BITS OF BLIGHTY
Blighty meant life,--life and happiness and physical comfort. What
we had left behind over there was death and mutilation and bodily
and mental suffering. Up from the depths of hell we came and
reached out our hands with pathetic eagerness to the good things
that Blighty had for us.
I never saw a finer sight than the faces of those boys, glowing
with love, as they strained their eyes for the first sight of the
homeland. Those in the bunks below, unable to move, begged those on
deck to come down at the first land raise and tell them how it all
looked.
A lump swelled in my throat, and I prayed that I might never go
back to the trenches. And I prayed, too, that the brave boys still
over there might soon be out of it.
We steamed into the harbor of Southampton early in the afternoon.
Within an hour all of those that could walk had gone ashore. As we
got into the waiting trains the civilian populace cheered. I, like
everybody else I suppose, had dreamed often of coming back sometime
as a hero and being greeted as a hero. But the cheering, though it
came straight from the hearts of a grateful people, seemed, after
all, rather hollow. I wanted to get somewhere and rest.
It seemed good to look out of the windows and see the signs printed
in English. That made it all seem less like a dream.
I was taken first to the Clearing Hospital at Eastleigh. As we got
off the train there the people cheered again, and among the
civilians were many wounded men who had just recently come back.
They knew how we felt.
[Illustration: CORPORAL HOLMES WITH STAFF NURSE AND ANOTHER
PATIENT, AT FULHAM MILITARY HOSPITAL, LONDON, S.W.]
The first thing at the hospital was a real honest-to-God bath. _In
a tub. With hot water!_ Heavens, how I wallowed. The orderly helped
me and had to drag me out. I'd have stayed in that tub all night if
he would have let me.
Out of the tub I had clean things straight through, with a neat
blue uniform, and for once was free of the cooties. The old
uniform, blood-stained and ragged, went to the baking and
disinfecting plant.
That night all of us newly arrived men who could went to the
Y.M.C.A. to a concert given in our honor. The chaplain came around
and cheered us up and gave us good fags.
Next morning I went around to the M.O. He looked my arm over and
calmly said that it would have to come off as gangrene had set in.
For a moment I wished that piece of shrapnel had gone through my
head. I pictured myself going around with only one arm, and the
prospect didn't look good.
However, the doctor dressed the arm with the greatest care and told
me I could go to a London hospital as I had asked, for I wanted to
be near my people at Southall. These were the friends I had made
before leaving Blighty and who had sent me weekly parcels and
letters.
I arrived in London on Tuesday and was taken in a big Red Cross
motor loaned by Sir Charles Dickerson to the Fulham Hospital in
Hammersmith. I was overjoyed, as the hospital was very near
Southall, and Mr. and Mrs. Puttee were both there to meet me.
The Sister in charge of my ward, Miss Malin, is one of the finest
women I have met. I owe it to her care and skill that I still have
my good right arm. She has since married and the lucky man has one
of the best of wives. Miss Malin advised me right at the beginning
not to submit to an amputation.
My next few weeks were pretty awful. I was in constant pain, and
after the old arm began to come around under Miss Malin's treatment
one of the doctors discovered that my left hand was queer. It had
been somewhat swollen, but not really bad. The doctor insisted upon
an X-ray and found a bit of shrapnel imbedded. He was all for an
operation. Operations seemed to be the long suit of most of those
doctors. I imagine they couldn't resist the temptation to get some
practice with so much cheap material all about. I consented this
time, and went down for the pictures on Lord Mayor's Day. Going to
the pictures is Tommy's expression for undergoing an anesthetic.
I was under ether two hours and a half, and when I came out of it
the left hand was all to the bad and has been ever since. There
followed weeks of agonizing massage treatments. Between treatments
though, I had it cushy.
My friends were very good to me, and several Americans entertained
me a good deal. I had a permanent walking-out pass good from nine
in the morning until nine at night. I saw almost every show in the
city, and heard a special performance of the Messiah at Westminster
Abbey. Also I enjoyed a good deal of restaurant life.
London is good to the wounded men. There is entertainment for all
of them. A good many of these slightly wounded complain because
they cannot get anything to drink, but undoubtedly it is the best
thing for them. It is against the law to serve men in the blue
uniform of the wounded. Men in khaki can buy all the liquor they
want, the public houses being open from noon to two-thirty and from
six P.M. to nine-thirty. Treating is not allowed. Altogether it
works out very well and there is little drunkenness among the
soldiers.
I eventually brought up in a Convalescent Hospital in Brentford,
Middlesex, and was there for three weeks. At the end of that time I
was placed in category C 3.
The system of marking the men in England is by categories, A, B,
and C. A 1, 2, and 3 are for active service. A 4 is for the
under-aged. B categories are for base service, and C is for home
service. C 3 was for clerical duty, and as I was not likely to
become efficient again as a soldier, it looked like some kind of
bookkeeping for me for the duration of the war.
Unless one is all shot to pieces, literally with something gone, it
is hard to get a discharge from the British army. Back in the early
days of 1915, a leg off was about the only thing that would produce
a discharge.
When I was put at clerical duty, I immediately began to furnish
trouble for the British army, not intentionally, of course, but
quite effectively. The first thing I did was to drop a typewriter
and smash it. My hands had spells when they absolutely refused to
work. Usually it was when I had something breakable in them. After
I had done about two hundred dollars' damage indoors they tried me
out as bayonet instructor. I immediately dropped a rifle on a
concrete walk and smashed it. They wanted me to pay for it, but the
M.O. called attention to the fact that I shouldn't have been put at
the work under my category.
[Illustration: CORPORAL HOLMES WITH COMPANY OFFICE FORCE, AT
WINCHESTER, ENGLAND, A WEEK PRIOR TO DISCHARGE.]
They then put me back at bookkeeping at Command Headquarters,
Salisbury, but I couldn't figure English money and had a bad habit
of fainting and falling off the high stool. To cap the climax, I
finally fell one day and knocked down the stovepipe, and nearly set
the office afire. The M.O. then ordered me back to the depot at
Winchester and recommended me for discharge. I guess he thought it
would be the cheapest in the long run.
The adjutant at Winchester didn't seem any too pleased to see me.
He said I looked as healthy as a wolf, which I did, and that they
would never let me out of the army. He seemed to think that my
quite normal appearance would be looked upon as a personal insult
by the medical board. I said that I was sorry I didn't have a leg
or two gone, but it couldn't be helped.
While waiting for the Board, I was sent to the German Prison Camp
at Winnal Downs as corporal of the permanent guard. I began to fear
that at last they had found something that I could do without
damaging anything, and my visions of the U.S.A. went a-glimmering.
I was with the Fritzies for over a week, and they certainly have it
soft and cushy.
They have as good food as the Tommies. They are paid ninepence a
day, and the work they do is a joke. They are well housed and kept
clean and have their own canteens, where they can buy almost
anything in the way of delicacies. They are decently treated by the
English soldiers, who even buy them fags out of their own money.
The nearest thing I ever saw to humiliation of a German was a few
good-natured jokes at their expense by some of the wits in the
guard. The English know how to play fair with an enemy when they
have him down.
I had about given up hope of ever getting out of the army when I
was summoned to appear before the Travelling Medical Board. You can
wager I lost no time in appearing.
The board looked me over with a discouraging and cynical suspicion.
I certainly did look as rugged as a navvy. When they gave me a
going over, they found that my heart was out of place and that my
left hand might never limber up again. They voted for a discharge
in jig time. I had all I could do to keep from howling with joy.
It was some weeks before the final formalities were closed up. The
pension board passed on my case, and I was given the magnificent
sum of sixteen shillings and sixpence a week, or $3.75. I spent the
next few weeks in visiting my friends and, eventually, at the 22nd
Headquarters at Bermondsey, London, S.C., received the papers that
once more made me a free man.
The papers read in part, "He is discharged in consequence of
paragraph 392, King's Rules and Regulations. No longer fit for
service." In another part of the book you will find a reproduction
of the character discharge also given. The discharged man also
receives a little silver badge bearing the inscription, "For King
and Empire, Services Rendered." I think that I value this badge
more than any other possession.
Once free, I lost no time in getting my passport into shape and
engaged a passage on the _St. Paul_, to sail on the second of June.
Since my discharge is dated the twenty-eighth of May, you can see
that I didn't waste any time. My friends at Southall thought I was
doing things in a good deal of a hurry. The fact is, I was fed up
on war. I had had a plenty. And I was going to make my get-away
before the British War Office changed its mind and got me back in
uniform. Mrs. Puttee and her eldest son saw me off at Euston
Station. Leaving them was the one wrench, as they had become very
dear to me. But I had to go. If Blighty had looked good, the
thought of the U.S.A. was better.
My passage was uneventful. No submarines, no bad weather, nothing
disagreeable. On the eighth day I looked out through a welter of
fog and rain to the place where the Statue of Liberty should have
been waving a greeting across New York harbor. The lady wasn't
visible, but I knew she was there. And even in a downpour equal to
anything furnished by the choicest of Flanders rainstorms, little
old New York looked better than anything I could imagine, except
sober and staid old Boston.
That I am at home, safe and free of the horrors of war, is to me a
strange thing. I think it comes into the experience of most of the
men who have been over there and who have been invalided out of the
service. Looking back on the awfulness of the trenches and the
agonies of mind and body, the sacrifice seems to fade into
insignificance beside the satisfaction of having done a bit in the
great and just cause.
Now that our own men are going over, I find myself with a very deep
regret that I cannot go too. I can only wish them the best of luck
and rest in confidence that every man will do his uttermost.