Diary of a Nursing Sister on the Western Front Part 24

_Friday, May 7th_, 10 P.M.--A pitch-dark night, raining a little, and only one topic--the Attack to-morrow morning.

The first R.A.M.C. barge has come up, and is lying in the ca.n.a.l ready to take on the cases of wounds of lung and abdomen, to save the jolting of road and railway; it is to have two Sisters, but I haven't seen them yet: shall go in the morning: went round this morning to see, but the barge hadn't arrived.

There are a few sick officers downstairs who are finding it hard to stick in their beds, with their regiments in this job close by. There is a house close by which I saw this morning with a dirty little red flag with a black cross on it, where the C.-in-C. and thirty commanders of the 1st Army met yesterday.

The news to-day of Hill 60 and the gases is another spur to the grim resolve to break through here, that can be felt and seen and heard in every detail of every arm. "Grandmother" is lovingly talked about.

The town, the roads, and the ca.n.a.l banks this morning were so packed with men, waggons, horses, bales, and lorries, that you could barely pick your way between them.

Since writing this an aeroplane has been circling over us with a loud buzz. The sergeant called up to me to put the lights out. We saw her light. There is much speculation as to who and what she was; she was not big enough for our big "'Bus," as she is called, who belongs to this place. No one seems ever to have seen one here at night before.

We are making flannel masks for the C.O. for our men.

Our fat little Gabrielle makes the most priceless soup out of the ration beef (which none of us are any good at) and carrots. She mothers us each individually, and cleans the house and keeps her wee kitchen spotless.

4 A.M.--The 9.2's are just beginning to talk.

Here is a true story. One of our trenches at Givenchy was being pounded by German sh.e.l.ls at the time of N. Ch. A man saw his brother killed on one side of him and another man on the other. He went on shooting over the parapet; then the parapet got knocked about, and still he wasn't hit. He seized his brother's body and the other man's and built them up into the parapet with sandbags, and went on shooting.

When the stress was over and he could leave off, he looked round and saw what he was leaning against. "Who did that?" he said. And they told him.

They get awfully sick at the big-print headlines in some of the papers--"The Hill 60 Thrill"!

"Thrill, indeed! There's nothing thrilling about ploughing over parapets into a machine-gun, with high explosives bursting round you,--it's merely beastly," said a boy this evening, who is all over shrapnel splinters.

_Sat.u.r.day, May 8th,_ 9 A.M.--This is Der Tag. Could anybody go to bed and undress?

I have been cutting dressings all night. One of the most stabbing things in this war is seeing the lines of empty motor ambulances going up to bring down the wrecks who at this moment are sound and fit, and all absolutely ready to be turned into wrecks.

10.30 P.M.--Der Tag was a wash-out, but it is to begin at 1.15 to-night.

(It didn't!)

The tension is more up than ever. A boy who has just come in with a poisoned heel (broken-hearted because he is out of it, while his battalion moves up) says, "You'll be having them in in cartloads over this."

_Sunday, May 9th_, 1.30 A.M.--The Lions are roaring in full blast and lighting up the sky.

Have been busy to-night with an operation case who is needing a lot of special nursing, and some admissions--one in at 11 P.M., who was only wounded at 9 o'clock. I hope these magnificent roars and rumblings are making a mess of the barbed wire and German trenches. There seems to be a pretty general opinion that they will retaliate by dropping them into this place if they have time, and pulverising it like Ypres.

5.25 A.M.--It has begun. It is awful--continuous and earthquaking.

9.30 A.M.--In bed. The last ten minutes of "Rapid" did its d.a.m.nedest and then began again, and we are still thundering h.e.l.l into the German lines.

It began before 5 with a fearful pounding from the French on our right, and hasn't left off since.

Had a busy night with my operation case and the others (he is doing fine), and in every spare second getting ready for the rush. The M.O.'s were astir very early; the A.D.M.S. came to count empty beds. It is to-night they'll be coming in.

Must try and sleep. But who could yesterday and to-day?

_Monday, May 10th_, 9.30 A.M.--We have had a night of it. Every Field Ambulance, barge, Clearing Hospital, and train are blocked with them.

The M.O.'s neither eat nor sleep. I got up early yesterday and went down to the barge to see if they wanted any extra help (as the other two were coping with the wounded officers), and had a grim afternoon and evening there. One M.O., no Sisters, four trained orderlies, and some other men were there. It was packed with all the worst cases--dying and bleeding and groaning. After five hours we had three-fourths of them out of their blood-soaked clothes, dressed, fed, haemorrhage stopped, hands and faces washed, and some asleep. Two died, and more were dying. They all worked like bricks. The M.O., and another from the other barge which hadn't filled up, sent up to the O.D.S., when my hour for night duty there came, to ask if I could stay, and got leave. At 11 P.M. four Sisters arrived (I don't know how--they'd been wired for), two for each barge; so I handed over to them and went to the O.D.S. to relieve the other two there for night duty. The place was unrecognisable: every corner of every floor filled with wounded officers--some sitting up and some all over wounds, and three dying and others critical; and they still kept coming in. They were all awfully good strewing about the floor--some soaked to the skin from wet sh.e.l.l holes--on their stretchers, waiting to be put to bed.

One had had "such a jolly Sunday afternoon" lying in a sh.e.l.l hole with six inches of water in it and a dead man, digging himself in deeper with his trench tool whenever the sh.e.l.ls burst near him. He was. .h.i.t in the stomach.

One officer saw the enemy through a periscope sniping at our wounded.

4 P.M.--In bed. It seems quiet to-day; there are so few guns to be heard, and not so many ambulances coming. All except the hopeless cases will have been evacuated by now from all the Field Hospitals. There was a block last night, and none could be sent on. The Clearing Hospitals were full, and no trains in.

Those four Sisters from the base had a weird arrival at the barge last night in a car at 11 P.M. It was a black dark night, big guns going, and a sudden descent down a ladder into that Nelson's c.o.c.kpit. They were awfully bucked when we said, "Oh, I am glad you have come." They buckled to and set to work right off. The cook, who had been helping magnificently in the ward, was running after me with hot cocoa (breakfast was my last meal, except a cup of tea), and promised to give them some. One wounded of the Munsters there said he didn't mind nothink now,--he'd seen so many dead Germans as he never thought on. As always, they have lost thousands, but they come on like ants.

They have only had about seven new cases to-day at the O.D.S., but two of last night's have died. A Padre was with them.

They had no market this morning, for fear of bombs from aeroplanes.

There's been no sh.e.l.ling into the town.

_Tuesday, May 11th_, 6.30 P.M.--In bed. I went to bed pretty tired this morning after an awful night (only a few of the less seriously wounded had been evacuated yesterday, and all the worst ones, of course, left), and slept like a top from 10.30 to 5, and feel as fit as anything after it.

The fighting seems to have stopped now, and no more have come in to-day.

Last night a stiff muddy figure, all bandages and straw, on the stretcher was brought in. I asked the boy how many wounds? "Oh, only five," he said cheerfully. "Nice clean wounds,--machine-gun,--all in and out again!"

The Padre came at 7.30 and had a Celebration in each ward, but I was too busy to take any notice of it.

One of these officers was. .h.i.t by a German sh.e.l.l on Sunday morning early, soon after our bombardment began. He crawled about till he was. .h.i.t again twice by other sh.e.l.ls, and then lay there all that day and all that night, with one drink from another wounded's water-bottle; every one else was either dead or wounded round him. Next morning his servant found him and got stretcher-bearers, and he got here.

I don't know how they live through that.

_Wednesday, May 12th_, 6.30 P.M.--Slept very well. I hear from Gabrielle that they have had a hard day at the O.D.S.; no new cases, but all the bad ones very ill.

My little room is crammed with enormous lilac, white and purple, from our wee garden, which I am going to take to our graves to-morrow in jam tins.

_Thursday, May 13th_, 11 A.M.--Can't face the graves to-day; have had an awful night; three died during the night. I found the boy who brought his officer in from between the German line and ours, on Sunday night, crying this morning over the still figure under a brown blanket on a stretcher.

Of the other two, brought straight in from the other dressing station, one only lived long enough to be put to bed, and the other died on his stretcher in the hall.

The O.C. said last night, "Now this War has come we've got to tackle it with our gloves off," but it takes some tackling. It seems so much nearer, and more murderous somehow in this Field Ambulance atmosphere even than it did on the train with all the successive hundreds.

We can see Notre Dame de Lorette from here; the Chapel and Fort stand high up in that flat maze of slag-heaps, mine-heads, and sugar-factories just behind the line on the right.

9 P.M., _O.D.S._--Everything very quiet here.

A gunner just admitted says there will probably be another big bombardment to-morrow morning, and after that another attack, and after that I suppose some more for us.

Another says that the charge of the Black Watch on Sunday was a marvellous thing. They went into it playing the pipes! The Major who led it handed somebody his stick, as he "probably shouldn't want it again."