Some Naval Yarns Part 3

Another of this tribe was in Cairo on leave when he received word that his ship was to leave sooner than expected. She was in Alexandria. Not having sufficient money to pay his train fare, he requisitioned a motor-bicycle and sped on to Alexandria. From his youthful eyes there welled tears when he was informed that his ship was weighing anchor.

Nothing daunted, however, he commandeered a fast motor-boat, and swept out after the warship, which he caught on the go. This is the man who in later years you are apt to meet at the officers' messes--a man full of information and wonderfully versatile. He may have ploughed the seas for many years, and dwelt in his steel home in the baking heat of tropical suns, and waited for the enemy for many a day. Hence conversation never lags at these dinners. The meals are comparatively plain in these days; but most of the officers stick to the delight of a c.o.c.ktail before dinner, and after the _piece de resistance_ they have their gla.s.s of port.

Just before the dessert the port is poured into glistening gla.s.ses, and the table is cleared.

"Table cleared, sir," announces the steward to the president of the mess; and a second later one hears: "Wine pa.s.sed, sir."

"Thank G.o.d," is the brief grace of the chaplain; or, if one is not present, the head of the mess says it. This is followed with a rap on the table, and from the president of the mess:--

"Mr. Vice, 'The King.'"

"Gentlemen, 'The King,'" speaks out the vice-president of the mess, who is seated at the other end of the table opposite to the head of the mess.

Conversation, which a second before had been filling the place, is silenced by the grace, and the stranger may be somewhat startled by the suddenness of the proceedings. It is the privilege of these officers to drink the King's health seated. This is an old custom, which came about through the sovereign realising that ships are not the steadiest places always, and the fact that the ward-rooms are sometimes not constructed so that a tall man can always stand erect.

Immediately "Gentlemen, 'The King,'" is uttered by the mess's vice-president each officer repeats in an undertone: "The King." The gla.s.ses after being held aloft come to the table as one, and the conversation is resumed. Garbed in their immaculate monkey-jackets, with the glistening gold braid on the cuffs, the men at the carefully set and beflowered table make a scene long to be remembered.

Incidentally, there is a marine officers' mess at a certain port which naval officers are always ready to talk about. In that place they are proud of a wonderful mahogany table which has been polished for many years until it is now like a black mirror. The band of this mess is one of the best in England; and it is the privilege of the bandmaster to play at concerts and in theatres, the proceeds being divided among charities, the bandmaster and his men. Hence the leader of this band probably had an income of $7,500 a year.

Here, before the toast to the King is offered, servants come along each side of the great table and, at a given word, whisk the tablecloth from the shiny mahogany. The bandmaster is invited to have a gla.s.s of port by the president of the mess. The band leader seats himself, and sips his wine. Follows then the toast to the King.

At the mess of the largest Royal Naval Air Station in England they have, by good fortune, obtained the services of a chef who formerly was of the Ritz Hotel in London; and especial attention is given to this mess. No matter how hard may have been the day's work or how many men have been forced to leave for other billets, the dinners there are a sight for the G.o.ds. More than 150 expert seaplane pilots from all over the world sit down.

It is like a bit of history of olden days to hear: "Gentlemen, 'The King,'" with its charm and ceremony.

VIII. THE ROYAL NAVAL AMBULANCE TRAIN

Ready to speed to any accessible port on telegraphic or telephonic orders from the Admiralty Medical Transport Department are Royal Naval Ambulance trains. They are always on the move, picking up wounded or sick officers and bluejackets at Scotch and English ports, bearing them to stations where there are great hospitals, to relieve the coast inst.i.tutions likely to receive wounded in the event of a North Sea Fleet engagement. These grey-painted trains, with the Red Cross and the "R.N."

on each coach, are the outcome of a great deal of study, and they are now run with remarkable efficiency. No millionaire could receive better care when wounded or ill than do John Bull's naval officers and seamen.

Sir James Porter, the head of this service, whose pen sends a train to all parts of England and Scotland, has a loyal staff, which devotes remarkable zeal to their share of the work. They take pride in making a time-record in disembarkation and entraining of patients. Naval surgeons at each railroad station watch the work of the stretcher-bearers to be sure that every cot has the gentlest possible handling when being carried from the train to the ambulance which is to take the patient to the local hospital.

The "stepping" of the stretcher-bearers seems a trifling thing, but it is surprising to note the attention given to this point in the first days of the war. Dr. A. V. Elder, staff surgeon of the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve and the right bower of Sir James Porter, practised for weeks the carrying of patients, getting into cots to ascertain the most comfortable step for the wounded. Prizes were even given to the men who carried a pail of water on a cot and reached a fixed point with the most liquid in the receptacle. By this means the best method of "stepping off"

was evolved. There are hundreds of these stretcher-bearers--volunteers without compensation--who now perform the task so well that it attracts even the attention of the casual observer. The cot-bearers are doing their "bit"; they get to the railroad stations at all times to meet the ambulance trains, and often have to wait hours and give up their usual business.

It may also be interesting to some that in those August days the Naval Ambulance trains were not much more than a series of box-cars. The present cot--an ingenious arrangement by naval surgeons--was used in the naval hospitals and aboard the warships. But the fixtures on the train for carrying this cot were far from perfection. The patient was tossed about by the movement of the train, and it was realised that in the event of hundreds of patients being carried something would have to be discovered to steady the beds. Dr. Elder invented a clip-spring to be attached to the cot and the side of the coach. It held the bed, and had sufficient "give" to make it steady. In lieu of the box-cars, there are now coaches of the American type, with windows and great sliding doors which permit of easy ingress or egress.

The railroad officials have listened to the bidding of the Medical Transport Officer of the Admiralty and have attached some of the best locomotives to these trains, usually of twelve coaches. Even when there has not been an action, and the trains are bearing mostly medical cases, all pa.s.senger and freight traffic gives way to the ambulance trains. If the surgeon in charge of the train decides that he has a case which should be hastened to a hospital he wires ahead, so that when he reaches that point the surgeon or the agent there is on hand with an ambulance to rush the patient to a local hospital.

Where it is possible, red tape has been eliminated. The cots in which the patients are carried are sent with the patient from a hospital or ship, and the patient is only taken out when he arrives at the hospital of his destination. For the cot bearing the patient, the train surgeon receives in exchange a clean cot. This cot has been laundered and fumigated, and is kept on the train so that when only patients are entrained the surgeon gives a cot for each case taken aboard. Hence the surgeon always has the same number of cots on his train, and through this means paper and pencil work is avoided. The patient's clothes are packed in a bag, and all the valuables of one batch of patients are sealed up in one envelope, which is receipted for by the surgeon of the hospital to which the patients are sent.

No patient is transferred from a hospital in a critical condition if it can be avoided. But sometimes this is necessary, as it was following the Jutland Battle. Then the most serious cases were held in the hospitals; while, where it was possible, hundreds of cases were despatched to inst.i.tutions at other ports.

The route of these ambulance trains may differ every round trip. One ambulance train may go to the North of Scotland, while the next one will only go to Glasgow or Edinburgh if there is no call further north. The wonderful organisation not only undertakes to relieve hospitals, but also to ship the patients to inst.i.tutions unlikely to be suddenly burdened with many cases; and consideration is also given as to where the patient can receive the best attention, such as in southern hospitals.

Fleet-Surgeon A. Stanley Nance is the Medical Transport Officer for Scotland. He is ever on the alert for what is going on in the hospitals in his territory. In the event of a great sea conflict, he receives orders from Sir James Porter and information concerning all the trains which are by that time racing to the ports nearest to the scene of the engagement.

In London, the Medical Transport Officer can place his finger on a railroad map at any time and tell within a mile or so where his trains are. If by any possible chance they are delayed he receives word from the train surgeons.

Knowing the probability of further engagements in the North Sea, quite a number of wealthy private individuals have interested themselves in the hospitals on the East Coast from north to south. And these persons take especial interest in the trains, many of them making it a point to be at the railroad station whenever a Royal Naval Ambulance train pulls in. What with sick men and accidents, the trains now and again may have a full quota of patients without there having been a fleet engagement.

In war time no man who is not physically fit is kept aboard ship, for he may not take up another man's place without being able to perform his work.

Exigencies of war have caused the speedy transformation of buildings in many parts of England into hospitals. There also are inst.i.tutions constructed in temporary form, architecturally not works of art, but wonderfully useful. The surgeons at these latter places have wrought marvels in obtaining good light in the wards and operating-rooms, and creating a comfortable atmosphere in the exteriorly dingy places.

The starting-point or headquarters of the ambulance trains is in the South, and when they plough their way North they carry no patients. The complement of these trains is from forty to fifty hands, and they all look upon the train as a ship, and use sailors' terms. It is the "Sick Bay Express."

IX. A RUN IN A ROYAL NAVAL AMBULANCE TRAIN

I obtained permission to make a "voyage" in an ambulance train.

On a grey, drizzling morning one of the Royal Naval trains glided into a siding at Queensferry--a dozen miles from Edinburgh. In less than ten minutes six hefty stretcher-bearers steadily and silently bore the first cot patient from a waiting ambulance to the war-coloured train. Cot then followed cot with precision, only two of the patients being in the open at a time; and as quickly as mortals could accomplish it these cots were set swinging in the "eyes" set for the lanyards.

Being about half-past eight o'clock, n.o.body had much to say. The faces of the sick and wounded bluejackets told you nothing as they lazily gazed around them while being hoisted into the hospital train. They looked like men sewed into white sailcloth sacks. Surgeons, with two and three gold stripes, between which runs the red--blood red, some say--denoting their department in the Navy, glanced occasionally at the patients.

"Carry on, there," then came from the R.N.V.R. lieutenant in charge of the stretcher-bearers, when one of the coaches had received its quota of sick and wounded. Then the sliding doors of the next coach yawned for its measure of sick men, who presented an interesting rather than a pathetic picture, for every bluejacket wore his cap, looking like a sailor who had gone to bed with his clothes on. That cap travels with him like his papers. The bluejacket has many important things which he conceals in it, and the most important of all is his package of "gaspers," as he terms his particular brand of cigarettes. The cap is placed firmly on his head, and occasionally a flannelled arm protruded from the cot. No moan or groan escaped from these plucky patients, for the sailor always lives up to the traditions of the Royal Navy.

From one of the cots there showed a head covered in bandages with only two small openings for the patient's eyes. His cap was on his bed. As this sailor was being hoisted into the train a deep voice came from the bed:--

"Mind yer eye, Bill, or yer'll get yer feet wet."

Bill was a "sitting case." He had come up on the same ambulance as his pal. He had been in the same fo'castle and had been hurt in the same accident. And now they were going aboard the same train to the same port. Bill paid little heed at that moment to his chum as he picked his way through the water and mud. His right arm was in a sling and the comforting cigarette between his teeth. Standing on the last rung of the little ladder before going into the car, I heard him say to another sailor:--

"She's over yonder. Bye-bye for the present."

His cap came off as he looked in the direction of the great deep water where lay the hazy forms of ships. Others looked, but said nothing about the sailor doffing his cap to his grey-steel sweetheart who had weathered the fight against odds.

"That makes 110," said the train surgeon. "Six, four, seventy-three, twenty-seven--what?"

The first two numerals denote officers, sitting and cot cases, and the latter two those of the men.

"Right-o," quoth the officer of the stretcher-bearers.

Soon the grey train steamed out, with orders to make a stop for a couple of cot cases in Edinburgh. In the Waverley Station a few minutes later the train took aboard the patients, and then sped on south.

Before "she" had been under way very long, the surgeon in charge and his a.s.sistant walked through the coaches, observing the cases on board and noting whether any of them needed any special attention.

At noon the cooks and stewards were hustling, giving food to men who, I supposed, would only require toast and beef-tea. But it takes a lot to make a bluejacket lose his hunger.

"They're all 'Oliver Twists,'" declared the train surgeon.

Now, there is nothing that a sailor of His Majesty's Navy likes so much to look at as a pretty girl. Hence it was not surprising when I heard a voice from one of the cots, after the train had stopped at Newcastle, in enthusiastic tones blurt out:--