Diary of a Nursing Sister on the Western Front Part 19

_Thursday, March 11th._--Yesterday we took a long time getting to the ship from R., and unloaded at 10 P.M. Why we had no warning about the departure of the train (and so nearly got left behind) was because it was an emergency call suddenly to clear the hospitals at R. to make room for 600 more expected from the Front.

We are being rushed up again without being stopped at Rouen for the first time on record, so I suppose there is a good deal doing. (There was--at Neuve Chapelle.)

It is a comfort to remember that the men themselves don't grudge or question what happens to them, and the worse they're wounded the more they say, "I think I'm lucky; my mate next me got killed."

The birds are singing like anything now, and all the buds are coming out, and the banks and woods are a ma.s.s of primroses.

_Friday, March 12th._--We came straight through Boulogne in the night, and have been stuck half way to the Front all day; I don't know why.

_Sat.u.r.day, March 13th._--We woke at the railhead for Bethune this morning, and cleared there and at the next place, mostly wounded and some Indians.

It was frightfully interesting up there to-day; we saw the famous German prisoners taken at Neuve Chapelle being entrained, and we could hear our great bombardment going on--the biggest ever known in any war. The feeling of Advance is in the air already, and even the wounded are exulting in it. The Indians have bucked up like anything. We are on our way down now, and shall probably unload at B.

No time for more now.

11 P.M.--We unloaded at B. by 10 P.M., and are now on our way up again; shortest time we've ever waited--one hour after the last patient is off.

A.T.'s have been tearing up empty and back full all day, and are all being unloaded at B., so that they can go quickly up again. B. has been emptied before this began.

They were an awfully brave lot of badly woundeds to-day, but they always are. Just now they don't mind anything--even getting hit by our artillery by mistake. Some of them who were near enough to see the effect of our bombardment on the enemy's trenches say they saw men, legs, and arms shot into the air. And the noise!--they gasp in telling you about it. "You could never believe it," they say. An officer told me exactly how many guns from 9.2's downwards we used, all firing at once. And poor fat Germans, and thin Germans, and big Germans, and little Germans at the other end of it.

A man of mine with his head shattered and his hand shot through was trephined last night, and his longitudinal sinus packed with gauze. He was on the train at 9 this morning, and actually improved during the day! He came to in the afternoon enough to remark, as if he were doing a French exercise, "You-are-a-good-Nurse!" The next time he woke he said it again, and later on with great difficulty he gave me the address of his girl, to whom I am to write a post-card. I do hope they'll pull him through.

_Sunday, March 14th_, 4 P.M.--Just bringing down another load. I have a hundred and twenty wounded alone; the train is packed.

No time for more--the J.J.'s are swarming.

We unloaded at B. yesterday evening, and were off again within an hour or two.

_Monday, March 15th_, 2.30 A.M.--Woke up just as we arrived at Bailleul to hear most incessant cannonade going on I ever heard, even at Ypres.

The sky is continually lit up with the flashes from the guns--it is a pitch-dark night--and you can hear the roar of the howitzers above the thud-thud of the others. I think we are too far N. for there to be any French 75's in it. I had to wake Sister D. to see it, as she had never seen anything like it before. We are only a few miles away from it.

Must try and sleep now, as we shall have a heavy day to-day, but it is no lullaby.

4.30 P.M.--Just time for a scrawl. The train is packed with wounded, most of whom, including the poor sitting-ups, are now dead asleep from exhaustion. The British Army is fighting and marching all night now. The Clearing Hospitals get 800 in at a time, many with no dressings on. We have twenty-seven officers on this train alone.

I have a boy of 22 with both legs off. He is dazed and white, and wants shifting very often. Each time you fix him up he says, "That's champion."

Forty of them were sh.e.l.led in their billets.

The Germans are said to be, some of them, fighting in civilian clothes till they get their uniforms. The men say there are hundreds of young boys and old men among them; they are making a desperate effort and bringing everything they've got into it now.

_Later._--We also have mumps, measles, scarlet fever, and diphtheria in the infectious coach.

A baby lieut. with measles showed me some marvellous sketch-maps of German trenches and positions he'd made from observations through a periscope. He also had the very latest thing in sectional war maps, numbered in squares, showing every tree, farm, and puddle and trench: a place with four cross-roads was called "Confusion Corner," leading to a farm called "Rest-and-be-Thankful."

10 P.M.--Just got them all off after a strenuous day, and we are to go up again at 11 P.M.

The two German divisions that reinforced are giving us a tremendous lot to do.

It is just as well that this department was prepared for this, as it all goes like clockwork and an enormous amount of suffering is saved by their preparedness.

The amount that cannot be saved is grim enough.

Must go to bed.

_Tuesday, March 16th._--We loaded up very early this morning with 316 Indians, and are just getting into Boulogne. I expect we shall be sent up again this evening.

One of the Sikhs wailed before, during, and after his hand was dressed.

A big Mussulman stuffed his hanky between his teeth and bit on it, and never uttered, and it was a much worse one. What was he to do with crying, he said; it was right for it to be done. May G.o.d bring blessings on my head; whereas it was full of pain, lo, now it was atcha.

_Wednesday, March 17th._--I didn't tell you that yesterday a kind I.M.S.

colonel at the place where we took the Indians on showed us a huge pile of used sh.e.l.l cases near the station, and we all had some. I've got a twelve-pounder and a sixteen-pounder, like my pom-poms, only huge. Next time he's going to get us some Gurkha's kukries. On the way down a little Gurkha happened to get off the train for a minute, and when he looked round the train had gone past him. He ran after it, and perched on one of the buffers till the next stop, when he reappeared, trembling with fright, but greeted with roars of amus.e.m.e.nt by the other Gurkhas.

We had some more to-day, including twelve with mumps, and one who insisted on coming with his mumpy friend though quite well himself!

We woke this morning at Merville, one of the railheads for Neuve Chapelle, and loaded up very early--guns going as hard as ever. Mine were a very bad lot--British (except the twelve native mumpers), including some brave Canadians. They kept me very busy till the moment of unloading, which is a difficult and painful business with these bad ones; but the orderlies are getting very gentle and clever with them. I had among them eight Germans, several mere boys. One insisted on kissing my hand, much to the orderlies' amus.e.m.e.nt.

(A truckful of pigs outside is making the most appalling noise. 11 P.M.

I am writing in bed. We generally move up about 11.30 P.M.)

Every journey we hear thrilling accounts, rumours, and forecasts, most of which turn out to be true. We have had a lot of the St Eloi people.

There were several versions of a story of some women being found in a captured German trench. One version said they were French captives, another that they were German wives.

In one compartment were five Tommies being awfully kind to one German; and yet if he had a rifle, and they had theirs, he'd be a dead man.

The hospitals at Boulogne are so busy that no one goes off duty, and they are operating all night.

We had time for a blow across the bridge after unloading, and I happened to meet my friend S. (who was at Havre). She is on night duty, and they are grappling with those awful cases all night as hard as they can go.

Four were taken out of the motor ambulances dead this week; the jolting is the last straw for the worst ones; it can't possibly be helped, "but it seems a pity."

In all this rush we happen to have had nights in bed, which makes all the difference.

The pigs still squeal, but I must try and go to sleep.

_Thursday, March 18th._--We have had an off-day to-day at the place of woods and commons, which I hope and trust means that things are slackening off. It doesn't do to look ahead at what must be coming, now the ground is drying up before the job is finished; but we can be thankful for the spells of rest that come for the poor army.

We had a heavenly ramble this morning, and found blue periwinkles and anemones in the woods, but no primroses. Lots of palm and gorse. Robins, willow-wrens, and yellow-hammers were singing, the darlings, much prettier music than guns, and it is good to get away from the sound of motors and trains and whistles.

We also had home-made bread and b.u.t.ter to-day out of the village, which caused more excitement than the Russian successes. We are having much nicer food since the French chef left, and it costs us exactly half as much.