With our Fighting Men Part 16

"'What price this little lot, doctor? '--and the querist indicates where the bullet entered his thigh. 'And me futball leg, too!' growled another one, brought in dripping one night. 'And who will do the schorin' fur the ould tame now? All the same, sir, I sch.o.r.ed ag'in'

the man that did this, or wan av his side.' Man, they're wonderful!

They tell us, under the nervous stress in which we usually find them, some things that have made me wish to lay my eye to the sights of a rifle, despite my bay windows. They tell them in such a matter-of-course fashion, too, that they simply sink in.

"'When did you get this?' I asked a man wounded in both thighs.

"'Yesterday morning, at eight, sir; chargin'. Dropped between their trenches an' ours. Half a dozen of others there too, all wounded, lay there all day. Those snipers poured lead into anything that showed signs of life. Chap next to me was badly hit, and inclined to move. I warned him twice to lie flat an' not squirm, as the Germans were watchin' for every move, an' would plug him, wounded or not. He stuck it steady for four hours. Then he tried to roll over, an' showed a shoulder. Got it. Soon's the snipers couldn't see me after dark, I started to drag myself back, an' met some of the boys out to look for us. It was more than seven to one against us that day.' And so it goes on.

"It's a great experience this. As a surgeon, I know its value. But I wish it was over. It's awful. The stream of wounded seems unceasing, and sometimes I ask myself, when I've time to realise it at all, how long I will be able to meet this strain. We must do our work, however, and I'm proud to do it for those grand men the Tommies."

It is, of course, difficult to single out for mention the names of doctors who are doing this heroic work at Regimental Aid Posts and Dressing Stations. Where all are heroic particular mention would be invidious. There is, however, one outstanding name--Lieutenant Arthur Martin Leake, R.A.M.C. I mention him because he has been the recipient of a unique distinction. He served through the South African War and there won the V.C. for conspicuous bravery. Having won the V.C. it could not be given to him again, and so a clasp has been added to the Cross.

The brief official record is as follows:

"Lieutenant Arthur Martin Leake, Royal Army Medical Corps, who was awarded the Victoria Cross on May 13, 1902, is granted a clasp for conspicuous bravery in the present campaign.

"For most conspicuous bravery and devotion to duty throughout the campaign, especially during the period October 29 to November 8, 1914, near Zonnebeke, in rescuing while exposed to constant fire a large number of the wounded who were lying close to the enemy's trenches."

So far as I know this honour is unique. Probably Lieutenant Leake would say that he is no braver than scores of other doctors who are n.o.bly doing their work at the front, but he has had his opportunity and he has used it, and by so doing has brought honour upon the whole medical profession. Great is the man who fearlessly "takes occasion by the hand" in the cause of humanity.

When all that can be done for the men at the clearing hospitals is accomplished, they are despatched to the rear. Those who, in the opinion of the medical staff, can bear the journey to this country are despatched thither direct via hospital train and hospital ship. The majority, however, are taken to the base hospitals, where they lie until they are well enough to be sent home, or death eases them of their pain.

In the early days of the war this transit to the base was difficult in the extreme, and the wounded arrived there in a shocking condition.

It is as well, perhaps, that we should know what really happened, so I copy a paragraph from _Guy's Hospital Gazette_ of November 7, 1914. It is from a letter signed "G.H.F.G."

"The train has just arrived and even now some few wounded are being removed from the waggons, the gravest of all being given treatment in an improvised hospital by the sidings, others less serious, though bad enough in all conscience, are carried on stretchers to the central goods shed, where the commandant, aided by a large staff of excitable, bearded a.s.sistants, directs to what hospital they are to be sent.

"For some minutes we watch the unloading of these waggons. Preceded by orderlies the officer pa.s.ses from door to door, entering some, and questioning briefly the men lying full length or sitting in what comfort they can upon the straw-covered boards. As the panel slides back a fetid odour of pus reaches the nostrils; startled by the unexpected brightness a couple of horses tethered at one end of the truck stamp and whinney. Carrying an acetylene flare, which makes weird effects of chiaroscuro on the bare walls and floor, an orderly comes in and collects the histories of the men. One man, wounded in the head, persists in taking him for a German, the others laugh and point to their foreheads. A little further on, in second and third-cla.s.s carriages, men with arms in slings, and less serious body wounds, crowd in the corridors and clamour for food and drink."

What wonder after this that we are told that most of the wounds received in those early days were septic on their arrival at the base hospital?

How different it all is at the present time! Now well-appointed hospital trains move backwards and forwards from the clearing hospitals to the base. For the first time we enter the nurse's sphere.

Everything changes when the nurse appears upon the scene. She loves order. Cleanliness is her life. She is trained in all the little arts of nursing which bring comfort and peace. She can do what no man can do. The doctor is splendid at his own special work, the stretcher-bearer, the ambulance man, and the hospital orderly at his.

But it remains for women to do what man can never do, and with her light touch, and tender sympathy, to soothe and comfort and bless.

When pain and anguish wring the brow A ministering angel thou.

The hospital trains are called "Kitchener's trains"--another tribute to the great man who, from his room at the War Office, seems to overlook everything and forget nothing.

Miss Beardshaw, writing to her old hospital--Guy's--gives a description of one of these hospital trains well worth reproduction here.

"Ours is known as the 'Khaki Train '--a Kitchener's Train; it is half Great Eastern and half L.N.W. There are 220 beds, stretcher ones, two layers. In between each carriage is a little department, a place for plates, mugs, dressings, &c. The officers' and sisters' part is at one end with their kitchen. Dispensary in the middle. Patients' kitchen and orderlies' quarters at the other end. There are three medical officers, one army sister in charge of wards A and B and the general run of all our work. I have C, D, and E wards, and Miss Wilson has F, G, H; a 'London' nurse has the three others. The army sister is an old Guy's, so I think we shall be very happy together. There are forty-five orderlies. The paint of the train white, bed frames dark red, curtains green, and blankets dark brown, so the general effect is very pretty. It is kept most beautifully clean, and the orderlies are very proud of their train--the best on the line, they say. We go up and down to the clearing station, so I am greatly looking forward to seeing Sisters Kiddle and Ames. I do hope they will not be moved before we get there. We often take convalescent patients about, often to Havre. Have been between Havre and Rouen twice these last few days."

What a picture this gives us of organisation at its best! "Beautifully clean!" Surely this is just what is needed, and we cannot wonder that over sixty per cent. of the wounded are able ere long to return to the firing line.

4. And then after the journey in the hospital train _de luxe_, there is the _Base Hospital_, with everything in perfect order, and all that can be done for the wounded men. I have written about the work in the base hospitals in the chapter on "Work at the Fighting Base." It is not necessary, therefore, that I should linger here. I will, however, add a tribute which the Rev. R. Hall (Wesleyan) pays to the nursing sisters. Says Mr. Hall:

"I must say a word about the nursing sisters. No braver and truer women ever lived, kind and gentle and brave in the face of disease and death. By day and night they watch and care for our comrades; many a lad's dying hours are made more comfortable by the gentle touch and loving word of these devoted women.

"I heard one day that in another hospital seven miles away one of our own men was dying. I went over and found that he was isolated; he was dying of an infectious disease. He was in great agony. A sister stood beside him, and was trying to comfort him and ease his pain, at the same time the tears flowed freely down her cheeks.

"I have been profoundly impressed by the work of this branch of the Service. We forget sometimes that it is easier to face the sh.e.l.l and the bullet in the excitement of battle than it is to watch hour by hour and tend to those who are suffering from some deadly infectious disease, or from some ghastly wound received in battle."

Mr. Hall's tribute is surely well earned. In this war woman has been as brave as man or braver. She has given of her best and dearest, she has worked and prayed and endured. And away out there among our wounded and dying, far from the excitement of battle, by day and by night she has given herself--all she is and all she has--to the service of her country. And in doing so she has earned the undying grat.i.tude of those to whom she has ministered, and of the land she loves so well.

I turn now to consider another branch of Red Cross work at the front--the treatment and prevention of disease.

This has been the "healthiest" war ever undertaken by the British Army. The great problem of all armies is how to keep out infectious disease, and never before has the problem been solved. If still not completely solved, it is certainly in the fair way to solution.

In the campaigns of the forty years previous to this war the proportion of sick to wounded was twenty-five to one, and of deaths through disease to death by shot, sh.e.l.l, or bayonet, five to one. In the South African War the proportion of sick to wounded was over four to one. We all remember the terrible share that enteric had in the wastage of that campaign. How the soldiers dreaded it. "Better," they used to say, "three wounds then one enteric."

Now enteric has almost entirely disappeared. Speaking in February 1915 the Under Secretary of State for War said that so far during the campaign there had been only six hundred and twenty-five cases in the British Expeditionary Force and of these only forty-nine had died--a percentage of deaths less than half as great as that among the victims of typhoid in the forces still in this country.

Of typhus and cholera there had not been a single case. Strange to say, one hundred and seventy-five of the men had had measles, and among these there had been two deaths. One hundred and ninety-six men had had scarlet-fever and there had been four deaths. How far the healthiness of the climate affects these figures it is difficult to say, but it must be remembered that it has been a terribly wet winter.

How far inoculation against typhoid has prevented the disease is also an interesting question. The doctors have a note of victory in all their statements on this subject, and the figures seem to justify their satisfaction.

Certainly preventive measures have counted for much. Early in the war the medical officers of the various ambulances acted, so far as time permitted, as sanitary officers, and in later days a well-organised Sanitary Section has accomplished great things. The cleansing of camps, the appointments of sanitary offices, the provision of baths, and, generally, every possible attention to hygiene, have kept our men exceptionally free from sickness, and no praise can be too high for the men who have accomplished so much for the British soldier.

[Ill.u.s.tration: ON THE MARNE.

The pet dog of a French regiment finds wounded soldiers and brings the stretcher-bearers to them. This dog has learnt to dig himself a hole when firing is going on.

_Drawn by E. Matania._]

On the other hand, of frost-bite there have been over nine thousand cases. It is questionable, however, if the vast majority of these cases are really cases of frost-bite. Medical opinion inclines to the view that most of these are a new disease known as trench foot, caused by standing in the trenches with putties too tight and boots too small.

_Guy's Hospital Gazette_ publishes some remarkable figures. "On one occasion a rifle brigade after marching fifteen miles went at once into the trenches, and within forty-eight hours, over four hundred were incapacitated through the foot trouble described in this report.

One hundred and eighty men of the Cameron Highlanders were in the trenches without being relieved for eight days and only three suffered from slight frost-bite. None of them wore anything upon their legs and feet, except boots, which may explain the sparsity of cases."

If this be so, then frost-bite of this description is also largely preventable, and the recommendation of the doctors as to large, easy fitting, and water-tight boots, less tightly bound putties, &c., will prevent most of this trouble in future.

On the whole, the country can congratulate itself very heartily on the n.o.ble and successful work of the various Red Cross departments. The doctors who have sacrificed their lives will not be forgotten, and will be regarded as heroic as any officers who have led a charge from the trenches. The nurses have earned a debt of grat.i.tude we can never repay. Nursing efficiency has gone far since "Our Lady of the Lamp"

moved with such tender dignity up and down the wards in the hospital at Scutari. We would pay our tribute of admiration to the work of our nurses in this war, and say, "Many daughters have done virtuously, but thou--thou modern lady of the lamp--excellest them all."

I must not close this chapter without a word about the well-appointed hospital ships which ply backwards and forwards between the French and British coasts, each with its doctors, nurses, and chaplains on board, bearing a freight of suffering humanity, such as our coasts have never seen before. Everything in order, everything in the way of comfort and ease provided. It was a dastardly act to aim a German torpedo against the _Asturias_. Fortunately the attempt failed, but what profit would it have been if this life-giving ship had been sunk? Enough surely has been done to take life. The object of such ships as these--ships which cannot be mistaken for any others--is to woo back to life, until their suffering humanity can be tenderly placed in the care of loving hands and hearts at home. Here we are waiting for them, and here we have a right to expect them, that, nursed back to health in the hospitals of our land, they may, by and by, greet wife, and mother, and child, and sweetheart in their own homes once more.

But oh the cruel work of war! The legacy of broken bodies and broken hearts! We look on, and look up to the City of G.o.d even now coming down from G.o.d out of heaven. _Sursum corda!_ The hour of redemption draweth nigh.

CHAPTER IX

WITH THE GRAND FLEET

Always "Ready, Aye Ready"--The Deciding Factor--One Hundred and Fifty Chaplains--On the "Bulwark"--"The Church Pennant"

Postponed--Sunday on a Battleship--The Sailor and the Thought of Death--Stories from the Fleet--From a Torpedo-boat--The Sh.o.r.e Chaplain's Opportunity--Christian Bravery--"Save Yourself; I'll let go."