Diary of a Nursing Sister on the Western Front Part 17

7 P.M.--Nearing B. We've had a very muddly day, taking on at four different places. I have a coach full of Indians. They have been teaching me some more Hindustani. Some of them suddenly began to say their prayers at sunset. They spread a small mat in front of them, knelt down, and became very busy "knockin' 'oles in the floor with their 'eads," as the orderly describes it.

We have a lot of woundeds from Sat.u.r.day's fighting. They took three German trenches, and got in with the bayonet until they were "treading"

on dead Germans! The wounded sitting-ups are frightfully proud of it.

After their personal reminiscences you feel as if you'd been jabbing Germans yourself. They say they "lose their minds" in the charge, and couldn't do it if they stopped to think, "because they're feelin' men, same as us," one said.

A corporal on his way back to the Front from taking some people down to St O. under a guard saw one of his pals at the window in our train. He leaped up and said, "I wish to G.o.d I could get chilblains and come down with you." This to an indignant man with a shrapnel wound!

I've got five bad cases of measles, with high temperatures and throats.

_Tuesday, February 9th._--Again they unloaded us at B. last night, and we are now, 11 A.M., on our way up again. The Indians I had were a very interesting lot. The race differences seem more striking the better you get to know them. The Gurkhas seem to be more like Tommies in temperament and expression, and all the Mussulmans and the best of the Sikhs and Jats might be Princes and Prime Ministers in dignity, feature, and manners. When a Sikh refuses a cigarette (if you are silly enough to offer him one) he does it with a gesture that makes you feel like a housemaid who ought to have known better. The beautiful Mussulmans smile and salaam and say Merbani, however ill they are, if you happen to hit upon something they like. They all make a terrible fuss over their kit and their puggarees and their belongings, and refuse to budge without them.

Sister M. found her orders to leave when we got in, but she doesn't know where she is going. So after this trip we shall be three again, which is a blessing, as there are not enough wards for four, and no one likes giving any up. It also gives us a spare bunk to store our warehouses of parcels for men, which entirely overflow our own dug-outs. As soon as you've given out one lot, another bale arrives.

We have had every kind of infectious disease to nurse in this war, except smallpox. The Infectious Ward is one of mine, and we've had enteric, scarlet fever, measles, mumps, and diphtheria.

7 P.M.--We got to the new place where we wait for a marche, just at tea-time, and we had a grand walk up to the moor, where you can see half over France each way. There is a travelling wireless station up there. Each pole has its receiver in a big grey motor-lorry by the roadside, where they live and sleep. The road wound down to a little curly village with a beautiful old grey church. On the top of the moor on the way back it was dark, and the flash signals were morsing away to each other from the different hills. It reminded me of the big forts on the kopjes round Pretoria.

I had my first French cla.s.s this afternoon at St Omer, in the men's mess truck. There were seventeen, including the Quartermaster-Sergeant and the cook's boy. I'd got a small blackboard in Boulogne, and they all had notebooks, and the Q.M.S. had arranged it very nicely. They were very keen, and got on at a great pace. They weren't a bit shy over trying to p.r.o.nounce, and will I think make good progress. They have a great pull over men of their cla.s.s in England, by their opportunities of listening to French spoken by the French, such a totally different language to French spoken by most English people. My instruction book is Hugo's, which is a lightning method compared to the usual school-books. They are doing exercises for me for next time.

_Wednesday, February 10th_, 9 P.M.--We woke at Merville after a particularly rocky, noisy night journey, and loaded up there with woundeds and sick, also Indians (but not in my wards for once). My _blesses_ kept me busy till the moment we unloaded this evening at B., and I had not time to hear much about their doings. One extraordinarily sporting boy had a wound right through his neck, involving his swallowing. It took about half an hour to give him a feed, through a tube, but he stuck it, smiling all the time.

Another older man was shot in the stomach, and looked as if he wouldn't get over it. He told me he'd already been in hospital eight weeks, shot in the head at the Aisne. I said what hard luck to have to go through it again. "It's got to be done," he said. "I didn't give it a thought. I think I shall get over this," he said, "but I don't want to go back a third time." He has a wife and three children in Ireland.

We are to move up again at 4 A.M. Just had dinner (soup, boiled beef as tough as a cable, and ration cheese and coffee), and the 'Daily Mail.'

_Thursday, February 11th._--We have spent most of the day at St Omer, and got a lovely walk in this morning, along the ca.n.a.l, watching the big barges which take 2000 tons of beetroots for sugar.

There is a scheme on foot for fitting up these big barges as transport for the sick (this one came from Furnes) as moving Clearing Hospitals.

I've been over one, in Rouen. They are not yet in use, but might be rather jolly in the summer.

It is the warmest spring day we've had. I had my second French cla.s.s this afternoon again at St Omer. We are now moving on, up to Bailleul. I expect we shall take patients on this evening, and have them all night.

_Friday, February 12th_, 6 A.M.--We did a record loading up in fifty minutes last night, chiefly medical cases, and took eight hours to crawl to Boulogne. Now we are on the way for Havre, but shall not get there till about 10 P.M. to-night, so they will have a long day in the train.

A good many of the lying-downs are influenza, with high temperatures and no voice. It is a bore getting to B. in the night, as we miss our mails and the 'Daily Mail.'

7 P.M.--This is an interminable journey. Have not yet reached Rouen, and shan't get to Havre till perhaps 2 A.M. The patients are getting very weary, especially the sitting-ups. The wards of acute liers you can run like a hospital. Some of the orderlies are now getting quite keen on having their wards clean and swept, and the meals and feeds up to time, and the washings done, but it has taken weeks to bring them up to it.

When they do all that well I can get on with the diets, temperatures, treatments, and dressings, &c. On the long journeys we take round at intervals smokes, chocolate, papers, hankies, &c., when we have them.

The Victoria League has done me well in bales of hankies. They simply love the affectionate and admiring messages pinned on from New Zealand, and one of them always volunteers to answer them.

We shall be up in shifts again to-night.

We are all hoping to have a day in Rouen on the way back, for baths, hair-washing, shopping, seeing the Paymaster, and showing the new Sister the sights. For sheer beauty and interestingness it is the most endearing town; you don't know which you love best--its setting with the hills, river, and bridge, or its beautiful spires and towers and marvellous old streets and houses.

_Sat.u.r.day, February 13th_, 2 A.M.--Still on the way to Havre! And we loaded up on Thursday. This journey is another revelation of what the British soldier will stick without grumbling. The sitting-ups are eight in a carriage, some with painful feet, some with wounded arms, and some with coughs, rheumatism, &c., but you don't hear a word of grousing. It is only when things are prosperous and comfortable that Tommy grumbles and has grievances. Some of the liers are too ill to know how long they've been on the train. One charming Scotchman, who enlisted for K.'s Army, but was put into the Regulars because he could shoot, has just asked me to write my name and address in his little book so that he can write from England. He also says we must "look after ourselves" and "study our health," because there's a bad time coming, and our Country will need us! He's done his share, after an operation, and will never be able to do any more. Everything points to this Service having to put out all it can, both here and at home. Many new hospitals are being organised, and there are already hundreds.

We have a poor lunatic on board who keeps asking us to let his wife come in. The train is crawling with J.J.'s.

_Sat.u.r.day_, 4.30 A.M.--Just seen the last stretcher off; now going to undress (first time since Wednesday night) and turn in.

_Sat.u.r.day, 13th February, Havre._--It is four months to-day since I joined the train. It seems much longer in some ways, and yet the days go by very quickly--even the off-days; and when the train is full the hours fly.

We went into the familiar streets this morning that we saw so much of in August, "waiting for orders," and had a look at the sea. The train moved off at tea-time, so we had the prettiest part of the journey in a beautiful evening sunlight, lighting up the woods and hills. The palm is out, and the others saw primroses. We have also seen some snowdrops.

After a heavy journey, with two nights out of bed, you don't intend to do any letter-writing or mending or French cla.s.ses, but look out of the window or sleep or read Dolly Dialogues. You always get compensation for these journeys in the longer journey back, with probably a wait at Rouen or Sotteville, and possibly another at Boulogne. We have been going up and down again very briskly this last fortnight between B. and the Back of the Front.

_Sunday, 14th._--A dismal day at Sotteville; pouring cats and dogs all day, and the train cold.

_Shrove Tuesday._--We were all day coming up yesterday. Got to B. in the middle of the night, and went on again to St Omer, where we woke this morning, so we missed our mails again; it will be a full week's mails when we do get them. Lovely blue sky to-day. Had a walk with Sister B.

round the town, and now this afternoon we are on the way to Poperinghe, in a beaten country, where we haven't been for three months. French cla.s.s due at 3 P.M. if we haven't got there by then.

We have just pa.s.sed a graveyard absolutely packed with little wooden crosses.

_Ash Wednesday, February 17th_, 6 A.M.--We took on a very bad load of wounded at Poperinghe, more like what used to happen three months ago in the same place; they were only wounded the night before, and some the same day. The Clearing Hospital had to be cleared immediately.

We have just got to B., and are going to unload here at 8.30 A.M.

Must stop. Hope to get a week's mails to-day.

A brisk air battle between one British and one French and two Taubes was going on when we got there, and a perfect sky for it. Very high up.

A wounded major on the train was talking about the men. "It's not a case of our leading the men; we have a job to keep up with them."

It was a pretty sad business getting them off the train this morning; there were so many compound fractures, and no amount of contriving seemed to come between them and the jolting of the train all night. And, to add to the difficulties, it was pouring in torrents and icy cold, and the railway people refused to move the train under cover, so they went out of a warm train on to damp stretchers in an icy rain. They were nearly all in thin pyjamas, as we'd had to cut off their soaking khaki: they were practically straight from the trenches. But once clear of trains, stretchers, and motor ambulances they will be warmed, washed, fed, bedded, and their fractures set under an anaesthetic. One man had his arm blown to pieces on Monday afternoon, had it amputated on Monday night, and was put into one of our wards on Tuesday, and admitted to Base Hospital on Wednesday. But that is ticklish work.

One boy, a stretcher-bearer, with both legs severely wounded, very nearly bled to death. He was pulled round somehow. About midnight, when he was packed up in wool and hot-water bottles, &c., when I asked him how he was feeling, he said gaily, "Quite well, delightfully warm, thank you!" We got him taken to hospital directly the train got in at 4 A.M.

The others were unloaded at 9 A.M.

We are now--5 P.M.--on our way to etaples, probably to clear the G.H.

there, either to-night or to-morrow morning. It hasn't stopped pouring all day. It took me till lunch to read my enormous mail.

Major T. has heard to-day that the French railway people want his train back again for pa.s.senger traffic, so the possibility of our all being suddenly disbanded and dispersed is hanging over us; but I believe it has been threatened before.

_Thursday, February 18th._--In bed, 10 P.M. We have had a very heavy day with the woundeds again from Bailleul. We unloaded again at B. this evening, and are to go up again some time to-night.

There is a great deal going on in our front.

There was a boy from Suffolk, of K.'s Army, in my ward who has only been out three weeks. He talked the most heavenly East Anglian--"I was agin the barn, and that fared to hit me"--all in the right sing-song.