Diary of a Nursing Sister on the Western Front Part 18

A sergeant of the D.C.L.I. had a fearful sh.e.l.l wound in his thigh, which has gone wrong, and as the trouble is too high for amputation they will have their work cut out to save his life. They were getting out of the trench for a bayonet charge, and he had just collected his men when he was. .h.i.t; so the officer "shook hands with him" and went on with the charge, leaving him and another man, wounded in the leg, in the trench.

They stayed there several hours with no dressings on, sinking into the mud (can you wonder it has gone wrong?), until another man turned up and helped them out; then they _walked_ to the Regimental Aid Post, 200 yards away, helped by the sound man. There they were dressed and had the anti-teta.n.u.s serum injection, and were taken by stretcher-bearers to the next Dressing Station, and thence by horse ambulance to the Field Ambulance, and then by motor ambulance to where we picked them up. There are lots of F.'s regiment wounded.

_Friday, February 19th._--We left B. at 5 A.M. to-day, and were delayed all the morning farther up by one of the usual French collisions. A guard had left his end of a train and was on the engine; so he never noticed that twelve empty trucks had come uncoupled and careered down a hill, where they were run into and crumpled up by a pa.s.senger train. The guard of that one was badly injured (fractured spine), but the pa.s.sengers only shaken.

At St Omer Miss M. and Major T. and I were being shown over the Khaki Train when ours moved off. There was a wild stampede; the Khaki Train had all its doors locked, and we had miles to go inside to get out.

Their orderlies shouted to ours to pull the communication cord--the only way of appealing to the distant engine; so it slowed down, and we clambered breathlessly on. We are side-tracked now at the jolly place of the Moor and the Wireless Lorries; probably move on in the night.

_Sat.u.r.day, February 20th_, 9 P.M.--We've had a very unsatisfactory day, loading up at four different places, and still on our way down. I'm just going to lie down, to be called at 2 A.M. Now we're four: two go to bed for the whole night and the other two take the train for half the night when we have a light load, as to-day. If they are all bad cases, we have two on and two off for the two watches. We have some Indians on to-day, but most British, and not many _blesses_.

The other day a huge train of reinforcements got divided by mistake: the engine went off with all the officers, and the men had a joy-ride to themselves, invaded the cafes, where they sometimes get half poisoned, and in half an hour's time there was a big sc.r.a.p among themselves, with fifty casualties. So the story runs.

A humane and fatherly orderly has just brought me a stone hot-water bottle for my feet as I write this in the rather freezing dispensary coach in the middle of the train, in between my rounds. All the worst cases and the Indians were put off at B., and the measles, mumps, and diphtherias, so there isn't much to do; some are snoring like an aeroplane.

_Monday, February 22nd._--We got a short walk yesterday evening after unloading at Rouen. There was a glorious sunset over the bridge, and the lights just lighting up, and Rouen looked its beautifulest. We slept at Sotteville, and this morning Sister and I walked down the line into Rouen and saw the Paymaster and the Cathedral, and did some shopping, and had a boiled egg and real b.u.t.ter and tea for lunch, and came back in the tram. Sister S. is in bed with influenza.

The lengthening days and better weather are making a real difference to the gloom of things, and though there is a universal undercurrent of feeling that enormous sacrifices will have to be made, it seems to be shaping for a step farther on, and an ultimate return to sanity and peace. It is such a vast upheaval when you are in the middle of it, that you sometimes actually wonder if every one has gone mad, or who has gone mad, that all should be grimly working, toiling, slaving, from the firing line to the base, for more Destruction, and for more highly-finished and uninterrupted Destruction, in order to get Peace.

And the men who pay the cost in intimate personal and individual suffering and in death are not the men who made the war.

_Wednesday, February 24th._--We have been all day in Boulogne, and move up at 8.15 this evening, which means loading up after breakfast and perhaps unloading to-morrow evening. It has given Sister S. another day to recover from her attack of influenza.

Have been busy one way and another all day, but went for a walk after tea and saw over the No.-- G.H. at the Casino--a splendid place, working like clockwork. Lots of bad cases, but they all look clean and beautifully cared for and rigged up.

_Thursday, February 25th._--Moved up to the place with the moor during the night. Glorious, clear, sunny morning. Couldn't leave the train for a real walk, as there were no orders.

This time last year the last thing one intended to do was to go and travel about France for six months, with occasional excursions into Belgium!

'The Times' sometimes comes the next day now.

9 P.M.--The ways of French railways are impenetrable: in spite of orders for Bailleul before lunch, we are still here, and less than ever able to leave the train for a walk.

This is the fourth day with no patients on--the longest "off" spell since before Christmas. It shows there's not much doing or much medical leakage.

_Friday, February 26th._--We loaded up this morning with a not very bad lot (mine all sitters except some enterics, a measles, and a diphtheria), and are on our way down again.

I am all ready packed to get off at B. if my leave is in Major M.'s office.

_Sat.u.r.day, February 27th_, 9 P.M., _Hotel at Boulogne._--All the efforts to get my seven days' leave have failed, as I thought they would.

_Wednesday, March 3rd, Boulogne._--There is not a great deal to do or see here, especially on a wet day.

_Friday, March 5th_, 5 P.M.--On way down from Chocques--mixed lot of woundeds, medicals, Indians, and Canadians.

I have a lad of 24 with both eyes destroyed by a bullet, and there is a bad "trachy."

Nothing very much has been going on, but the German sh.e.l.ls sometimes plop into the middle of a trench, and each one means a good many casualties.

10 P.M.--We've had a busy day, and are not home yet.

My boy with the dressings on his head has not the slightest idea that he's got no eyes, and who is going to tell him? The pain is bad, and he has to have a lot of morphia, with a cigarette in between.

We shall probably not unload to-night, and I am to be called at 2 A.M.

The infectious ward is full with British enterics, dips., and measles, and Indian mumpies.

_Sat.u.r.day, March 6th, Boulogne._--Instead of being called at 2 for duty, was called at 1 to go to bed, as they unloaded us at that hour.

Last night we pulled up at Hazebrouck alongside a troop train with men, guns, and horses just out from the Midlands.

Two lads in a truck with their horses asked me for cigarettes. Luckily, thanks to the Train Comforts Fund's last whack, I had some. One said solemnly that he had a "coosin" to avenge, and now his chance had come.

They both had shining eyes, and not a rollicking but an eager excitement as they asked when the train would get "there," and looked as if they could already see the sh.e.l.ls and weren't afraid.

_Sunday, March 7th._--We are stuck in the jolly place close to G.H.Q., but can't leave the train as there are no orders. I've been having a French cla.s.s, with the wall of the truck for a blackboard, and occasional bangs from a big gun somewhere.

_Tail-end of Monday, March 8th._--On way down to etretat, where No.-- G.H. is, which we shall reach to-morrow about tea-time. A load of woundeds this time; very busy all day till now (midnight), and haven't had time to hear many of their adventures. They seem to all come from a line of front where the Boches are persistently hammering to break through, and though they don't get any forrarder they cause a steady leakage. We heard guns all the while we were loading. A dressing-station five miles away had just been sh.e.l.led, and a major, R.A.M.C., killed and two other R.A.M.C. officers wounded.

I have a man wounded in eight places, including a fractured elbow and a fractured skull, which has been trephined. What is left of him that hasn't stopped bullets is immensely proud of his bandages! He was one of nineteen who were in a barn when a sh.e.l.l came through the roof and burst inside, spitting shrapnel bullets all over them; all wounded and one killed. We have just put off an emergency case of gas gangrene, temp.

105, who came on as a sitter! They so often say after a bad dressing, "I'm a lot of trouble to ye, Sister."

_Later._--Just time for a line before I do another round and then call my relief. It is an awfully cold night.

_Tuesday, March 9th, 12 noon._--We are pa.s.sing through glorious country of wooded hills and valleys, with a blue sky and shining sun, and all the patients are enjoying it. It is still very cold, and there is a little snow about. They call their goatskin coats "Teddy Bears." One very ill boy, wounded in the lungs, who was put off at Abbeville, was wailing, "Where's my Mary Box?" as his stretcher went out of the window.

We found it, and he was happy.

_Wednesday, March 10th._--We got to etretat at about 3 P.M. yesterday after a two days' and one night load, and had time to go up to the hospital, where I saw S. The Matron was away. We only saw it at night last time, so it was jolly getting the afternoon there. The sea was a thundery blue, and the cliffs lit up yellow by the sun, and with the grey shingle it made a glorious picture to take back to the train. It had been a heavy journey with bad patients, and we were rather tired, so we didn't explore much.

We woke at Sotteville near Rouen this morning, and later in the day had a most fatiguing and much too exciting adventure over catching the train. Two of the Sisters and I walked into Rouen about 10.30, and found No.-- A.T. marked up as still at Sotteville (in the R.T.O.'s office), and so concluded it would be there all day. So we did our businesses of hair-washing, Cathedral, lunch, &c., and then took the tram back to Sotteville. The train had gone! The Sotteville R.T.O. (about a mile off) told us it was due to leave Rouen loaded up for Havre at 2.36; it was then 2.15, and it was usually about three-quarters of an hour's walk up the line (we'd done it once this morning), so we made a desperate dash for it. Sister M. walks very slowly at her best, so we decided that I should sprint on and stop the train, and she and the other follow up.

The Major met me near our engine, and was very kind and concerned, and went on to meet the other two. The train moved out three minutes after they got on. Never again!--we'll stick on it all day rather than have such a narrow shave.

We are full of convalescents for Havre to go straight on to the boat.

They are frightfully enthusiastic about the way the British Army is looked after in this war. "There's not much they don't get for us," they said.

There are crowds of primroses out on the banks. Our infant R.A.M.C.

(Officer's Mess) cook (a boy of about twenty, who looks sixteen and cooks beautifully) has just jumped off the train while it was going, grabbed a handful of primroses, and leapt on to the train again some coaches back. He came back panting and rosy, and said, "I've got some for you, Sister!" We happened not to be going fast, but there was no question of stopping. I got some Lent lilies in Rouen, and have some celandines growing in moss, so it looks like spring in my bunk.