A Journal of Impressions in Belgium Part 17

Madame E---- and Dr. Bird have shown me what to do, and what not to do.

I must keep him all the time in the same position. I must give him sips of iced broth, and little pieces of ice to suck every now and then. I must not let him try to raise himself in bed. I must not try to lift him myself. If we do lift him we must keep his body tilted at the same angle. I must not give him any hot drinks and not too much cold drink.

And he is six foot high, so tall that his feet come through the blankets at the bottom of the bed; and he keeps sinking down in it all the time and wanting to raise himself up again. And his fever makes him restless.

And he is always thirsty and he longs for hot tea more than iced water, and for more iced water than is good for him. The iced broth that is his only nourishment he does not want at all.

And then he must be kept very quiet. I must not let him talk more than is necessary to tell me what he wants, or he will die of exhaustion. And what he wants is to talk every minute that he is awake.

He drops off to sleep, breathing in jerks and with a terrible rapidity.

And I think it will be all right as long as he sleeps. But his sleep only lasts for a few minutes. I hear the rhythm of his breathing alter; it slackens and goes slow; then it jerks again, and I know that he is awake.

And then he begins. He says things that tear at your heart. He has looks and gestures that break it--the adorable, wilful smile of a child that knows that it is being watched when you find his hand groping too often for the gla.s.s of iced water that stands beside his bed; a still more adorable and utterly gentle submission when you take the gla.s.s from him; when you tell him not to say anything more just yet but to go to sleep again. You feel as if you were guilty of act after act of nameless and abominable cruelty.

He sticks to it that he has seen me before, that he has heard of me, that his people know me. And he wants to know what I do and where I live and where it was that he saw me. Once, when I thought he had gone to sleep, I heard him begin again: "Where did you say you lived?"

I tell him. And I tell him to go to sleep again.

He closes his eyes obediently and opens them the next instant.

"I say, may I come and call on you when we get back to England?"

You can only say: "Yes. Of course," and tell him to go to sleep.

His voice is so strong and clear that I could almost believe that he will get back and that some day I shall look up and see him standing at my garden gate.

Mercifully, when I tell him to go to sleep again, he does go to sleep.

And his voice is a little clearer and stronger every time he wakes.

And so the morning goes on. The only thing he wants you to do for him is to sponge his hands and face with iced water and to give him little bits of ice to suck. Over and over again I do these things. And over and over again he asks me, "Do you mind?"

He wears a little grey woollen cord round his neck. Something has gone from it. Whatever he has lost, they have left him his little woollen cord, as if some immense importance attached to it.

He has fallen into a long doze. And at the end of the morning I left him sleeping.

Some of the Corps have brought in trophies from the battle-field--a fine grey cloak with a scarlet collar, a spiked helmet, a cuff with three b.u.t.tons cut from the coat of a dead German.

These things make me sick. I see the body under the cloak, the head under the helmet, and the dead hand under the cuff.

[_Afternoon._]

Saw Mr. Foster. He is to be sent back to England for an operation. Dr.

Wilson is to take him. He asked me if I thought the Commandant would take him back again when he is better.

Saw the President about Mr. Foster. He will not hear of his going back to England. He wants him to stay in the Hospital and be operated on here. He promises the utmost care and attention. He is most distressed to think that he should go.

It doesn't occur to him in his kindness that it would be much more distressing if the Germans came into Ghent and interrupted the operation.

Cabled Miss F. about her Glasgow ambulance, asking her to pay her staff if her funds ran to it. Cabled British Red Cross to send Mr. Gould and his scouting-car here instead of to France. Cabled Mr. Gould to get the British Red Cross to send him here.

Mr. Lambert has been ill with malaria. He has gone back to England to get well again and to repair the car that broke down at Lokeren.[22]

Somebody else is to look after Mr. ---- this afternoon.

I have been given leave rather reluctantly to sit up with him at night.

The Commandant is going to take me in Tom's Daimler (Car 1) to the British lines to look for a base for that temporary hospital which is still running in his head like a splendid dream. I do not see how, with the Germans at Melle, only four and a half miles off, any sort of hospital is to be established on this side of Ghent.

Tom, the chauffeur, does not look with favour on the expedition. I have had to point out to him that a Field Ambulance is _not_, as he would say, the House of Commons, and that there is a certain propriety binding even on a chauffeur and a limit to the freedom of the speech you may apply to your Commandant. This afternoon Tom has exceeded all the limits. The worst of Tom is that while his tongue rages on the confines of revolt, he himself is punctilious to excess on the point of orders.

Either he has orders or he hasn't them. If he has them he obeys them with a punctuality that puts everybody else in the wrong. If he hasn't them, an earthquake wouldn't make him move. Such is his devotion to orders that he will insist on any one order holding good for an unlimited time after it has been given.

So now, in defence of his manners, he urges that what with orders and counter-orders, the provocation is more than flesh and blood can stand.

Tom himself is protest clothed in flesh and blood.

To-day at two o'clock Tom's orders are that his car is to be ready at two-thirty. My orders are to be ready in twenty minutes. I _am_ ready in twenty minutes. The Commandant thinks that he has transacted all his business and is ready in twenty minutes too. Tom and his car are nowhere to be seen. I go to look for Tom. Tom is reported as being last seen riding on a motor-lorry towards the British lines in the company of a detachment of British infantry.

The chauffeur Tom is considered to have disgraced himself everlastingly.

Punctually at two-thirty he appears with his car at the door of the "Flandria."

The Commandant is nowhere to be seen. He has gone to look for Tom.

I reprove Tom for the sin of unpunctuality, and he has me.

His orders were to be ready at two-thirty and he is ready at two-thirty.

And it is n.o.body's business what he did with himself ten minutes before.

He wants to know where the Commandant is.

I go to look for the Commandant.

The Commandant is reported to have been last seen going through the Hospital on his way to the garage. I go round to the garage through the Hospital; and the Commandant goes out of the garage by the street. He was last seen _in_ the garage.

He appears suddenly from some quarter where you wouldn't expect him in the least. He reproves Tom.

Tom with considerable violence declares his righteousness. He has gathered to himself a friend, a Belgian Red Cross man, whose language he does not understand. But they exchange winks that surpa.s.s all language.

Then the Commandant remembers that he has several cables to send off.

He is seen disappearing in the direction of the Post and Telegraph Office.

Tom swallows words that would be curses if I were not there.

I keep my eyes fixed on the doors of the Post Office. Ages pa.s.s.

I go to the Post Office to look for the Commandant. He is not in the Telegraph Office. He is not in the Post Office. Tom keeps his eyes on the doors of both.

More ages pa.s.s. Finally, the Commandant appears from inside the Hospital, which he has not been seen to enter.