Diary of a Nursing Sister on the Western Front Part 8

H. sent me a lovely parcel of fifty packets of cigarettes and some chocolate, and A. sent a box of nutmilk choc. They will be grand for the men.

One drawback on having the Indians is that you find them squatting in the corridor, comparing notes on what varieties they find in their clothing! Considering the way one gets smothered with their blankets in the bunks it is the most personally alarming element in the War so far.

_Sunday, November 1st, Boulogne_--_All Saints' Day._--We loaded up with British after all, late in the evening, and had a very heavy night: one of mine died suddenly of femoral haemorrhage, after sitting up and enjoying his breakfast.

_12 noon._--We are still unloaded, but I was up all night, and so went out for a blow after breakfast. Found two British T.B.D.'s in dock; on one they were having divine service, close to the quay. I listened specially to the part about loving our enemies! Then I found the English Church (Colonial and Continental), quite nice and good chants, but I was too sleepy to stay longer than the Psalms: it is ages since one had a chance to go to Church.

After lunch, now they are all unloaded, one will be able to get a stuffy station sleep, regardless of noise and smells.

We carried thirty-nine officers on the train, mostly cavalry, very brave and angelic and polite in their uncomfortable and unwonted helplessness.

They liked everything enthusiastically--the beds and the food and the bandages. One worn-out one murmured as he was tucked up, "By Jove, it is splendid to be out of the sound of those beastly guns; it's priceless."

I had a very interesting conversation with a Major this morning, who was. .h.i.t yesterday. He says it's only a question of where and when you get it, sooner or later; practically no one escapes.

Rifle firing counts for nothing; it is all the Coal-boxes and Jack Johnsons. The shortage of officers is getting very serious on both sides, and it becomes more and more a question of who can wear out the other in the time.

He said that Aircraft has altered everything in War. German aeroplanes come along, give a little dip over our positions, and away go the German guns. And these innocent would-be peasants working in the fields give all sorts of signals by whirling windmills round suddenly when certain regiments come into action.

The poor L. Regiment were badly cut up in this way yesterday half an hour after coming into their first action; we had them on the train.

They say the French fight well with us, better than alone, and the Indians can't be kept in their trenches; it is up and at 'em. But we shall soon have lost all the men we have out here. Trains and trains full come in every day and night. We are waiting now for five trains to unload. It is a dazzling morning.

_Monday, November 2nd._--On way up to ----. The pressure on the Medical Service is now enormous. One train came down to-day (without Sisters) with 1200 sitting-up cases; they stayed for hours in the siding near us without water, cigarettes, or newspapers. You will see in to-day's 'Times' that the Germans have got back round Ypres again (where I went into the Cathedral last Monday). No.-- A.T. was badly sh.e.l.led there yesterday. The Germans were trying for the armoured train. The naval officer on the armoured train had to stand behind the engine-driver with a revolver to make him go where he was wanted to. The sitting-up cases on No.-- got out and fled three miles down the line. A Black Maria sh.e.l.l burst close to and killed a man. They are again "urgently needing"

A.T.'s; so I hope we are going there to-night.

Eighty thousand German reinforcements are said to have come up to break through our line, and the British dead are now piled up on the field.

But they aren't letting the Germans through. Three of our men died before we unloaded at 8 P.M. yesterday, two of shock from lying ten hours in the trench, not dressed.

_Tuesday, November 3rd, Bailleul_, 8.30 A.M.--Just going to load up; wish we'd gone to Ypres. Germans said to be advancing.

_Wednesday, November 4th, Boulogne._--We had a lot of badly wounded Germans who had evidently been left many days; their condition was appalling; two died (one of teta.n.u.s), and one British. We have had a lot of the London Scottish, wounded in their first action.

Reinforcements, French guns, British cavalry, are being hurried up the line; they all look splendid.

_Wednesday, November 11th._--Sometimes it seems as if we shall never get home, the future is so unwritten.

A frightful explosion like this h.e.l.l of a War, which flared up in a few days, will take so much longer to wipe up what can be wiped up. I think the British men who have seen the desolation and the atrocities in Belgium have all personally settled that it shan't happen in England, and that is why the headlines always read--

"THE BRITISH ARMY IMMOVABLE." "WAVES OF GERMAN INFANTRY BROKEN."

"ALLIES THROW ENEMY BACK AT ALL POINTS." "YPRES HELD FOR THREE WEEKS UNDER A RAIN OF Sh.e.l.lS."

You can tell they feel like that from their entire lack of resentment about their own injuries. Their conversation to each other from the time they are landed on the train until they are taken off is never about their own wounds and feelings, but exclusively about the fighting they have just left. If one only had time to listen or take it down it would be something worth reading, because it is not letters home or newspaper stuff, _but told to each other_, with their own curious comments and phraseology, and no hint of a gallery or a Press. Incidentally one gets a few eye-openers into what happens to a group of men when a Jack Johnson lands a sh.e.l.l in the middle of them. Nearly every man on the train, especially the badly smashed-up ones, tells you how exceptionally lucky he was because he didn't get killed like his mate.

_Boulogne, Thursday, November 12th_, 8 P.M.--Have been here all day. Had a hot bath on the St Andrew. News from the Front handed down the line coincides with the 'Daily Mail.'

_Friday, 13th._--Still here--fourth day of rest. No one knows why; nearly all the trains are here. The news to-day is glorious. They say that the Germans did get through into Ypres and were bayoneted out again.

_Friday, November 13th, Boulogne._--We have been all day in Park Lane Siding among the trains, in pouring wet and slush. I amused myself with a pot of white paint and a forceps and wool for a brush, painting the numbers on both ends of the coaches inside, all down the train; you can't see the chalk marks at night.

This unprecedented four days' rest and nights in bed is doing us all a power of good; we have books and mending and various occupations.

_Sat.u.r.day, November 14th._--Glorious sunny day, but very cold. Still in Boulogne, but out of Park Lane Siding slum, and among the s.h.i.+ps again.

Some French sailors off the T.B.'s are drilling on one side of us.

Everything R.A.M.C. at the base is having a rest this week--s.h.i.+ps, hospitals, and trains. Major S. said there was not so much doing at the Front--thank Heaven; and the line is still wanted for troops. We have just heard that there are several trains to go up before our turn comes, and that we are to wait about six miles off. Better than the siding anyhow. Meanwhile we can't go off, because we don't know when the train will move out.

The tobacco and the cigarettes from Harrod's have come in separate parcels, so the next will be the chocolate and hankies and cards, &c. It is a grand lot, and I am longing to get up to the Front and give them out.

_Sunday, November 15th._--We got a move on in the middle of the night, and are now on our way up.

The cold of this train life is going to be rather a problem. Our quarters are not heated, but we have "made" (_i.e._, acquired, looted) a very small oil-stove which faintly warms the corridor, but you can imagine how no amount of coats or clothes keeps you warm in a railway carriage in winter. I'm going to make a foot m.u.f.f out of a brown blanket, which will help. A smart walk out of doors would do it, but that you can't get off when the train is stationary for fear of its vanis.h.i.+ng, and for obvious reasons when it is moving. I did walk round the train for an hour in the dark and slime in the siding yesterday evening, but it is not a cheering form of exercise.

To-day it is _pouring_ cats and dogs, awful for loading sick, and there will be many after this week for the trains.

Every one has of course cleared out of beautiful Ypres, but we are going to load up at Poperinghe, the town next before it, which is now Railhead. Lately the trains have not been so far.

_Monday, November 16th, Boulogne_, 9 A.M.--We loaded up at Bailleul 344.

The Clearing Hospitals were very full, and some came off a convoy. One of mine died. One, wounded above the knee, was four _days_ in the open before being picked up; he had six bullets in his leg, two in each arm, and crawled about till found; one of the arm wounds he got doing this. I went to bed at 4. The news was all good, taken as a whole, but the men say they were "a bit short-handed!!" One said gloomily, "This isn't War, it's Murder; you go there to your doom." Heard the sad news of Lord Roberts.

We are all the better for our week's rest.

_Tuesday, November 17th_, 3 A.M.--When we got our load down to Boulogne yesterday morning all the hospitals were full, and the weather was too rough for the s.h.i.+ps to come in and clear them, so we were ordered on to Havre, a very long journey. A German died before we got to Abbeville, where we put off two more very bad ones; and at Amiens we put off four more, who wouldn't have reached Havre. About midnight something broke on the train, and we were hung up for hours, and haven't yet got to Rouen, so we shall have them on the train all to-morrow too, and have all the dressings to do for the third time. One of the night orderlies has been run in for being asleep on duty. He climbed into a top bunk (where a Frenchman was taken off at Amiens), and deliberately covered up and went to sleep. He was in charge of 28 patients. Another was left behind at Boulogne, absent without leave, thinking we should unload, and the train went off for Havre. He'll be run in too. Shows how you can't leave the train. Just got to St Just. That looks as if we were going to empty at Versailles instead of Havre. Lovely starlight night, but very cold.

Everybody feels pleased and honoured that Lord Roberts managed to die with us on Active Service at Headquarters, and who would choose a better ending to such a life?

7 A.M.--After all, we must be crawling round to Rouen for Havre; pa.s.sed Beauvais. Lovely sunrise over winter woods and frosted country. Our load is a heavy and anxious one--344; we shall be glad to land them safely somewhere. The amputations, fractures, and lung cases stand these long journeys very badly.

V.

On No.-- Ambulance Train (3)

BRITISH AND INDIANS

_November 18, 1914, to December 17, 1914_

"Because of you we will be glad and gay, Remembering you we will be brave and strong, And hail the advent of each dangerous day, And meet the Great Adventure with a song."