping as the Germans play it is not “cricket.” They naturally
feel very angry with a sniper who gets up a haystack with some provisions
and ammunition, and after having eaten all his food and fired off all his
cartridges calmly emerges and surrenders.
Our men are extraordinarily good to wounded Germans and to prisoners,
but these sniping sneaks stir their venom and ire. I saw one of these
surrendered uninjured snipers at Ypres meet with savage scowls and
epithets from some men of a company whose officer had been killed by him
that morning.
About the last week of September I brought over some motor ambulances
full of sick men to Braisne. This charming little town, situated on
the Aisne and on the Marne Canal, was full of ambulances and clearing
hospitals. Every house almost had a red-cross flag up, for the place was
crammed with sick and wounded, and the clearing hospitals had been very
busy with the big casualties. Three doctors had been killed a few days
previously at Vailly when in action with their regiments, and another
doctor had died the next day after having had his leg amputated for a
bad shell wound. He was awarded the V.C., but did not live to enjoy that
signal honour and distinction.
The clearing hospitals and ambulances were sending large numbers of
sick soldiers down to the base _en route_ for England—mostly cases of
dysentery, lumbago, and rheumatism. Many of these men looked bad wrecks,
and no wonder, when one remembers the rapid, arduous retreat from Mons
and Le Cateau in the broiling summer heat, followed by the hard fighting
and marching in the rain from the Marne to the Aisne, and how this was
succeeded by the hardships, miseries, and discomforts in the wet sodden
trenches at a time when it was impossible to give them hot cooked food
and sufficient warmth. More men were wanted, and until they arrived the
few had to do the work of many. The 5th Division had been promised a rest
in reserve to recuperate, but not a man could be spared from the line
we were so hardly holding, and so they simply had to “plug on,” and, as
cheerfully as they could, sing “It’s a long, long way to Tipperary”; but
they did not sing much at this time.
While we were at Mont de Soissons and a week after the arrival of our
first red-cross motor ambulances, we were given instructions to look out
for a mysterious red-cross motor-car driven by an officer in khaki who
had a beard and wore a red-cross brassard on his arm. This car seemed
to be very busy and was constantly travelling up and down the roads and
always at high speed—too high a speed to be challenged. Sitting at the
front of the car and next the driver was a nurse, dressed in nurse’s
uniform, wearing a white cap, and also with a red-cross brassard on the
left arm. We smelt something fishy about it all. Firstly, none of our
medical officers wore beards; secondly, medical officers did not drive
motor ambulances about; thirdly, there were no nurses with us. Nurses
are not allowed in the fighting line. We watched for this car always,
and always wondered what we would do if we did sight it, for none of
us had arms, and this villain with the beard would be sure to have a
loaded six-shooter near at hand. Two days after our warning the car was
spotted by a sentry, who challenged, but the driver went furiously past
him. He was not out of the bush though, for a barricade had been erected
half-way across the road at a very sharp turn, and to get round this the
car had to slow down to “dead slow.” A British sentry was here, and other
soldiers were standing not far away. The bearded driver was ordered to
stop and get out under cover of the sentry’s rifle. The guard came up and
the two motorists were arrested.
The man with the beard was a German spy right through, and he was handed
over to the French, who shot him at daybreak next day. They say he died
very gamely.
The “nurse” who sat beside him was not shot. We were told that “she” was
really a man, a dapper little German waiter who had been on the staff of
a leading hotel in Paris for some years. I saw the man with the beard
shortly after he was arrested. He looked quiet and scholarly and somewhat
meek, but “still waters run deep.”
At 4 a.m. on the 27th of September we were all “turned out” by our O.C.,
who had just received urgent orders to be prepared to leave Mont de
Soissons as the Germans “were over the river.” After standing by for
two hours we got word that it was a false alarm. Something had been
irritating the Germans this morning, for at daybreak they opened a
furious fire on our positions. As far as we knew it wasn’t the Kaiser’s
birthday or the anniversary of any prehistoric German victory, so we
put it down to nerves. Their gunners made a dead set on a field in our
front just behind the ridge along the Aisne. Hundreds of Black Marias
and shrapnel were sent on to that unlucky piece of ground, and it was
wonderful to see the shot-ridden earth sent up in huge volcanic bursts.
The enemy thought that we had a battery there, but we hadn’t one nearer
than half a mile, hence our enjoyment of the spectacle.
On the afternoon of this day we heard that Mr. Winston Churchill was with
us and was dining with the Scots Greys. At least that was the rumour,
but we hardly believed anything we heard out here. He was reported to
have said that the war would last another eighteen months. This piece
of information, following on an early morning’s alarm and in cold wet
weather, was distinctly cheering! However, as a kind of set-off, in the
late afternoon we heard that the Crown Prince had been buried again, this
time in the Argonne, and that it had been authentically established that
he was quite dead before having been buried. We were glad to know this,
because on the other occasions when he had been buried, he had not really
been quite dead.
We were at this period suffering from the effects of a dislocated postal
system. I had not yet received any letters from England, and did not know
if mine had reached there. We were all anxious to get the London papers
to “see how we were getting on at the front.” We knew what was going
on around us, but knew nothing more. One medical officer returned from
Braisne, told us that he had heard a great rumour there. We were all agog
to hear it. After whetting our appetites he gravely told us that a Padre
had informed him that, “All Europe was in the melting pot and the devil
was stirring the broth.” This officer was duly punished by having his rum
ration cut off.
One day on the Aisne I was an interested listener to a discussion
between two British officers and three French officers on national
characteristics, and this led up to a review of the way that the British,
French, and German charge with the bayonet.
The French charge magnificently with the bayonet, but they charge in a
state of tremendous excitement. When rushing across an open space to
the enemy they shout and scream with excitement, “France!” “A bas les
Boches!” “En avant!” They are uplifted with the wild ecstasy of the
onfall. Men fall in the mad rush never to rise again. _N’importe_—all
is unnoticed, on they go, an impetuous and irresistible avalanche of
steel, yelling, stabbing, slaying, overwhelming. They are superb, these
Frenchmen. I have seen them charge, and know from what I saw the splendid
fellows they are. In the Argonne, on the Aisne, and in Flanders, the
French soldier has carried out as resolute and daring bayonet charges
as ever his fathers did under Napoleon, when they stormed the bridge at
Lodi, swept over the field of Marengo, and hacked their bloody path at
Austerlitz.
The British charge stoically and more grimly. They do not shout. I have
heard them cursing. The British line advances as a sinister cold line of
steel, in a sort of jog-trot. It is a line of cool-brained gladiators,
alert of eye and thoroughly bent on slaughter. Our Briton sees his foe,
and smites savagely with the calculating judgment of a good Rugby forward
and with the bound of a wild cat. The disciplined valour and the savage
relentlessness of the British bayonet attack has been heralded in story
from Malplaquet to Waterloo, from Badajos to Inkermann, and historians
will chronicle the undying glory of the 7th Division at Ypres when with
rifle and bayonet it held the gate to Calais.
The German, in spite of what is often said to the contrary, is a brave
and determined man with the bayonet. The German discipline is undoubted.
It is a part of the people. It is the fibre of the nation. Discipline,
subjection to authority, has not to be taught to this people; it is
absorbed into their very being. The discipline of mind and body as
we understand it is not the discipline of the German, for his is an
obedience to authority only,—a “go” when ordered to “go,” a “come” when
ordered to “come.” But it is also a DIE when ordered to face certain
death. Men with whom this discipline is a message may not make saints or
pleasant companions, but do make sturdy foes and stubborn fighters.
They charge well, advancing with a stooping, jerky trot, uttering hoarse
guttural cries and “Hurrahs.” On they come, in solid masses shoulder to
shoulder, hoping by the weight and speed of the dense columns to get a
momentum that nothing can withstand. When in a solid compact phalanx
this German charge is very dangerous and formidable, and has been able,
although at a frightful cost, to brush aside and overwhelm veteran
British and French troops.
But if this compact line and solid column is broken, as it so often is
to-day by shrapnel, rifle, or machine-gun fire, the sense of cohesion
or “shoulder to shoulder” support is lost, and the heavy column is then
no match for the lightning bayonet onfall of the French infantry or the
weighty heave forward of a British regiment. The German infantryman is
not an “individual” fighter, but he is nevertheless a brave soldier, and
knows how to meet death. All three peoples have a great respect for each
other when it comes to close quarters and take no chances.
A curious feature of French bayonet charges was told me by a French
officer. He said that if the daily dispatches were read carefully it
would be noticed that the Germans, when they attacked the French,
generally made them vacate the first trench, but that the French always
counter-attacked, retook their own, and carried the charge on into the
German lines. He said that the Frenchmen are very easily surprised and
are only at their best when they know what they are up against and what
they have to do. They also require at times to be worked up to the “fire”
of the business, and that this was specially true of younger troops. The
officers know this, and when their men fall back from the front trench,
they get them together, tell them that they must go forward again,—that
France is watching them, that the cursed German has his foot in beautiful
France, that the sons of the men of Jena and Wagram must still show
their metal; then drawing his sword, and with “En avant, mes enfants,”
the officer leads forward, followed by his cheering men, and they are at
these times irresistible.
There is a story told at the front of a famous Scottish regiment whose
deeds have won admiration in nearly every battle in English history,
which occupied some advanced trenches. The Germans rushed them in
overwhelming numbers and drove them out with the bayonet. Another
regiment, composed almost entirely of little Cockneys, was called up in
support, and gallantly rushing forward drove out the Germans and took
many prisoners. They then told the brawny Scotchmen that they could go
back to their trenches again and if they felt anxious at any time the
M—— boys from London would be only too pleased to come back and comfort
them. Some weeks afterwards the Kilties helped the Cockneys out of a hot
corner, so the odds are now even.
Talking of bayonet charges leads up to bayonet wounds. It is a curious
fact, well noted amongst surgeons at the front, that there are very few
bayonet wounds to treat. Yet bayonet charges are constantly taking place,
and very bloody mêlées they are.
Where are these men who have been speared by the bayonet? The majority
are dead, for the bayonet when it gets home is a lethal weapon. When it
pierces the chest or abdomen it, as a rule, reaches a big artery; a rapid
hæmorrhage follows, and death comes speedily.
The majority of bayonet wounds are in the chest and abdomen, and ghastly
terrible wounds they are. After the Bavarians and Prussians were hurled
back at Ypres and La Bassée there were comparatively few bayonet wounds.
Amongst the vast number of wounded men in the Clearing Hospital at
Bethune I had personally to treat only one or two cases of bayonet
wounds. These were, as a rule, simple flesh wounds, and were the lucky
exceptions amongst the bayonet victims.
This feature about bayonet wounds was also noted by Larrey, the
surgeon-in-chief to Napoleon during the great Continental wars, by
M’Grigor, surgeon-in-chief to Wellington in the Peninsula, and by
surgical observers at a later period during the Crimean War. A war
correspondent in the Crimea wrote that a man who has been bayoneted dies
in great pain, that his body and limbs are twisted and contorted by the
last agonised movements preceding death. This belief is fallacious. Men
who die speedily from a sudden loss of blood die easily and quietly. They
go to sleep.
The German bayonet is longer, broader, and heavier than that of the
Allies. The French bayonet is not a blade, but is shaped like a spear or
stiletto. The British bayonet is a blade, short and light. It is not,
however, the blade or the stiletto, it is the man behind that counts.
I mentioned before that our sick and wounded were housed in a loft of
the farm-château of Mont de Soissons and in a shed outside. This shed or
lean-to was a most uninviting place for the sick. One side was formed
by a stone wall, from the top of that a roof projected, and this roof
was held up by wooden pillars. There was no floor and there were no
other walls. It was quite open to every wind that blew, except for the
protection of the stone wall and the roof. Straw was laid on the ground
of this lean-to and this straw, owing to the constant rain and the very
muddy, filthy state of the roads and yards round about, got very sodden
at times. New straw was then put on top of this old straw—that was all.
It wasn’t very much, truly. Yet badly wounded men were brought in in
large numbers from the trenches and kept lying on this sodden straw for
hours, and in some cases for a whole day and night. If the wounded man
arrived after eleven o’clock in the morning he had to put up with a night
on the straw in this lean-to. If the man was sick from one of the usual
diseases prevalent at this time—lumbago, rheumatism, and sciatica—he
was led up to the loft in the main house. If he had a slight wound he
was also led up to this place, but if he had a compound fracture or an
abdominal injury it was necessary to carry him up on a stretcher, and
the stair up to the loft was so narrow that the task was an extremely
difficult one, and full of pain and misery to the patient. The loft was
a draughty hole and not fit to accommodate a sick mountain goat. But it
was a Buckingham Palace to the Whitechapel lean-to on the stone wall
outside. Yet on this dirty sodden straw I have dressed foul, septic
compound fractures, have elevated a fragment of loose bone pressing on
a man’s brain, and have stood by men dying from gas gangrene, and from
pneumonia due to exposure from lying out in the rain and cold after
having been wounded. And every time I saw men lying out in that open
shed I have asked, “Why have we not motor ambulances at the front?”
Every morning empty lorries returning from distributing their supplies
at the front called in at Mont de Soissons and took our wounded down to
railhead; and this method of transportation of the wounded was one of
the horrors of war. Our wounded and sick did not arrive according to any
time-table, and if they arrived at midday or in the afternoon or evening,
they had, willy-nilly, to be accommodated at the château-farm, and the
only accommodation we could offer was the windy, inhospitable loft or
the straw-covered lean-to outside. If we had had motor ambulances all
of this would have been avoided. Then the patients would not have had
to be sent to our headquarters at all, but could have been carried to
railhead at once. Why did we not have motor ambulances at the outset of
war? God knows. Had anyone asked me five years ago what was the best way
of transporting a wounded or sick man with an army in the field, I would
have answered at once, “By motor ambulance, of course.”
[Illustration: LOADING WOUNDED AT SOISSONS. THE FIRST MOTOR AMBULANCE ON
THE AISNE.]
[Illustration: THE LEAN-TO AT SOISSONS. UNLOADING WOUNDED.]
If a man is wounded in the streets of London or any other city in the
civilised world he is conveyed to the nearest hospital by an ambulance
motor-car. When the Army Service Corps had to arrange its transport for
this war, they naturally thought of nothing else than motor traction. Yet
in spite of the lessons of army manœuvres in this country, and of the
dictates of reason, our Army Medical Department sent Field Ambulances
to the front with the old horse-ambulance of the days of Napoleon and
Wellington, and did not have a solitary motor ambulance where they were
so vitally necessary. The position was so odd and incomprehensible that
I wrote about it to Lord ——, who, I knew, would look at the matter from
the view-point of common sense and humanity. Lord —— has a great name in
the Empire, and has been one of the best and ablest of governors of one
of our Dominions beyond the seas. I knew that if I wrote to him, and he
chose to act as I was sure he would, something would occur. I did not,
owing to army postal delays, get his answer till long after, and it was
worded as follows (allowing for considerable deletions of some parts of
it, and for names):
“MY DEAR MARTIN,—I received your letter in London on Wednesday
night. Within half an hour of its arrival I hunted up Mr. ——.
I found him in a state of great indignation because of the
obstacles put in the way of —— giving the assistance they
desire to the wounded at the Front. I understand, however, that
sixty motor ambulances will be ready on Wednesday next, and
that further ambulances will be provided later. Your letter has
been read by Lord Kitchener. It arrived at an opportune moment,
when the great want of motor ambulances at the Front was being
realised here. I hope that even before you receive this letter
the scandal which makes you so righteously indignant may have
been removed and that proper arrangements are now in successful
operation for the treatment of the wounded.
“Please let me hear from you from time to time how things are
going, and always remember that I shall be more than pleased if
I can give you the slightest assistance in getting those things
done which you may think necessary.—Believe me, yours sincerely,
“——.”
Shortly after this, motor ambulances appeared, and the position eased,
to the infinite and lasting benefit of our wounded officers and men.
I still, however, often wonder why motor ambulances were not landed
in France with the other motor vehicles when our Expeditionary Army
disembarked. Many lives would have been saved, and much suffering would
have been avoided.