The Black Watch Part 12

Five minutes more elapsed. Then a head bobbed up at the same spot we had been watching, and out of the trench came--the selfsame Tommy. He was carrying something in his hand. My eyes kept steady on him until he reached his own parapet, where he stood a moment flourishing this article; then, clasping it to him as if prizing it, he got down into the trench.

While he had stood there for a moment, his fellow trench-mates threw out their arms to take his precious bundle from him, but as I say, he seemed to hold tightly on to it. When I looked back at the place he had just left, the Germans were waving their helmets, with heads above the parapet.

It was Christmas all right! and we certainly got a Santa Claus surprise in watching these unusual proceedings.

They were getting bolder on both sides at this part of the line, and a few men began walking on their parapets, finally coming closer and then meeting men from the enemy trench. Then followed a football match with regimental shirts tied up. To see those Tommies charging with their shoulders and explaining the game to the Germans, who were not so well acquainted with it, was a Christmas festival in itself that will never be forgotten by those who witnessed it.

[We found out afterward that "Spud" Smith--who had just received a lovely "currant bun" from home and was overjoyed with it--was jumping round and making so much noise about it, that the fellows dared him to take it over to the Germans and wish them "A Merry Christmas." He at once threw off his equipment and made toward them, where he received his Christmas present in the form of a bottle of "schnapps." "Spud" Smith was the madcap of his regiment.]

A few minutes after midnight, we were brought back to war again by the Germans sh.e.l.ling us all along the line.

Everything was tolerably quiet, with the exception of an occasional sh.e.l.ling from either side, until New Year's Eve, when an infernal row got up and on New Year's Day we had about one hundred and thirty casualties.

The sh.e.l.ling grew worse, and we discovered that the Saxons had been relieved by the Prussians. Twice they charged us in ma.s.s formation, and we were forced to retire to our second-line trenches. It was their idea and intention to break through our lines to get to Calais in time for the Kaiser's birthday. This was the beginning of their big drive. Although we got a severe cutting up, we managed to hold all the ground we had, despite their ma.s.s formation, which is a stern and dreadful thing to face.

One morning, about the middle of January, the coal boxes, Jack Johnsons and Black Marias were just simply shaking the earth. The German airplanes had been very active these last few days, and it seemed they were giving their heavy artillery the proper range on our lines. The Jack Johnsons were landing to the right of our regiment and were gradually working their way up toward us. We could see them tearing up parts of the trenches--smashing up men, whose limbs were sent flying up through the air. The sight was really too frightful to recall.

Orders were given that the Black Watch should stand to its post and that no man was to retire. But as the heavy sh.e.l.ls drew nearer, smashing everything up, they proved too much for the recruits who had joined us only within the last few days, and they made for the reserve trenches. By this time the Germans were beginning to make their advance in waves. Word was pa.s.sed along that our regiment should retire to its reserve trenches, but it came too late for a few of us,--as we were already pumping it into the Germans. Those who had retired were firing over our heads at the advancing Huns, thus making it dangerous for us to withdraw.

Just as I had made up my mind that we must get back somehow, Sergeant Johnstone crept to my side and said; "Ca.s.sells, let's stick it out. This might last only a few minutes more and then it'll be all right again."

"All right, Johnstone," I said; and we shook hands.

Our own sh.e.l.ls were bursting so close to our front that they were showering us with earth and stones.

I saw the nearest Germans about a couple of hundred yards away.

Then suddenly a dark curtain dropped before my eyes.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

I seemed to awake from a long sleep, only to discover that instead of being in a trench or a billet I was in a hospital; one of the kind made of canvas. There were two great marquee tents, with nurses flitting about quietly--like angels they seemed to me, for the moment.

The pain that racked my body was awful. I lay there trying to determine in what part of me the pain was located but it seemed to be all over me. I noticed that either a nurse or an orderly was constantly in attendance at my cot.

As my comprehension of things about me became clearer, I realized that my neighbour was a German. His moaning, coupled with his muttering of "_Ach, mein Gott in Himmel!_" got on my nerves, but I decided to say nothing, as I had not yet learned whether it was an enemy hospital or one of our own.

I decided that if it was the former, the quietest way to die was the best, if die I must. During one of the moaning spells of my neighbour, I seemed to lose consciousness. When I "came back," a soft voice whispered in my ear: "It's all right; keep still; we are only taking a plate of your leg."

An _English_ voice!--and with such kindness in it! Our own hospital! Not a prisoner! I just wanted to cry out, from sheer happiness.

When next I found myself in my cot, that awful pain was unnerving me, but the doctor, Captain Allen, a.s.sured me that I would be all right after a few weeks' rest in Blighty. I immediately asked when I was to go. His reply was: "When your temperature goes down. It has been 104 for about a week."

I said I would like to write home, and my soft-voiced nurse thereupon brought me paper and envelope. I moved to extend my right hand for the paper, and with dismay found it in splints and bandages, with a strong resemblance to a huge boxing glove. Quickly I glanced at the left hand, to find with relief that it, at least, was whole.

I had of course never learned to use my left hand for writing. Observing my need of a.s.sistance, the nurse sat on the edge of my bed and took pen and paper to write for me. I had not even to ask her to do this service.

The tears came into my eyes at her willing, quiet helpfulness.

After she had finished writing my letter, I asked her about my condition.

She seemed reluctant to tell me, but as I urged her to do so she finally said:

"Your leg will probably have to be amputated, as it has been completely turned round and the knee badly shattered. Some splinters of sh.e.l.l still remain in it."

She left me--but not for long. She had gone for the plate with the impression of my knee. This she held up to what light could get through the roof of the yellow canvas, and the picture I saw quite startled me. I counted four little black specks around the joint, and to one piece in particular she called my attention. It was about the size of a one-carat diamond pointed at both ends and was embedded in the knee cap. This tiny object was giving me nearly all of my pain.

The medical officer on his rounds approached us and greeted me with "You certainly had a miraculous escape."

Later, one of my mates in the hospital, who was with my regiment, told me how I got mine. He had witnessed it. A Jack Johnson striking about fifteen yards in front of the trench I was in, exploded, caving the trench in for a length of about thirty yards. I, with Sergeant Johnstone, who had come up the previous day with reinforcements, was buried completely. Then the Germans charged over the trench at our fellows, who retired to their reserve trenches. However, the enemy was repulsed and had to retire to their own lines again. This fight started about 2 P.M., and it was not until about nine o'clock that night that our company came up and began to re-open the trench. It seems that one fellow was about to use his pick when another close by with a shovel noticed something in the form of a head. He stayed the hand with the pick just in time. It was a head--and mine at that. They completely unearthed me, and, as I looked to be dead, placed me to one side with a waterproof sheet over me, to be buried later.

Luckily enough, a medical officer examined me and found there was still a little life left. He used artificial respiration, put my legs in splints made up of empty ration boxes, bandaged my damaged right hand, and sent me to the Rouen Hospital, unconscious, but with a spark of life still in me.

Even after two weeks' stay in the hospital my condition was still very critical, but I had the courage and optimism peculiar to the Scot and my hopes for recovery endured stubbornly. The moans of my German neighbour, mixed with cries for "_Das Ei_," didn't allay my fever at all. No one knew what he wanted. Latterly one of our wounded fellows called the nurse over and suggested very earnestly that perhaps he had a gla.s.s eye and it needed some attention. The nurse at once examined his eyes, but found them all right.

However, the next medical officer on duty understood German and acquainted the nurse with the fact that the patient had been calling for an egg. He marked on his chart that he should be given two fresh eggs every morning.

This German was accorded first attention, while our own boys had to be content with being next in line. We could not kick, however, as the doctors and nurses stretched their ability to do for others to the utmost.

After our prisoner had had his hunger appeased with the "Ei," he seemed content to die, for that is just what he did. From what I could learn, his injury had been a bad one, a large piece of sh.e.l.l having pierced his chest.

I felt sure, when I saw him carried out, that my turn was next. Then I discovered that the number of my cot was _13_, so--recalling the many escapes from death I had had and how this number had been concerned in them, my hopes for recovery went soaring high.

Now I was recovering enough to take an interest in other cases in the ward, and one in particular, a Royal Irish Fusilier, in the cot opposite me. He had forty-eight bullet wounds in his body. He had already been in this ward six weeks, so I knew then I wasn't the worst case there. My temperature had now dropped to 100, and I was informed that an orderly would bring my clothes and get me ready for a journey. This meant Blighty!

A couple of the Royal Army Medical Corps men came into the tent and very gently laid me in a stretcher, then carried me out along narrow pathways bordered by neatly whitewashed stones and rows of double-linked marquee tents with similar neat arrangements of stones at the entrances. There seemed to be a city of tents on the Rouen _Champ de Course_ (race course), and outside of it too, as far as my eyes could see.

At the end farthest from the cook-house huts, I noticed a large boiler arrangement with a funnel sticking up at one end and on the door some large print, but I could not read the lettering. I asked one of the men what the object was. I was informed that it was used for disinfecting Tommy's clothes and exterminating the cooties that they sheltered. Tommy gets a change to hospital clothing as soon as he enters the base hospital.

On taking a second look at the sign, I made out "Germ-Hun Exterminator."

So when Tommy gets his clothes out of "dock" (hospital), and grumbles at the R. A. M. C. orderlies when he finds his collection of souvenirs depleted, they promptly put the blame on the "Germ-Hun."

As soon as I was placed in an ambulance, a tag was fastened to my lapel and I was ready for the road along with other lucky chaps. It seemed as if we were hardly settled when we arrived at the railway station. An ambulance train was waiting here for us, and before many minutes had elapsed we found ourselves en route for Le Havre. We arrived here the same night and were placed aboard the S.S. _Asturias_.

When we were about mid-channel, a torpedo from a German submarine just cleared the bow of our ship by a few feet. Even a hospital ship is a target for the missiles of the enemy.

We arrived next morning at Southampton without further occurrences of moment.

Each patient was asked where he wished to be sent. It was natural that each should give his home district. We were placed in rows in the large shed on the wharf, and our destination marked on our tickets. We were now ready for our next part of the journey.

Suddenly my attention was attracted by vigorous exclamations. From the patient in the stretcher next to me I heard vociferous "bly'me-ing" in a very strong c.o.c.kney accent. I asked the disturber what he was making all the row about.

"Bli' me," he said, "they've gawn an' gyve me a ticket to th' bloomink end o' Scotland!"

"Is it a mistake?" I asked.

"Mistyke!" said he. "Is it a mistyke? Hit's a mistyke that tykes in th'

whole bloomink ge-hography of Britain."

He communed with himself a moment in eloquent but inelegant language. Then he asked:

"Where've they ticketed you to, myte?"