A Surgeon in Belgium Part 4

Upstairs there was an improvised meal in progress in the office, and after our two hours' hard work we were glad of it. It is really wonderful how cheerful a thing a meal is in the middle of the night, with plenty of hot coffee and a borrowed cake. It is one of the compensations of our life in hospital, and even sh.e.l.ls are powerless to disturb it. After that, as we knew we should have a heavy day before us, we all settled down in the safest corners we could find to get what rest we could.

The staircase leading up to the entrance hall was probably the safest spot in the building, covered as it was by a heavy arch, and it was soon packed with people in att.i.tudes more or less restful. A ward with a comfortable bed seemed to me quite safe enough, and I spent the night with three equally hedonistic companions. At first we lay listening to the sh.e.l.ls as they pa.s.sed overhead, sometimes with the soft whistle of distance, and sometimes with the angry shriek of a sh.e.l.l pa.s.sing near. Occasionally the shriek would drop to a low howl, the note of a steam siren as it stops, and then a deafening crash and the clatter of falling bricks and gla.s.s would warn us that we had only escaped by a few yards. But even listening to sh.e.l.ls becomes monotonous, and my eyes gradually glued together, and I fell asleep.

When I awoke it was early morning, and daylight had just come. The sh.e.l.ls were still arriving, but not so fast, and mostly at a much greater distance. But another sound came at intervals, and we had much discussion as to what it might mean. Every three and a half minutes exactly there came two distant booms, but louder than usual, and then two terrific shrieks one after the other, exactly like the tearing of a giant sheet of calico, reminding us strongly of the famous scene in "Peter Pan." Away they went in the distance, and if we ever heard the explosion it was a long way off. They certainly sounded like sh.e.l.ls fired over our heads from quite close, and at a very low elevation, and we soon evolved the comforting theory that they were from a pair of big British guns planted up the river, and firing over the town at the German trenches beyond. We even saw a British gunboat lying in the Scheldt, and unlimited reinforcements pouring up the river. Alas! it was only a couple of big German guns sh.e.l.ling the harbour and the a.r.s.enal; at least, that is the conclusion at which we have since arrived. But for some hours those sh.e.l.ls were a source of great satisfaction and comfort. One can lie in bed with great contentment, I find, when it is the other people who are being sh.e.l.led.

XIII. The Bombardment--Day

We were up early in the morning, and our first business was to go round to the British Headquarters to find out what they intended to do, and what they expected of us as a British base hospital. If they intended to stay, and wished us to do likewise, we were quite prepared to do so, but we did not feel equal to the responsibility of keeping more than a hundred wounded in a position so obviously perilous. From shrapnel they were fairly safe in the bas.e.m.e.nt, but from large sh.e.l.ls or from incendiary bombs there is no protection. It is not much use being in a cellar if the house is burnt down over your head. So two of us started off in our motor to get news.

The Headquarters were in the Hotel St. Antoine, at the corner of the Place Verte opposite to the Cathedral, so we had to go right across the town. We went by the Rue d'Argile and the Rue Leopold, and we had a fair opportunity of estimating the results of the night's bombardment. In the streets through which we pa.s.sed it was really astonishingly small. Cornices had been knocked off, and the fragments lay in the streets; a good many windows were broken, and in a few cases a sh.e.l.l had entered an attic and blown up the roof.

Plainly only small sh.e.l.ls had been used. We did not realize that many of the houses we pa.s.sed were just beginning to get comfortably alight, and that there was no one to put out the fires that had only begun so far to smoulder. A few people were about, evidently on their way out of Antwerp, but the vast bulk of the population had already gone. It is said that the population of half a million numbered by the evening only a few hundreds. We pa.s.sed a small fox terrier lying on the pavement dead, and somehow it has remained in my mind as a most pathetic sight. He had evidently been killed by a piece of shrapnel, and it seemed very unfair. But probably his people had left him, and he was better out of it.

We turned into the Marche aux Souliers, and drew up at the Hotel St.

Antoine, and as we stepped down from the car a sh.e.l.l pa.s.sed close to us with a shriek, and exploded with a terrific crash in the house opposite across the narrow street. We dived into the door of the hotel to escape the falling debris. So far the sh.e.l.ls had been whistling comfortably over our heads, but it was evident that the Germans were aiming at the British Headquarters, and that we had put our heads into the thick of it, for it was now positively raining sh.e.l.ls all round us. But we scarcely noticed them in our consternation at what we found, for the British Staff had disappeared. We wandered through the deserted rooms which had been so crowded a few days before, but there was not a soul to be seen. They had gone, and left no address. At last an elderly man appeared, whom I took to be the proprietor, and all he could tell us was that there was no one but himself in the building. Of all the desolate spots in the world I think that an empty hotel is the most desolate, and when you have very fair reason to believe that a considerable number of guns are having a compet.i.tion as to which can drop a sh.e.l.l into it first, it becomes positively depressing. We got into our car and drove down the Place de Meir to the Belgian Croix Rouge, where we hoped to get news of our countrymen, and there we were told that they had gone to the Belgian Etat Majeur near by. We had a few minutes' conversation with the President of the Croix Rouge, a very good friend of ours, tall and of striking appearance, with a heavy grey moustache. We asked him what the Croix Rouge would do. "Ah," he said, "we will stay to the last!" At that very moment a sh.e.l.l exploded with a deafening crash just outside in the Place de Meir. I looked at the President, and he threw up his hands in despair and led the way out of the building. The Belgian Red Cross had finished its work.

At last at the Etat Majeur we found our Headquarters, and I sincerely hope that wherever General Paris, Colonel Bridges, and Colonel Seely go, they will always find people as pleased to see them as we were. They very kindly told us something of the situation, and said that, though they had every intention of holding Antwerp, they advised us to clear out, and they placed at our disposal four motor omnibuses for the transport of the wounded. So off we drove back to the hospital to make arrangements for evacuating. It was a lively drive, for I suppose that the Germans had had breakfast and had got to work again; at any rate, sh.e.l.ls were coming in pretty freely, and we were happier when we could run along under the lee of the houses.

However, we got back to the hospital safely enough, and there we held a council of war.

It was in the office, of course--the most risky room we could have chosen, I suppose--but somehow that did not seem to occur to anyone. It is curious how soon one grows accustomed to sh.e.l.ls. At that moment a barrel-organ would have caused us far more annoyance. We sat round the table and discussed the situation. It was by no means straightforward. In the first place several members of the community did not wish to leave at all; in the second, we could not leave any of our wounded behind unattended; and in the third, it seemed unlikely that we could get them all on to four buses. After a long discussion we decided to go again and see General Paris, to ask for absolute instructions as a hospital under his control, and if he told us to go, to get sufficient transport. And then arose a scene which will always live in my mind. We had impressed into consultation a retired officer of distinction to whose help we owed much, and now owe far more, and whom I shall call our Friend. Perhaps he wished to give us confidence--I have always suspected that he had an ulterior motive --but he concluded the discussion by saying that he felt hungry and would have something to eat before he started, and from his haversack he produced an enormous German sausage and a large loaf of bread, which he offered to us all round, and he said he would like a cup of tea! The sh.e.l.ls could do what they liked outside, and if one of them was rude enough to intrude, it could not be helped. We must show them that we could pay no attention to anything so vulgar and noisy. At any rate, the effect on us was electrical. The contrast between the German sh.e.l.ls and the German sausage was too much for us, and the meeting broke up in positive confusion. Alas that sausage, the unparalleled trophy of an incomparable moment, was left behind on the table, and I fear the Germans got it.

General Paris had been obliged to shift his headquarters to the Pilotage, on the docks and at the farthest end of the city from us. He was very considerate, and after some discussion said that we had better leave Antwerp, and sent Colonel Farquharson with us to get six buses. The Pilotage is at the extreme north end of the Avenue des Arts, which extends the whole length of Antwerp, and the buses were on the quay by the a.r.s.enal at the extreme south end, so that we had to drive the whole length of this, the most magnificent street of Antwerp, and a distance of about three miles. It was an extraordinary drive. In the whole length of that Avenue I do not think that we pa.s.sed a single individual. It was utterly deserted. All around were signs of the bombardment--tops of houses blown off, and scattered about the street, trees knocked down, holes in the roadway where sh.e.l.ls had struck. On the left stood the great Palais de Justice, with most of its windows broken and part of the roof blown away, and just beyond this three houses in a row blazing from cellar to chimney, the front wall gone, and all that remained of the rooms exposed. As I said, only small sh.e.l.ls had been used, and the damage was nothing at all to that which we afterwards saw at Ypres; but it gave one an impression of dreariness and utter desolation that could scarcely be surpa.s.sed.

Think of driving from Hyde Park Corner down the Strand to the Bank, not meeting a soul on the way, pa.s.sing a few clubs in Piccadilly burning comfortably, the Cecil a blazing furnace, and the Law Courts lying in little bits about the street, and you will get some idea of what it looked like. The scream of the sh.e.l.ls and the crash when they fell near by formed quite a suitable if somewhat Futurist accompaniment.

But the climax of the entertainment, the bonne bouche of the afternoon, was reserved for the end of our drive, when we reached the wharf by the a.r.s.enal, where the British stores and transport were collected. Here was a long row of motor-buses, about sixty of them, all drawn up in line along the river. Beside them was a long row of heavily loaded ammunition lorries, and on the other side of the road was the a.r.s.enal, on our left, blazing away, with a vast column of smoke towering up to the sky. "It may blow up any minute," said Colonel Farquharson cheerily, "I had better move that ammunition." I have never seen an a.r.s.enal blow up, and I imagine it is a phenomenon requiring distance to get it into proper perspective; but I have some recollection of an a.r.s.enal blowing up in Antwerp a few years ago and taking a considerable part of the town with it. However, it was not our a.r.s.enal, so we waited and enjoyed the view till the ammunition had been moved, and the Colonel had done his best to get us the motor-buses. He could only get us four, so we had to make the best of a bad job. But. meanwhile the Germans had evidently determined to give us a really good show while they were about it, for while we waited a Taube came overhead and hovered for a moment, apparently uncertain as to whether a bomb or a sh.e.l.l would look better just there. A flash of tinsel falling in the sunlight showed us that she had made up her mind and was giving the range. But we could not stay, and were a quarter of a mile away when we looked back and saw the first sh.e.l.ls falling close to where we had been two minutes before. They had come six miles.

The bombardment was increasing in violence, and large numbers of incendiary sh.e.l.ls were being used, whilst in addition the houses set on fire during the night were now beginning to blaze. As we drove back we pa.s.sed several houses in flames, and the pa.s.sage of the narrow streets we traversed was by no means free from risk. At last we turned into our own street, the Boulevard Leopold, and there we met a sight which our eyes could scarcely credit. Three motor-buses stood before our door and patients were being crowded into them.

Those buses and our own lives we owe to the kindness of Major Gordon. Without them some at least must have remained behind. The three were already well filled, for our friends thought that we had certainly been killed and that they must act for themselves. We sent them off under the escort of one of our cars, as it seemed foolish to keep them waiting in a position of danger. On our own four we packed all our remaining patients and all the hospital equipment we could remove. One does not waste time when one packs under sh.e.l.l fire, and at the end of three-quarters of an hour there was not a patient and very little of value in the hospital. I took charge of the theatre as I knew where the things went, and I think the British working man would have been rather astonished to see how fast the big sterilizers fell apart and the operating-tables slid into their cases. The windows faced sh.e.l.lwards, and I must confess that once or twice when one of them seemed to be coming unpleasantly near I took the opportunity to remove my parcels outside. How the patients were got ready and carried out and into the buses in that time is beyond my comprehension. But somehow it was managed. I took a last look round and drove out the last nurse who was trying to rescue some last "hospital comfort" for a patient, and in the end I was myself driven out by two indignant dressers who caught me trying to save the instrument sterilizer. The buses were a wonderful sight. Inside were some sixty patients, our share of the whole hundred and thirteen, and on top about thirty of our staff, and the strangest collection of equipment imaginable. The largest steam sterilizer mounted guard in front, hoisted there by two sailormen of huge strength, who turned up from somewhere. Great bundles of blankets, crockery, and instruments were wedged in everywhere, with the luggage of the staff.

At the door of each bus was seated a nurse, like a conductor, to give what little attention was possible to the patients. It was a marvellous sight, but no cheerier crowd of medical students ever left the doors of a hospital for a Cup-tie.

XIV. The Night Journey

There was only one way out--by the bridge of boats across the Scheldt. It was a narrow plank road, and as vehicles had to go across in single file at some distance apart, the pressure can be imagined.

For an hour and a half we stood in the densely packed Cathedral square watching the hands of the great clock go round and wondering when a sh.e.l.l would drop among us. We had seen enough of churches to know what an irresistible attraction they have for German artillery, and we knew that, whatever may be the state of affairs in Scotland, here at any rate the nearer the church the nearer was heaven. But no sh.e.l.ls fell near, we only heard them whistling overhead.

The scene around us was extraordinary, and indeed these were the remains of the entire population of Antwerp. The whole city had emptied itself either by this road or by the road northwards into Holland. Crowds of people of every cla.s.s--the poor in their working- clothes, the well-to-do in their Sunday best--all carrying in bundles all they could carry away of their property, and wedged in amongst them every kind of vehicle imaginable, from a luxurious limousine to coster's carts and wheelbarrows. In front of us lay the Scheldt, and pouring down towards it was on the left an endless stream of fugitives, crossing by the ferry-boats, and on the right an interminable train of artillery and troops, crossing by the only bridge. At last there was a movement forwards; we crept down the slope and on to the bridge, and slowly moved over to the other side. Perhaps we should not have felt quite so happy about it had we known that two men had just been caught on the point of blowing up the boats in the centre, and that very shortly after the Germans were to get the range and drop a sh.e.l.l on to the bridge. At five o'clock we were across the bridge and on the road to Ghent.

Of all the pitiful sights I have ever seen, that road was the most utterly pitiful. We moved on slowly through a dense throng of fugitives-- men, women, and little children--all with bundles over their shoulders, in which was all that they possessed. A woman with three babies clinging to her skirts, a small boy wheeling his grandmother in a wheelbarrow, family after family, all moving away from the horror that lay behind to the misery that lay in front. We had heard of Louvain, and we had seen Termonde, and we understood. As darkness came down we lit our lamps, and there along the roadside sat rows of fugitives, resting before recommencing their long journey through the night. There was one row of little children which will live for ever in my memory, tiny mites sitting together on a bank by the roadside. We only saw them for an instant as our lights fell on them, and they disappeared in the darkness. Germany will have to pay for Louvain and Termonde. It is not with man that she will have to settle for that row of little children.

We had a few vacant seats when we left Antwerp, but they were soon filled by fugitives whom we picked up on the road. Strangely enough, we picked up two of our friends in Antwerp with their families. One was the doctor who had taken all our radiographs for us, and to whom we owed a great deal in many ways. He had left his beautiful house, with X-ray apparatus on which he had spent his fortune, incomparably superior to any other that I have ever seen, and here he was trudging along the road, with his wife, his two children, and their nurse. They were going to St. Nicholas, on their way to Holland, and were delighted to get a lift. Unfortunately, by some mistake, the nurse and children left the bus at Zwyndrecht, a few miles from Antwerp, the doctor came on to St. Nicholas, and his wife went right through with us to Ghent. It took him three days to find the children, and when we last heard from him he was in Holland, having lost everything he had in the world, and after two months he had not yet found his wife. And this is only an instance of what has happened all over Belgium.

We reached St. Nicholas about eight o'clock, having covered thirteen miles in three hours. It was quite dark, and as we had a long night before us we decided to stop and get some food for ourselves and our patients. There was not much to be had, but, considering the stream of fugitives, it was wonderful that there was anything. We hoped now to be able to push on faster, and to reach Ghent before midnight, for it is only a little over twenty miles by the direct road. To our dismay, we found that Lokeren, half-way to Ghent, was in the hands of the Germans, and that we must make a detour, taking us close to the Dutch border, and nearly doubling the distance. Without a guide, and in the dark, we could never have reached our destination; but we were fortunate enough to get a guide, and we set out on our long drive through the night. Twenty minutes later a German scouting party entered St. Nicholas. It was a narrow margin, but it was sufficient.

We were rather a downhearted party when we set out northwards towards the Dutch frontier, for we had been told that the three buses we had sent on in advance had gone straight on to Lokeren, and had undoubtedly fallen into the hands of the Germans, who had made certain of holding the road by destroying the bridge. We hoped that they might have discovered this in time, and turned back, but we could not wait to find out. We knew that the enemy were quite close.

At first we used our lights, but a shrapnel whistling overhead warned us that we were seen, and for the remainder of the night we travelled in darkness. These were minor roads, with a narrow paved causeway in the centre, and loose sand on each side. Long avenues of trees kept us in inky darkness, and how the drivers succeeded in keeping on the causeway I really do not know. Every now and then one of the buses would get into the sand; then all the men would collect, dig the wheels clear, and by sheer brute force drag the bus back to safety.

Twice it seemed absolutely hopeless. The wheels were in the loose sand within a foot of a deep ditch, and the least thing would have sent the bus flying over on to its side into the field beyond; and on both occasions, while we looked at one another in despair, a team of huge Flemish horses appeared from nowhere in the darkness and dragged us clear. Think of an inky night, the Germans close at hand, and every half-hour or so a desperate struggle to shoulder a heavily loaded London bus out of a ditch, and you may have some faint idea of the nightmare we pa.s.sed through.

As we crept along the dark avenues, the sky behind us was lit by an ever-increasing glare. Away to the south-east, at no great distance, a village was blazing, but behind us was a vast column of flame and smoke towering up to heaven. It was in the direction of Antwerp, and at first we thought that the vandals had fired the town; but though the sky was lit by many blazing houses, that tall pillar came from the great oil-tanks, set on fire by the Belgians lest they should fall into German hands. A more awful and terrifying spectacle it is hard to conceive.

The sky was lit up as if by the sunrise of the day of doom, and thirty miles away our road was lighted by the lurid glare. Our way led through woods, and amongst the trees we could hear the crack and see the flash of rifle-fire. More than once the whiz of a bullet urged us to hurry on.

At Selsaete, only a mile from the Dutch frontier, we turned southwards towards Ghent, and for an interminable distance we followed the bank of a large ca.n.a.l. A few miles from Ghent we met Commander Samson, of the Flying Corps, and three of his armoured cars. The blaze of their headlights quite blinded us after the darkness in which we had travelled, but the sight of the British uniforms and the machine guns was a great encouragement. The road was so narrow that they had to turn their cars into a field to let us pa.s.s. We had just come up with a number of farm waggons, and the clumsy Flemish carts, with their huge horses, the grey armoured cars, with their blazing headlights, and our four red motor-buses, made a strange scene in the darkness of the night. At last we reached Ghent utterly tired out, though personally I had slept a sort of nightmare sleep on the top step of a bus which boldly announced its destination as Hendon. It was five o'clock, and day was breaking as we got our patients out of the buses and deposited them in the various hospitals as we could find room for them. To our unspeakable relief, we found that the rest of our party had come through by much the same road as we had taken ourselves, but they had reached Ghent quite early the night before. Their earlier start had given them the advantage of clearer roads and daylight. With good fortune little short of miraculous, we had all come so far in safety, and we hoped that our troubles were over. Alas, we were told that though Germans were expected to enter Ghent that very day, and that all British wounded must be removed from the hospitals before ten o'clock. There was nothing for it but to collect them again, and to take them on to Ostend. One had died in the night, and two were too ill to be moved. We left them behind in skilled hands, and the others we re-embarked on our buses en route for Bruges and Ostend.

The First Act in the story of the British Field Hospital for Belgium was drawing to an end. Our hospital, to which we had given so much labour, was gone, and the patients, for whom we had grown to care, were scattered. Yet there was in our hearts only a deep grat.i.tude that we had come unharmed, almost by a miracle, through so many dangers, and a firm confidence that in some other place we should find a home for our hospital, where we could again help the brave soldiers whose cause had become so much our own.

XV. Furnes

A week after we had reached London, we were off again to the front. This time our objective was Furnes, a little town fifteen miles east of Dunkirk, and about five miles from the fighting-line.

The line of the Belgian trenches ran in a circle, following the course of the River Yser, the little stream which has proved such an insuperable barrier to the German advance. Furnes lies at the centre of the circle, and is thus an ideal position for an advanced base, such as we intended to establish. It is easy of access from Dunkirk by a fine main road which runs alongside an important ca.n.a.l, and as Dunkirk was our port, and the only source of our supplies, this was a great consideration. From Furnes a number of roads lead in various directions to Ypres, Dixmude, Nieuport, and the coast, making it a convenient centre for an organization such as ours, requiring, as we did, ready means of reaching the front in any direction, and open communication with our base of supplies.

We crossed from Dover in the Government transport, and arrived at Dunkirk about ten o'clock on Tuesday morning. There we met Dr. Munro's party, the famous Flying Ambulance Corps, with whom we were to enter on our new venture. They had not come over to England at all, but had come down the coast in their cars, and had spent the last few days in Malo, the seaside suburb of Dunkirk. The Belgian Government very kindly lent us a couple of big motor-lorries in which to take out our stores, and with our own motors we made quite a procession as we started off from the wharf of Dunkirk on our fifteen-mile drive to Furnes.

It was late in the afternoon when we reached our new home. It was a large school, partly occupied by the priests connected with it, partly by officers quartered there, and one of the larger cla.s.srooms had been used as a dressing-station by some Belgian doctors in Furnes. For ourselves, the only accommodation consisted of a few empty cla.s.srooms and a huge dormitory divided into cubicles, but otherwise dest.i.tute of the necessaries for sleep. Several hours' hard work made some change in the scene, mattresses and blankets being hauled up to the dormitory, where the nursing staff was accommodated, while straw laid down in one of the cla.s.srooms made comfortable if somewhat primitive beds for the male members. Meanwhile, in the kitchen department miracles had been accomplished, and we all sat down to dinner with an appet.i.te such as one rarely feels at home, and for which many of our patients over in England would be willing to pay quite large sums. The large room was lit by two candles and a melancholy lamp, there was no tablecloth, the spoons were of pewter, with the bowls half gone, and the knives were in their dotage. But the scales had fallen from our eyes, and we realized what trifles these things are. Madame, the genius who presided over our domestic affairs, and many other affairs as well, and her a.s.sistants, had produced from somewhere food, good food, and plenty of it; and what in the world can a hungry man want more?

Truly there are many people who require a moral operation for cataract, that they might see how good is the world in which they live.

Next day we proceeded to unpack our stores, and to try to make a hospital out of these empty rooms, and then only did we discover that an overwhelming misfortune had overtaken us. By some extraordinary circ.u.mstance which has never been explained, we had lost practically the whole of the surgical instruments which we had brought out of Antwerp with such trouble and risk. They were tied up in sheets, and my own impression is that they were stolen. However that may be, here we were in as ludicrous a position as it is possible for even a hospital to occupy, for not only had we none of the ordinary instruments, but, as if Fate meant to have a good laugh at us, we had a whole series of rare and expensive tools. We had no knives, and no artery forceps, and not a st.i.tch of catgut; but we had an oesophagoscope, and the very latest possible pattern of cystoscope, and a marvellous set of tools for plating fractures. It reminded one of the costume of an African savage--a silk hat, and nothing else. Some Belgian doctors who had been working there lent us a little case of elementary instruments, and that was absolutely all we had.

Scarcely had we made this terrible discovery, when an ambulance arrived with two wounded officers, and asked if we were ready to admit patients. We said, "No," and I almost think that we were justified. The men in charge of the ambulance seemed very disappointed, and said that in that case there was nothing for it but to leave the wounded men on their stretchers till an ambulance train should come to take them to Calais, which they might ultimately reach in two or three days' time.

They were badly wounded, and we thought that at least we could do better than that; so we made up a couple of beds in one of the empty rooms, and took them in. Little did we dream of what we were in for. An hour later another ambulance arrived, and as we had started, we thought that we might as well fill up the ward we had begun. That did it. The sluice-gates were opened, and the wounded poured in. In four days we admitted three hundred and fifty patients, all of them with injuries of the most terrible nature. The cases we had seen at Antwerp were nothing to these. Arms and legs were torn right off or hanging by the merest shreds, ghastly wounds of the head left the brain exposed. Many of the poor fellows were taken from the ambulances dead, and of the others at least half must have died.

For four days and four nights the operating theatre was at work continuously, till one sickened at the sight of blood and at the thought of an operation. Three operating tables were in almost continuous use, and often three major operations were going on at the same time; and all the instruments we had were two scalpels, six artery forceps, two dissecting forceps, and a finger- saw. Think of doing amputations through the thigh with that equipment! There was nothing else for it. Either the work had to be done or the patients had to die. And there was certainly no one else to do it. The rapid advance of the Germans had swept away all the admirable arrangements which the Belgian Army had made for dealing with its wounded. The splendid hospitals of Ghent and Ostend were now in German hands, and there had not yet been time to get new ones established. The cases could be sent to Calais, it was true, but there the accommodation was so far totally inadequate, and skilled surgical a.s.sistance was not to be obtained. For the moment our hospital, with its ludicrous equipment, was the only hope of the badly wounded.

By the mercy of Heaven, we had plenty of chloroform and morphia, and a fair supply of dressings, and we knew by experience that at this stage it is safer to be content with the minimum of actual operative work, so that I think it was we, rather than our patients, who suffered from the want of the ordinary aids of surgery. In the wards there was a shortage, almost as serious, of all the ordinary equipment of nursing, for much of this had been too c.u.mbrous to bring from Antwerp; and though we had brought out a fair supply of ordinary requirements, we had never dreamt of having to deal with such a rush as this. Ward equipment cannot be got at a moment's notice, and the bulk of it had not yet arrived. We only possessed a dozen folding beds, in which some of the worst cases were placed. The others had to lie on straw on the floor, and so closely were they packed that it was only with the greatest care that one could thread one's way across the ward.

How the nurses ever managed to look after their patients is beyond my comprehension, but they were magnificent. They rose to the emergency as only Englishwomen can, and there is not one of those unfortunate men who will not remember with grat.i.tude their sympathy and their skill.

During these first days a terrific fight was going on around Dixmude and Nieuport, and it was a very doubtful question how long it would be possible for the Belgian and French troops to withstand the tremendous attacks to which they were being subjected. The matter was so doubtful that we had to hold ourselves in readiness to clear out from the hospital at two hours' notice, whilst our wounded were taken away as fast as we could get them into what one can only describe as a portable condition. It was a physical impossibility for our wards to hold more than a hundred and fifty patients, even when packed close together side by side on the floor, and as I have said, three hundred and fifty were dealt with in the first four days.

This meant that most of them spent only twenty-four hours in the hospital, and as we were only sent cases which could not, as they stood, survive the long train journey to Calais, this meant that they were often taken on almost immediately after serious operations. Several amputations of the thigh, for example, were taken away next day, and many of them must have spent the next twenty-four hours in the train, for the trains were very tardy in reaching their destination. It is not good treatment, but good surgery is not the primary object of war. The fighting troops are the first consideration, and the surgeon has to manage the best way he can.

One of the most extraordinary cases we took in was that of the editor of a well-known sporting journal in England. He had shown his appreciation of the true sporting instinct by going out to Belgium and joining the army as a mitrailleuse man. If there is one place where one may hope for excitement, it is in an armoured car with a mitrailleuse. The mitrailleuse men are picked dare-devils, and their work takes them constantly into situations which require a trained taste for their enjoyment. Our friend the editor was out with his car, and had got out to reconnoitre, when suddenly some Germans in hiding opened fire. Their first shot went through both his legs, fracturing both tibiae, and he fell down, of course absolutely incapable of standing, just behind the armoured car. Owing to some mistake, an officer in the car gave the order to start, and away went the car. He would have been left to his fate, but suddenly realizing how desperate his position was, he threw up his hand and caught hold of one of the rear springs. Lying on his back and holding on to the spring, he was dragged along the ground, with both his legs broken, for a distance of about half a mile.

The car was going at about twenty-five miles an hour, and how he ever maintained his hold Heaven only knows. At last they pulled up, and there they found him, practically unconscious, his clothes torn to ribbons, his back a ma.s.s of bruises, but still holding on. It was one of the most splendid examples of real British grit of which I have ever heard. They brought him to the hospital, and we fixed him up as well as we could. One would have thought that he might have been a little downhearted, but not a bit of it. He arrived in the operating theatre smiling and smoking a cigar, and gave us a vivid account of his experiences.

We sent him over to England, and I heard that he was doing well.

There is one sporting paper in England which is edited by a real sportsman. May he long live to inspire in others the courage of which he has given such a splendid example!

XVI. Poperinghe