Diary of a Nursing Sister on the Western Front Part 26

_Sat.u.r.day, May 22nd_, 6.30 A.M.--Things have been happening at a great pace since the above, and we are now in our camp-beds in an empty attic at the top of an old chateau about three miles back, which is No.-- C.H., at ----.

Just as I was thinking of getting up yesterday evening they began putting sh.e.l.ls over into the town, and soon they were raining in three at a time. My little room here is a sort of lean-to over the kitchen with no room above it; so I cleared out to dress in one of the others, and didn't stop to wash. Gabrielle came running up to fetch me downstairs. At the hospital, which was only about 200 yards down the road, the wounded officers were thinking it was about time Capt.

---- moved his Field Ambulance. One boy by the window had got some _debris_ in his eye from the nearest sh.e.l.l, which burst in my blackbird's garden, or rather on the doorstep opposite. (That was the one that got me out of bed rather rapidly.) The orders soon came to evacuate all the patients. At the French Hospital, about six minutes away, three wounded had been hit in a M.A. coming in, and the Officers'

Mess had one (none of them were in), and they were dropping all round it. Then the order came from the D.D.M.S. to the A.D.M.S. to evacuate the whole of the --th, --th, and --th Field Ambulances, and within about two hours this was done.

Everybody got the patients ready, fixed up their dressings and splints, gave them all morphia, and got them on to their stretchers.

The evacuation was jolly well done; their servants appeared by magic, each with every spot of kit and belongings his officer came in with (they are in _all_ cases checked by the Sergeant on admission, no matter what the rush is), and the place was empty in an hour. The din of our guns, which were bombarding heavily, and the German guns, which are bombarding us at a great pace, and the whistle and bang of the sh.e.l.ls that came over while this was going on, was a din to remember.

Then we went back to our billet to hurl our belongings into our baggage, and came away with the A.D.M.S. and his Staff-Major in their two touring-cars. The Division is back resting somewhere near here. We got to bed about 2 A.M. after tea and bread and b.u.t.ter downstairs, but slept very little owing to the noise of the guns, which shake and rattle the windows every minute.

We don't know what happens next.

At about four this morning I heard a nightingale trilling in the garden.

2 P.M.--In the Chateau garden. It is a glorious spot, with kitchen garden, park, moat bridge, and a huge wilderness up-and-down plantation round it, full of lilac, copper beeches, and flowering trees I've never seen before, and birds and b.u.t.terflies and b.u.t.tercups. You look across and see the red-brick Chateau surrounded by thick lines of tents, and hear the everlasting incessant thudding and banging of the guns, and realise that it is not a French country house but a Casualty Clearing Hospital, with empty--once polished--floors filled with stretchers, where the worst cases still are, and some left empty for the incoming convoys. Over two thousand have pa.s.sed through since Sunday week. The contrast between the shady garden where I'm lazing now on rugs and cus.h.i.+ons, with innumerable birds, including a nightingale, singing and nesting, and the nerve-racking sound of the guns and the look of the place inside, is overwhelming. It is in three Divisions--the house for the worst cases--and there are tent Sections and the straw-sheds and two schools in the village. We had our lunch at a sort of inn in the village. I've never hated the sound of the guns so much; they are almost unbearable.

It is a good thing for us to have this sudden rest. I don't know for how long or what happens next.

The General of the Division had a narrow escape after we left last night. The roof of his house was blown off, just at the time he would have been there, only he was a little late, but an officer was killed; six sh.e.l.ls came into the garden, and the seventh burst at his feet and killed him as he was standing at the door. I'm glad they got the wounded away in time. Aeroplanes are buzzing overhead. The Aerodrome is here, French monoplanes chiefly as far as one can see.

10 P.M., _in bed_.--We have now been temporarily attached to the Staff here.

Miss ---- has given me charge of the Tent Section, which can take eighty lying down.

_Whitsunday, 1915._--In bed--in my tent, not a bell, but an Indian tent big enough for two comfortably. I share with S----. We have nothing but the camp furniture we took out, but will acquire a few Red Cross boxes as cupboards to-morrow. It is a peerless night with a young moon and a soft wind, frogs croaking, guns banging, and a nightingale trilling.

It has been a funny day, dazzling sun, very few patients.

_Whit-Monday._--Very few in to-day again. I have only six, and am making the most of the chance of a rest in the garden; one doesn't realise till after a rush how useful a rest can be. There has been a fearful bombardment going on all last night and yesterday and to-day; it is a continual roar, and in the night is maddening to listen to; you can't forget the war. Mosquitoes, nightingales, frogs, and two horses also helped to make the night interesting.

8.30 P.M.--Waiting for supper. Wounded have been coming in, and we've had a busy afternoon and evening.

_Wednesday, May 26th._--No time to write yesterday; had a typical Clearing Hospital Field Day. The left-out-in-the-field wounded (mostly Canadians) had at last been picked up and came pouring in. I had my Tent Section of eighty beds nearly full, and we coped in a broiling sun till we sweltered into little spots of grease, finis.h.i.+ng up with five operations in the little operating tent.

The poor exhausted Canadians were extraordinarily brave and uncomplaining. They are evacuated the same day or the next morning, such as can be got away to survive the journey, but some of the worst have to stay.

In the middle of it all at 5 P.M. orders came for me to join No.-- Ambulance Train for duty, but I didn't leave till this morning at nine, and am now on No.-- A.T. on way down to old Boulogne again.

_Later._--These orders were afterwards cancelled, and I am for duty at a Base Hospital.

THE END.