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Title: A surgeon in khaki
Author: Arthur Anderson Martin
Release date: November 18, 2025 [eBook #77265]
Language: English
Original publication: New York, NY: Longmans, Green, & Co, 1915
Credits: Jamie Brydone-Jack and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive)
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A SURGEON IN KHAKI ***
A SURGEON IN KHAKI
[Illustration: THE AUTHOR OUTSIDE AMBULANCE HEADQUARTERS AT OUDERDOM.]
A
SURGEON IN KHAKI
BY
ARTHUR ANDERSON MARTIN
M.D., CH.B., F.R.C.S.ED.
SENIOR SURGEON, PALMERSTON NORTH HOSPITAL, NEW ZEALAND
LATE FIELD AMBULANCE, 5TH DIVISION, 2ND ARMY
LATE SURGICAL SPECIALIST, NO. 6 GENERAL HOSPITAL, ROUEN, FRANCE
BRITISH EXPEDITIONARY FORCE
LATE CIVIL SURGEON, SOUTH AFRICAN FIELD FORCE, 1901
WITH ILLUSTRATIONS
NEW YORK:
LONGMANS, GREEN & CO.
LONDON: EDWARD ARNOLD
1915
[_All rights reserved_]
_Printed in Great Britain_
PREFACE.
In the following pages an attempt is made to record, however imperfectly,
some of the scenes, and the impressions formed, during those great days
of 1914 when our army was fighting so stubbornly and against such odds in
France and Flanders.
The notes in many instances are disconnected, but the things seen
presented themselves in a disconnected way, and if they are not all
beautifully dovetailed one into another, they are at least given forth
somewhat in the way in which I viewed and received them myself.
During the actual progress of this war, and when the war is happily
over, much literature bearing on the great struggle will be produced,
but I venture to think that of the personal narrative and the personal
impression one cannot have too much.
The narrative includes my experiences at Le Havre, Harfleur, and the
battle of the Marne, the march to the Aisne, the wait on the Aisne, the
move across France to the new lines behind La Bassée, and the final move
to Flanders not far from Ypres.
ARTHUR A. MARTIN.
CONTENTS
CHAP. PAGE
I. FROM PEACE TO WAR 1
II. LE HAVRE AND HARFLEUR 15
III. FROM LE HAVRE TO THE BAY OF BISCAY 25
IV. FROM THE BAY OF BISCAY TO EAST OF PARIS 35
V. THE ADVANCE TO THE MARNE 44
VI. WHAT I SAW OF THE BATTLE OF THE MARNE 53
VII. THE NIGHT OF THE MARNE 59
VIII. FROM THE MARNE TO THE AISNE 65
IX. THE AISNE AND THE TRAGEDY OF THE SUNKEN ROAD 84
X. MISSY ON THE AISNE 90
XI. ON THE AISNE AT MONT DE SOISSONS 103
XII. FIELD AMBULANCES AND MILITARY HOSPITALS 124
XIII. GOOD-BYE TO THE AISNE 141
XIV. THE LA BASSÉE ROAD AT CHÂTEAU GORRE 164
XV. BETHUNE 171
XVI. SOME MEDICAL ODDS AND ENDS 202
XVII. WE LEAVE BETHUNE 221
XVIII. OVER THE BELGIAN FRONTIER 231
XIX. WE LEAVE BELGIUM 265
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
THE AUTHOR OUTSIDE AMBULANCE HEADQUARTERS AT OUDERDOM _Frontispiece_
FACING PAGE
A ROAD OBSTRUCTION NEAR HARFLEUR 18
HARFLEUR—OUR SLEEPING QUARTERS 18
TRANSPORT _CESTRIAN_ IN THE BAY OF BISCAY 32
THE _CESTRIAN_ AT ST. NAZAIRE 32
AMBULANCES AT THE MARNE 54
HALT AT SERCHES 84
GUN TEAMS AT THE MARNE 88
THE WAY TO THE SUNKEN ROAD 88
MONT DE SOISSONS, SHOWING THE OLD TEMPLARS’ HALL AND CHURCH 104
LOADING WOUNDED AT SOISSONS. THE FIRST MOTOR AMBULANCE ON THE AISNE 122
THE LEAN-TO AT SOISSONS. UNLOADING WOUNDED 122
CHÂTEAU OF LONGPONT 142
VILLAGE OF LONGPONT 142
ON THE ROAD TO COMPIÈGNE 148
COMPIÈGNE, SHOWING THE BROKEN BRIDGE 156
AMBULANCE CROSSING THE OISE ON A PONTOON BRIDGE 156
LOW FLAT GROUND NEAR THE CANAL, WITH A TRENCH 168
TOWARDS LA BASSÉE 168
SLIGHTLY WOUNDED AND SICK AT BETHUNE 176
ÉCOLE JULES FERRY AT BETHUNE 176
TRENCHES IN FLANDERS 198
MONSIGNOR DISTRIBUTING MEDALS TO BELGIAN SOLDIERS AT THE ROADSIDE 252
GOING TOWARDS THE TRENCHES AT YPRES 268
FRENCH SOLDIERS GOING TO THE TRENCHES 268
A SURGEON IN KHAKI.
CHAPTER I.
FROM PEACE TO WAR.
EARLY 1914.
In April 1914 I left my practice in New Zealand for a short tour through
the American, British, and Continental surgical clinics.
After having visited all the important clinics in the United States—the
famous Mayos of Rochester, Murphy’s at Chicago, Cushing’s at Boston, and
others at Cleveland, Baltimore, and Philadelphia, I finally arrived at
New York.
When visiting the clinic at the German hospital at Philadelphia, I, with
other visiting surgeons, principally Americans or German-Americans, was
invited to tea and cake, or cake and beer, in the reception-room of the
hospital.
As the day was very hot we all drank iced German lager beer, and, when
leaving the room, were presented with a gilt “wish-bones” holding ribbons
of the German national colours.
All of the American and German-American doctors wore the ribbons on
their coats, but I put mine in my pocket as a curio. I did not wish to be
thought to have German sympathies, although I had drunk their lager beer.
In New Zealand the Germans have never been appreciated as they have been
in England. Perhaps the air of the Pacific gives one a truer perspective
of some things as they are.
At New York I delayed sailing two days, in order to avoid a German boat,
and reached England by the Holland-American boat _Rotterdam_ in July.
We had on board the _Rotterdam_ a very large number of Germans, and as
usual they were chiefly noticeable for their great prowess at meals, and
for their noisy method of eating. They drank much “good German beer” and
filled the rooms with German smoke and German gutturals. They are not
attractive fellow-travellers.
On arriving in England I proceeded to Aberdeen, where the annual meeting
of the British Medical Association was being held, and to which I was a
delegate.
At Aberdeen we had a very large number of foreign representative surgeons
and physicians and men from nearly every part of the world. As usual
there were many Germans and a few Austrians.
We were struck by a very curious incident towards the end of the
meeting—last day of July. The president of the Association, Sir Alexander
Ogston, gave a reception to all the delegates from the British kindred
and affiliated associations, and to the foreign representatives. Although
the German and Austrian delegates had been about in the morning, not one
was present at the evening reception. They had all departed silently, and
had said good-bye to no one.
Germany and Austria had sent out their messages, and the medicals
returned with all speed.
We were then on the eve of war, but none of us at Aberdeen thought that
we would be in it, or that we were then rushing swiftly to great events.
The Austrian note to Serbia was being discussed. Germany’s action was
doubtful. Russia plainly said that she would not stand by and tamely see
Serbian Slavs humiliated by their powerful neighbours. In spite of the
cloudiness of the political atmosphere and the slight oppressiveness none
really expected lightning and thunder, or that any spirit would
In these confines with a monarch’s voice
Cry Havoc! and let slip the dogs of war.
On the 3rd August Sir Edward Grey, in the House of Commons, in a serious
speech, reviewed the European situation. With convincing eloquence he
showed how anxiously he had striven to maintain peace, and exactly
defined England’s attitude in certain possible contingencies.
The excitement all over the country was tremendous. The air was
electrical with coming events, a spark would set the firmament ablaze.
One could almost see the peoples of Russia, Germany, Austria, France,
Belgium and Serbia gaze questioningly, anxiously, across the Channel
at the Island Kingdom, and wondering in that tense moment, What would
England do?
Then flaring headlines in the press told that Liége, the great eastern
fortress and arsenal of Belgium, had been furiously bombarded by the
German artillery, and that Bethmann-Hollweg, the German Chancellor, had
declared that a solemn treaty guaranteeing the neutrality of Belgium was
of no more value than a scrap of paper.
Then England declared war against Germany, and on the 4th of August we
knew that England was to take her place in the titanic world-war and step
into the all-engulfing struggle.
So here it was at last. War with Germany! The restrained hostility of
years was now no longer concealed, the long-pent-up passions were now let
loose. Men seemed to breathe easier, and an air of relief pervaded the
country.
England was like a sick man after a consultation with the surgeons. He
looks eagerly and anxiously at the surgeons, hoping that no operation may
be necessary, but dreading and expecting that it may. Once told by them
that an operation is necessary in order that he may live, his doubts and
hesitation disappear, and he agrees to submit and to undergo the drastic
measures and emerge a strong and whole man. There is a relief that he has
decided and the mind becomes tranquil.
The gravity of the issue was realised in England in those early August
days. Those entitled to speak with authority pronounced that the war
would be a big war—the greatest since the beginning of time—and that the
men and women of our day and generation would have to pass through sorrow
and tribulation and wade through dark and troubled waters before the end
would be finally achieved.
The justness of England’s quarrel was everywhere acknowledged, except in
the land of the enemy, and the exposure of the tortuous and insidious
German diplomacy stirred up the English sense of straight dealing and
fairplay.
On 6th August I motored down from the Highlands to Edinburgh, through the
Pass of Killiecrankie and some of the loveliest scenery in Scotland.
Everywhere were signs of mobilisation. Khaki soldiers and “mufti”
recruits at every dépôt and around recruiting sergeants. The price of
petrol had suddenly risen—why, nobody quite knew, but somebody was making
money out of it, we were sure. At one town I paid ten shillings for a
two-gallon tin.
In the evening I reached Queensferry, but was not allowed to cross at
that hour. As the ferry would not be going again till next morning I
motored back to Dunfermline, and having stopped the night there, returned
early in the morning to the Ferry. This time I got across with my car.
The Firth of Forth presented a very busy scene that morning. Torpedo
boats and naval craft of all sorts and sizes were dashing about, and in
the distance were the large dark outlines of big ships of war.
From Queensferry a rapid run brought me to Edinburgh, where the whole
talk in hotel smoking-rooms, at table, and on the street, was of war.
The kilted soldier was looked at with more interest as he walked the
streets, and appeals were placarded on every prominent place for new
recruits.
The morning papers announced that the House of Commons had passed a war
vote of one hundred million pounds, and that Kitchener had asked for five
hundred thousand men to join the army.
The Cabinet, like a good physician, was giving the nation its medicine
in small doses during these early days. Doctors will tell you that small
doses frequently repeated are so much better than a big dose taken at
one wry mouthful, for a big heroic dose taken at one gulp often causes
nausea. The hundred million pounds and the five hundred thousand men made
the first teaspoonful of the national physic which was to help get rid of
the fatty degeneration and change our sleeping, sluggish strength into
the crouch and spring and hit of the prize fighter.
Next day I took train for London in order to offer my medical service
to the War Office. There was an urgent demand for surgeons to volunteer
for active service, and at this particular juncture good surgeons who
were free to go were not very plentiful. As I was on a tour of surgical
clinics at this time I decided to do my bit for the country and the men
in the field. Having nothing to do when I reached London that evening,
I strolled into a music hall and heard “God Save the King,” “Rule,
Britannia,” the “Marseillaise,” the Russian, Belgian, and Serbian
national hymns—all blared out to cheering and shouting crowds, who
seemed to thoroughly enjoy “being at war.” It was reminiscent of the days
of the Boer War in 1899:
“‘ALEA JACTA EST’—THE DIE IS CAST.”
Early next day I visited the Medical Department of the War Office at
Whitehall, and volunteered as a surgeon with the Expeditionary Army to
France. Two days afterwards the War Office sent me a note requesting me
to call at the office and be examined to see if I was physically fit. So
I did. The physical examination was carried out with amazing celerity,
and I was handed on as “fit.” The genial old army doctor appointed for
this duty of examining his younger colleagues made his diagnosis on sight
almost, and toyed easily with his stethoscope while he inquired about the
state of the teeth and the digestion.
I was then ushered into another office and was duly appointed a Temporary
Lieutenant in the Royal Army Medical Corps.
All the civilian surgeons accepted for service with the army—with the
exception of a few consulting surgeons—were given the rank of Temporary
Lieutenant. Seniority or special skill or previous war experience
mattered nothing. I had already served as a Civil Surgeon, attached
to the Royal Army Medical Corps during the South African War, and had
a medal and four clasps from that campaign, and since that period had
been surgeon to an important hospital in New Zealand, and was a retired
Captain in the New Zealand Medical Corps. That, however, did not entitle
me to hold any higher rank than the young medical man who had completed
his medical training only a week ago. Many able medical men all over the
country had voluntarily left lucrative practices and important surgical
and medical staff appointments in big London and provincial hospitals
and were enrolled as Lieutenants in the Royal Army Medical Corps, on the
same footing as junior medical men who had perhaps been their pupils but
a few weeks before. We all ranked below the regular officers of the Royal
Army Medical Corps. Volunteers for combatant commissions who had had
previous experience were given rank accordingly. Some discrimination was
made in the combatant arm, and rightly so. No discrimination was made in
the medical service, and undoubtedly that was a mistake. The same lack
of organised control was exhibited at every turn in the medical service.
Men with imperfect professional skill and experience were given duties
which should have been entrusted only to men fully possessed of those
qualifications. This criticism is not merely a destructive one. Criticism
is absolutely necessary at certain times, and there are some mistakes in
policy which should be freely ventilated. This same policy was pursued
by the Army Medical Department during the South African War, and was
very openly discussed. This led to drastic changes in the organisation
of the Royal Army Medical Corps, following on the Commission of Inquiry
set up by Mr. Brodrick (now Lord Midleton). In this war, I regret to say,
the old leaven has again appeared, and its re-appearance has aroused
considerable comment and been a cause of inefficiency.
After having been given my commission I was told to procure a uniform—Sam
Browne belt, a revolver, blankets, and other campaigning kit—and to be
prepared to move in forty-eight hours. With great difficulty I managed
to get some sort of equipment together. The military tailors were
working at high pressure, and when asked to make a coat or breeches in
a certain time simply said, “It can’t be done.” By skilful diplomacy I
got a coat in one place, a pair of riding breeches in another, puttees
at another, leggings elsewhere, and so on. One could not then obtain
khaki shirts or ties in London. I did not get a revolver, although this
was on the list of things necessary. Neither did I purchase a sword. Why
a medical officer should be asked to carry a sword and a revolver, and
at the same time wear a Red Cross brassard on the left arm, I am at a
loss to understand. I have asked many senior medical officers of what
use a revolver and sword were to a doctor on active service, and the
only reply I could get was that they were useful to defend the wounded.
It would have been much more sensible for the War Office to tell each
medical officer to get several pairs of rubber gloves for dressings and
operations. I sometimes wondered if the War Office expected the surgeons
to perform amputations with a sword. However, I did not get a revolver,
and I did not get a sword. Later on, in France, I have seen mild-looking
young surgeons arrive at the front armed to the teeth, with swords,
revolvers and ammunition, clanking spurs, map cases, field-glasses and
compasses strung all round them, and on their left arm the brassard with
the Red Cross. We called them “Christmas trees.”
At last my equipment was complete, and I received orders to go to
Aldershot and report to the Assistant Director of Medical Services for
duty.
I was now a “Surgeon in Khaki” and part of that great military hammer—the
British Expeditionary Force.
* * * * *
When I arrived at Aldershot the town seemed deserted. The majority of the
big barracks were empty. We were told that the British Army had just left
for the Continent, and that the Aldershot command, under General Haig,
had gone to a man. Aldershot was rapidly preparing to receive and train
recruits, mobilise reinforcements, and keep up a steady flow of men to
replace casualties. This was great news. When we left London we did not
know that the British Expeditionary Army had gone.
The A.D.M.S. (Assistant Director of Medical Services) put me on duty at
the Cambridge Military Hospital at Aldershot, while awaiting orders for
the front. Several surgeons awaiting orders were already here, and we
all billeted at the Victoria Hotel. We were soon at work examining and
passing recruits, inoculating troops against typhoid, and vaccinating all
who had no conscientious objections. Some had “conscientious” objections
to inoculation. Soldiers should not be allowed liberty of conscience in
these matters. They should be made immune against typhoid and smallpox at
“the word of command” in spite of the screechings of fanatics suffering
from distorted cerebration.
Our duty at the recruiting dépôts was a very amusing one. We here came in
contact with the first hopefuls of Kitchener’s new army. The first call
to arms generally brings in a very motley crowd. The best of the recruits
do not turn up during the first few days, as these have generally some
domestic or business matters to arrange. It was the “First Footers” we
got in these days at Aldershot.
Another medical officer and myself took over one dépôt. We arrived at
8.30 a.m. Standing in a straggling two-deep line before the dépôt door
were about three hundred men of the most variegated texture—some lean,
some fat, some smart, some unkempt, but all looking very cheerful and
hopeful. A smart R.A.M.C. sergeant is waiting at the door with a list of
their names. It is our duty to examine physically this first batch of
three hundred, to see if they are fit enough to train to fight Germans.
Ten men are marched into the dépôt. Each doctor takes five at a time.
At the word of command they strip and the doctor begins. He casts a
professional eye rapidly over the nude recruit. A general look like this
to a trained eye conveys a lot. The chest is examined, tongue, mouth,
and teeth looked at. The usual sites for rupture are examined. About
three questions are asked: “Any previous illness?” “Age?” “Previous
occupation?” A mark is placed against the name, the nude Briton is told
to clothe himself, and the examination is over. It is done at express
speed, and although the examination is not very thorough it is sufficient
to enable an experienced man to detect most physical defects. If a man
passed, he was put down for foreign service. Some had slight defects and
were put down for home defence. Some had glaring defects and were turned
down altogether. We had all sorts of derelicts turn up. One weary-looking
veteran, unwashed and with straw sticking in his hair, indicative of
a bed in a haystack the previous night, was blind in one eye and very
lame. A draper’s assistant from a London shop had a twisted spine, an
old soldier had syphilitic ulcers on the legs, some had bad hearts from
excessive smoking, some bad kidneys from excessive drinking, some young
men were really sexagenarians from hard living, and so on. They were old
men before their time. The occupations of our recruits were as diverse
as their shapes and constitutions—a runaway sailor, a Cockney coster, a
draper’s assistant, a sea cook, a medical student, a broken-down parson,
an obvious gaolbird, and a Sunday-school teacher.
“Cook’s son, duke’s son, son of a belted earl,
Son of a Lambeth publican, they’re all the same to-day.”
Before the doctor the son of a prize fighter makes a better showing than
the son of a consumptive bishop. We had orders not to be too strict with
our physical examination. We were not to turn a man down if he could be
usefully employed in any State service during the war. For instance,
many of the “weeds” amongst the young men, the cigarette victims, the
pasty-faced, flat-chested youths, those who had lived down dark alleys
and in unhygienic surroundings all their lives, were all capable of
being made into better men. Regular meals, plain food, good quarters,
baths, cleanliness and hard work, marching, drilling and gymnastics, made
these slouching, dull-eyed youths into active, smart men. They then held
their heads up, breathed the free air, lost their sullenness, and became
cheerful. Some of the recruits were not fit to be made into soldiers, and
work could always be found for them. There are so many openings for the
willing man at this time, be it cook’s assistant, mess servant, officer’s
servant, orderly, or bootmaker’s help.
It was always an interesting sight to see the sergeant and corporal
drill these clumsy recruits, and show them how to walk, and where to
place their feet. The army drill sergeant has a very caustic wit and a
wonderful fund of cutting comments. He knows his audience well, and with
a few crisp epithets can galvanise a sluggish recruit or a slouching
company into something instinct with alertness.
On 21st August, six surgeons, including myself, were ordered to hold
ourselves in readiness for service abroad. We were told to overhaul our
kits thoroughly, think out all necessary things, and not to have any
excessive baggage. None of us had. The Wolseley valise held our little
all.
The last good-byes were said, and at 4 p.m. we entrained at Aldershot
for our journey to “somewhere in France.” We were all very glad to be
off. We were all very curious to see and take part in the romance and
adventures of the great battles that we knew would be sure to take place.
Romance! Adventure! Very soon we were up against cold facts, and there
was no romance or pomp and circumstance then.
CHAPTER II.
LE HAVRE AND HARFLEUR.
At 12 p.m. we detrained at Southampton, hungry and thirsty. Owing to
lack of foresight we had had nothing to eat since breakfast. The night
was a beautiful one, and a voyage across channel sounded very inviting.
We marched our 350 R.A.M.C. orderlies on to our transport, the _Braemar
Castle_, and the officers tried to find a place to sleep. We managed to
get some corners in the smoking-room, and curled up as best we could in
the cramped places. The ship was packed full of troops, and we learned
that we were the first reinforcements for the Expeditionary Army. We had
two generals on board and the headquarter staff of a new division. Our
destination was to be Le Havre. At 2 a.m. we steamed out, followed by
several other transports crowded with soldiers. Torpedo-boat destroyers
kept watchful eyes on us across channel, and twice a huge searchlight
played all round us from far out at sea. The navy was watching on the
deep waters. The soldiers on board slept on the deck, on hatches,
anywhere, and they were all up and cheerfully carolling at dawn. When
a soldier wakes his first thought is for food, and at 5 a.m. they were
all discussing bully beef and biscuits. The ship’s cook had prepared
cauldrons of tea,—and Tommy loves tea. One wag after breakfast stood on
a hatch reciting, “Dearly beloved brethren, the Scripture moveth us in
sundry places,” to a congregation of grimy-faced soldiers.
At 12.30 midday we sighted Le Havre, and in two hours were tied alongside
the wharf. The disembarkation rapidly followed, and at 4 p.m. we were on
the march through Le Havre to our encampment. As we steamed into Le Havre
there was a scene of the wildest enthusiasm, and the whole harbour front
was a mass of cheering men and women and children. “Vive l’Angleterre!”
“Vive Tommy!” “Vive l’entente cordiale!” Flags and handkerchiefs were
waved from every window, and the picture of enthusiastic welcome was most
inspiring. Our men seemed to thoroughly enjoy it, and cheered and yelled
their throaty greetings as loudly and as heartily as the French. One
would call in a bull voice, “Are we downhearted?” and the reply, “No!”
from thousands of throats, echoed and reverberated over the sea front.
Then would come a piping voice, “Do we like beer?” followed by a
unanimous roar of “Yes.” The French welcome was a spontaneous and
enthusiastic one, and Le Havre, gay with bunting and twined flags,
shouted itself hoarse that day. I visited Le Havre some months later
and saw a crowded British transport arrive. There was no cheering, no
flags, no excitement. At the wharf was a big hospital ship, and wounded
soldiers were being carried aboard by stretcher-bearers. The French had,
since August, passed through some days of disappointment and despair, and
the German was still in France. The frenzied ecstasy of that welcome of
August, the gifts of flowers, of fruit, of wine were no longer there, but
deep down there was still the same welcome, unspoken but warm and sincere.
A dusty march of eight miles on a hot, blistering road brought us to our
camp at Harfleur. We were indeed on historic ground. Close by were the
remains of the old Castle of Harfleur that Henry V. and his men-at-arms
stormed in the long ago.
On this same field Henry is said to have addressed his soldiers:
“And you good yeomen,
Whose limbs were made in England, show us here
The mettle of your pasture; let us swear
That you are worth your breeding.”
It was on this field and at that time that old Bardolph said:
“Would I were in an alehouse in London.
I would give all my fame for a pot of ale and safety.”
So here again, in the twentieth century, were some thousands of good
yeomen whose limbs were made in England, and a pot of ale would have been
relished by all, for the day had been a thirsty one.
Our arrival at camp was not expected. The commandant seemed very
surprised to see us, but told us to make ourselves at home. We had no
kits, no blankets, no tents, no food—all had been left on the wharf—and
no hot water was procurable. We made a meal off our “iron rations,”
which consist of a small waterproof cover holding a tin of bully beef,
biscuits, pepper and salt and tea. Pipes were lit and we then lay down as
we were, under the lee of a haystack, and slept till bugle-call, when we
awoke, cold and damp with dew. The nights were very cold at this time and
the days terribly hot.
The camp at Harfleur had about five or six thousand men, composed of
representatives of all arms of the service—Highlanders, Guardsmen,
Engineers, and details from dozens of other regiments. We were
reinforcements. Rumours were coming through at this time that all was
not well with our army, and we were disquieted to hear that it was being
steadily pushed back and fighting desperately. The retirement of our army
occasioned anxiety at Le Havre, our principal base at that time, and
the reinforcements at Harfleur could not be joined up till the position
became clearer.
[Illustration: A ROAD OBSTRUCTION NEAR HARFLEUR.]
[Illustration: HARFLEUR—OUR SLEEPING QUARTERS.]
At Harfleur we got little authentic news. We lived on rumours, and some
of these were of the most extraordinary kind. There was one rumour
that came through, and the Tommies fully believed it. It was said that
the Germans cut off the right hand of every captured stretcher-bearer,
and killed every prisoner of the combatant rank. Our men were quite
determined to die fighting, and the stretcher-bearers asked for guns. The
day after our arrival in camp we were given tents, and these were pitched
in the morning. Twelve men were put to each tent, but blankets were few
and we could only give four blankets to each tent. Next day the tents
were struck and packed away for some unknown reason, and that night we
all had to sleep in the open. The officers’ kits arrived on the second
day, and on the fourth day we were told to take from them only what
was absolutely necessary. It was said that our kits were to be either
packed away or burned. It was said also that the whole camp equipment,
tents, blankets, etc., were to be burned. Later in the day this order was
countermanded and we again took possession of our kits. We guessed from
all these various orders that the position at the front was uncertain,
and, as history has since shown, such was the case. On our fourth day at
Harfleur a flying man arrived in his aeroplane from England, and we all
crowded round to know what the latest news was. He had none to give, but
told us that he had flown over a part of the German army. I think that
he brought some important information, for that afternoon the whole camp
was set to work digging trenches right across the front of the camp. We
had more rumours of “tremendous British losses,” “breakdown of French
mobilisation,” “stubborn fighting,” but nothing authentic reached us.
However, work proceeded feverishly in the camp. Harfleur was on the main
road leading from the north to Le Havre. It was said that the Germans
were advancing, and this was true. A raiding force of 20,000 men—one
German division—of cavalry, gunners, and infantry—the latter on fast
motor-lorries—was certainly moving on Le Havre, and the intention was to
destroy the British base dépôt, burn our huge stores, and capture and
sink all the shipping and blow up the railways. Our camp was to delay
this raid till the French could move up some divisions. Accordingly,
lines of trenches were dug across the turnip fields and meadows. The
farmhouses were surrounded by trenches and put into a state of defence.
The doctors and stretcher-bearers were ordered to occupy an orchard about
500 yards in rear of the trenches. There was an extraordinary resemblance
between one old farmhouse adjoining the camp and the famous farmhouse
of Hougoumont at Waterloo. There was an old chapel in the centre of the
farm, near to the big two-storied stone dwelling. Behind the chapel
were the wine cellars and stables. To the right of the house was a long
orchard surrounded by a stone wall about 5 feet high. The farmhouse and
farmyard were surrounded by a high stone wall. Also there was a big
gateway as at Hougoumont. Inside and lining the stone walls were tall
pine trees. Our men soon began to make some alterations in the quaint old
Norman place. The lower branches of the trees were lopped off. Trenches
were made inside the stone wall and stones were pulled out of the base
for loopholes for rifles, so that our men could lie in the ditch and fire
through the bottom of the wall. The same thing was done in the orchard,
and men of the Rifle Brigade were told off to line its walls when the
time came. This farm, if exposed to artillery, of course would have been
a death-trap, but against infantry or cavalry would have been a very
hornet’s nest for the enemy to attack. The gateways were pulled down,
barricades were placed across the gaps, and machine-guns controlled the
angles and were able to sweep the open spaces, should a rush be made,
with a hail of lead.
All was ready for a second Hougoumont, and the picture was completed by
the old farmer’s wife, who was ordered to leave the farm, but who firmly
refused to budge. Had the Germans come, like her ancient prototype on
that June day at Waterloo, she would most likely have taken shelter at
the foot of the cross in the chapel.
But the Germans did not come, and history is deprived of a moving and
stirring story.
It was tragic but ludicrous to see the blank despair and consternation
on the face of the old farmer when we started to lop down some of his
trees, dig trenches round his farm and through his turnip fields. Knowing
very little about the war, and only vaguely interested in the invasion
of France, he was deeply concerned about his turnips and his trees.
Everything, however, was put right for him before we left.
When all our preparations for defence were complete two German aeroplanes
passed over us going towards Le Havre. Here they were fired on, and they
then returned to have a further look at Harfleur and circled slowly over
our camp. As we had no aircraft guns they descended fairly low, and I
think must have seen everything there was to see. We had field-glasses
out and could easily discern the black cross painted on the wings of the
Taube.
So there we were in our trenches commanding the roads to Le Havre, with a
Hougoumont and an orchard, and stone walls lined with riflemen. History,
so far, has not recorded how we “held the gate” to Le Havre without
firing a shot and without losing a man, but I am sure that it was our
preparations, seen by the enemy aeroplanes, that deterred the Germans
from coming on. It was a raiding German force, and a raiding force has no
time to tackle defences and strongly held positions. A brigade of French
cavalry moved across our front and rode as a big cavalry screen towards
the advancing raiders. Fifteen thousand French troops followed them; and
when twelve miles from our camp the Germans turned back, the menace was
over, and we breathed again.
A fast scouting motor-car containing three Prussian officers ran headlong
into a barricade cleverly placed across a road about ten miles from
Harfleur. A ditch, broad but shallow, was made across the road near a
curve, and artfully concealed with gravel laid on thin planking across
the top. The car rushed right on to this and was upset. Some concealed
French cavalry then rode up and captured the party.
The French officer who made the capture told me that the German officers
were livid with anger when he and his men rode up with drawn sabres.
One of the German officers had a revolver in his hand, which he flung
violently at the head of the chauffeur.
This defence of the road at Harfleur was one of those minor incidents
of the war which has been forgotten or ignored in the swirl of the big
happenings at that time. The situation of Le Havre and Harfleur was then
one of grave peril and gave rise to considerable anxiety. One need not
have been on the spot to grasp the dangerous possibilities. Our defence
of Harfleur ended tamely. We were told one day that Lord Kitchener was at
Le Havre and had ordered the evacuation of the big base by the British.
That night we were ordered by our commandant to strike the camp, move
into Le Havre, and embark on transports for a destination unknown.
The day before we left Le Havre some British stragglers from our
retreating army turned up in camp. About twenty-five dirty, grimy,
footsore men, with unkempt hair and stubbly beards, wandered in and told
us that they had lost their regiments and their way after Mons. Since
then they had been gipsying through France towards the coast. Sometimes
they got a lift on a farmer’s cart, but mostly they walked. They said
that the French people had treated them very well, and they certainly
did not look hungry. As usual, they told most harrowing tales. One man
said that the whole army had been captured by an army of twenty million
Germans!
On the morning of our last day at Harfleur we were all thrilled by the
visit of a German spy. I have said previously that when the trenches were
being dug at Harfleur the medical detachment was sent to an orchard in
the rear. A road led past the gate of this orchard. At the gateway we had
two of our men on sentry-go. Farther down the road was a French sentry
with a fixed bayonet. At 3 a.m. a powerful two-seater automobile dashed
up this road and pulled up at the gateway. The driver had on a heavy
khaki motor overcoat and a khaki cap. His face was muffled in a khaki
scarf. An officer, also in khaki, stepped out and began questioning our
men at the gate. He asked how many men were in the camp; were there any
big guns, and where were they? Had any ammunition been brought up that
day? Our sentries were heavy north-countrymen, recently enlisted, and did
not tumble to the fact that it was an unusual thing for a British officer
to put such questions to a private on sentry-go. The officer then got on
his car and went back in the direction of Le Havre. We were all agreed
that the strange officer was a spy dressed up to look like a British
officer. The French told us that Le Havre was full of spies at this time,
and that they had made many arrests of suspects.
CHAPTER III.
FROM LE HAVRE TO THE BAY OF BISCAY.
We knew that serious events must have happened when K. of K. had
personally visited Le Havre and had ordered its evacuation. It was
Napoleon who said that it was a disastrous thing to attempt to change
an army’s base during the actual progress of a war. But in this war
old maxims and trite sayings go by the board. Anyone having the most
elementary knowledge of war, and what an army in the field signifies,
will agree that even if changing a base may not lead to disaster, it is
nevertheless a very formidable and a very risky move. Le Havre at this
time was a huge base from which our army in the field was receiving its
supplies. Transports conveying all the necessaries for a fighting army
unloaded their cargoes on its wharves. From there the supplies were sent
by train to the advanced base in the centre of France, and from there
onward to the various refilling stations. The destruction of Le Havre, or
its temporary loss as a base, would have been a calamity. The army would
have ceased to receive food, waggons, ammunition and equipment, guns,
horses, forage, reinforcements, hospital supplies, etc. An army without
ammunition and food is no longer of any fighting value. Think also of
the quantities of material necessary to supply an army of 70,000 men, and
this will give some idea of the immense war dépôt Le Havre was at this
time. Circumstances must have indeed been serious to have necessitated a
change of base. It meant also that the railway arrangements so carefully
thought out, and which had so far been in operation, would have to be
suddenly changed. Supply trains would have to be sent to the front from
some other base, and returning empty supply trains and hospital trains
would have to be diverted from Le Havre to the place chosen as the future
base. The task was a gigantic one, and was rendered more so because it
had to be completed in a hurry.
We reached Le Havre from Harfleur in the late afternoon. A large convoy
of Belgian ambulances full of wounded was moving through the streets
towards the wharves, and a French Infantry Division passed us in full
panoply of war going east. Six large transports with steam up were lying
at the wharves. The wharves were a scene of unparalleled activity, and
when one got right down amidst this activity and looked around, one
could realise that things were very chaotic. Every one was shouting
and cursing; contradictory orders were given; some stores which had
just been loaded in one of the holds of one transport were being again
unloaded. Through careless handling a huge crate of iron bedsteads for a
military hospital fell into the sea between the ship and the wharf. But
as the stores were Government property—therefore nobody’s property—no
one seemed to mind very much. The stage between the ship and the big
sheds was packed with all sorts of goods in inextricable confusion. Here
were bales of hospital blankets dumped on kegs of butter, there boxes of
biscuits lying packed in a corner, with a forgotten hose-pipe playing
water on them. Inside the sheds were machine-guns, heavy field pieces,
ammunition, some aeroplanes, crowds of ambulance waggons, London buses,
heavy transport waggons, kitchens, beds, tents for a general hospital,
stacks of rifles, bales of straw, mountainous bags of oats, flour, beef,
potatoes, crates of bully beef, telephones and telegraphs, water carts,
field kitchens, unending rolls of barbed wire, shovels, picks, and so on.
All had been brought into the sheds and left there in a higgledy-piggledy
fashion. An Army Service man was trying in despair to get some forage
on board; a colonel of the Medical Staff was trying to get his Base
Hospital on board. There was apparently no _single_ brain in control, and
the loading of the ships went on in the most extraordinary way. Things
nearest the ship’s side were put in first. Part of a Base Hospital was
put in with part of a Battery, followed by bundles of compressed straw
fodder and boxes of soap.
The transport _Turcoman_ was full of troops. There seemed to be thousands
of them on board, and the decks were packed with men. On walking up the
gangway I was met by the officer commanding the troops, and he told me
that I could not be allowed on board with any men as the ship was already
overcrowded. I told him that my orders were to embark on the _Turcoman_,
but the reply, “Very sorry indeed, but it can’t be done,” settled the
matter.
So I descended, and with difficulty picked my way along another wharf and
found another transport, the _Cestrian_, also a centre of the same scene
of bustle and activity as the _Turcoman_. The _Cestrian_ was crowded with
soldiers, and was being frantically loaded up with all sorts of goods,
from aeroplanes to bandages.
I got my men on board and told them to make themselves as comfortable as
they could on deck, and after some searching round at last found a corner
of the smoking-room which would serve me for a bed for the night. Here my
servant dumped down my valise.
I was unable to find out the destination of the _Turcoman_; nobody seemed
to know, but there were rumours that it was to be “somewhere in the Bay
of Biscay.” Nobody knew where the _Cestrian_ was going. As my orders
were to travel by the _Turcoman_, and as I was really on the _Cestrian_,
I was anxious to find out if the destination of the two boats was to be
the same port. But nobody could tell me, so I lit my pipe of tobacco,
leaned over the ship’s side, and never troubled any more about my orders.
I really did not know whether the _Cestrian_ was going to England or
another part of France, or the Black Sea for that matter.
The scene on the _Cestrian_ was a strange one. It was now quite dark and
the loading of the cargo was carried out under electric flares. There
were on board 2600 soldiers and 600 horses. These unfortunate horses had
been put on board twenty-four hours before the troops embarked, instead
of the other way about, and the smell from the hot, stifling horse-boxes
was overpowering. Why these poor beasts were not embarked last of all,
was a mystery. Imagine 600 horses cooped up in narrow boxes during a
long, hot, stifling summer day, when they could easily have been kept at
the horse dépôt close by till the last minute!
One horse died before we started, and was slung out by ropes on to the
wharf.
This horse episode was the occasion of much scathing comment amongst
senior officers and old cavalry and artillery non-coms.
It is a pity that some of the higher command—those responsible—could not
have heard the remarks of these knowing old non-commissioned officers.
At last the ship’s holds were full. Gangways were up and we dropped
slowly down the locks to the Seine mouth, and so out into the Channel.
We were met by a fierce, gusty head wind and welcomed it for the horses’
sakes. Large wind ventilators were arranged to allow the fresh air to
reach the horse-boxes.
Our men slept on the decks, and there were so many of them that to step
one’s way over them would have been almost impossible.
The dining-rooms, cabins, and smoking-rooms were full of sleeping or
dozing officers. I managed to commandeer an old sofa cushion, and lay on
that in the corner of the smoking-room and went to sleep, and dreamt of
thousands of horses looking reproachfully at me out of boxes.
At break of day we were all up at bugle-call and soon washed. The
ship’s cook was a man of some eminence in his profession, for he had
provided porridge and milk, ham and eggs, bread and butter and tea for
our breakfast, and, filled with amazement, we sat round to enjoy it.
Generally of meals on a transport there are none. A big cruiser was
seen after breakfast to be bearing rapidly down on us, and the usual
“optimist” present, after carefully observing her through a telescope,
pronounced her nationality as German, and that it was now a watery grave
in the Bay of Biscay for 2600 men and 600 horses. As she came nearer we
showed our flag, and she displayed the French ensign. We gave her our
number and dipped our bit of bunting, and the great ironclad sheered
off. It was a relief to know that she was about, and looking after our
transports.
On the way out from Le Havre we passed the United States battleship
_Tennessee_, and our men seeing some of her sailors standing in a group
gazing at us, gave a cheer and the usual “Are we downhearted? No!”
greeting. The American sailors gave a real good hearty cheer, and yells
of “good luck”; but an officer then ran up to them and said something,
and they became suddenly silent, and only waved their hands. They had
probably been told by their officer that they were “neutrals,” and
belonged to the battleship of a nation friendly to all the belligerents.
But we knew that they were with us “inside,” and anyhow the Americans
have not been neutral in their hearts. They are all “for us” and “for the
Allies.”
Life on board our transport was uneventful. We smoked and slept and ate.
There was no room to walk about. I never saw such a crowded ship.
We had on board the complete _personnel_ of a Base Hospital, and the
medical officer commanding told me that he had orders to pitch his
hospital at once at Nantes in order to take in wounded, as there was a
big demand for more beds. In spite of his utmost endeavours he could not
get his hospital equipment on the _Cestrian_.
All the instruments, dressings, and X-ray apparatus had been left behind
for another boat, and he thought that he might not be able to get them
for another week, or perhaps longer.
This was but another example of the lack of control at Le Havre during
the change of base; a hospital was badly wanted at Nantes; all the
_personnel_ and half the equipment were sent away, and the other half
left on the wharves. We learned later that the holds of our boat the
_Cestrian_ were not full when she left Le Havre, but that she had been
ordered to leave on account of the horses being in such a bad state from
the hot, stifling atmosphere in their quarters below decks.
It was necessary to proceed to sea to get a current of cold air down the
ventilating shafts to the horses’ cribs. This senseless blundering over
the horses led to the death of several of the poor beasts, and besides
crippled a Base Hospital at a time when it was urgently needed. Over
and over again during this war one has met with instances of a want of
reasoned judgment on the part of senior controlling officers. In certain
emergencies they have been unable to “orientate” themselves—to use an
Americanism—or to “envisage” a situation.
Blunders, slips, miscalculations, carelessness, in time of war mean the
loss of valuable lives. We want alert, clear-brained, thinking men in all
responsible posts. If a senior officer shows himself lacking in these
essentials—then he must go. Many of the responsible French army officials
at the beginning of the campaign proved themselves lacking in initiative
and judgment. Joffre sent these officers to “Limoges.” We should send
our incapables to “Stellenbosch.” Both places are indicative of a quiet
retirement, where they can live without thinking, where there are quiet
clubs, cigars and cocktails, and comfortable chairs for an afternoon
nap. The good ship _Cestrian_ was a very fine steamer, but a very dirty
one at this epoch. She badly wanted a clean-up. The lavatories and
water-closets were indescribably filthy and foul, and acrid ammoniacal
fumes permeated the ship. No attempt was made at ordinary cleanliness,
and no disinfectants were employed. Words could hardly describe the
appallingly filthy state of the urinals and closets. It would have been
so very simple to have made things cleaner. A sanitary squad could have
been arranged in a few minutes to keep these places tidy and to maintain
some control. But what was every one’s business was nobody’s business,
and nothing was done during the three days and nights we were at sea.
[Illustration: TRANSPORT “CESTRIAN” IN THE BAY OF BISCAY.]
[Illustration: THE “CESTRIAN” AT ST. NAZAIRE.]
As our ship approached the mouth of the Loire we saw three large
transports ahead of us and four more were following up behind. We slowly
steamed through the narrow lock entrance to St. Nazaire and, after the
usual delay in getting alongside, finally tied up to the wharf. The day
was stiflingly hot and dusty, and we were glad to leave our ship and get
on shore. The horses were at once unloaded, and very bad the poor beasts
looked. It was pleasant, however, to see them, once they were on land,
looking round and neighing with evident pleasure.
The troops were marched out to a large field or a dry salt marsh some few
miles out of town. A rest camp or camp for army details was being rapidly
arranged, and areas were being marked out for the various units,—gunners,
engineers, and infantry regiments, and there was considerable bustle.
No tents had yet arrived and the camp was quite exposed. Fortunately,
the weather was good and sleeping out was no hardship. I reported my
arrival to the camp commandant, and he said that he did not know where
I had to go or what I had to do. He told me to “wait round and see what
turned up.” At this period one’s arrival was always unexpected. We always
got a smile of welcome and were always told to “wait round.” There was
never any demonstrative hurry. John Bull on the job doesn’t make much
fuss. I think that he does not make enough. As there was nothing to do
apparently, and as nobody seemed to want me, I strolled back to the city
of St. Nazaire and had afternoon tea in a pleasant café.
As I was leaving the café I met the A.D.M.S. (Assistant Director of
Medical Services). He asked me what duty I was on. I told him that I had
just arrived and had reported my arrival, and was really wondering myself
why I was at St. Nazaire. The A.D.M.S. said, “We are wanting medical
officers urgently at the front. Would you please come with me.” On our
way to the office he explained that “the medical service had received
some losses—casualties and missing, that there were a lot of wounded and
a lack of hospital necessaries.” He asked me if I had any “bandages,
wool, or lint with me.” I had none, of course, and the A.D.M.S. said that
he had none to spare for the front. I thought of the Base Hospital on the
_Cestrian_ landed with only half its equipment, and of what a wonderful
nation we are, and what a magnificent organiser John Bull is when he is
really “on the job.”
I received written orders from the A.D.M.S. to proceed by train at 4 a.m.
next day to Le Mans, and report arrival and await orders there. Le Mans
was the “advanced base” of the British army. I learned here also that
our gallant army was retreating towards Paris, and fighting stubbornly
against overwhelming numbers of Germans flushed with victory, and I was
very glad to get orders to join up with my countrymen and get a chance of
“doing my bit” also.
CHAPTER IV.
FROM THE BAY OF BISCAY TO EAST OF PARIS.
After having received these definite orders I got my kit again conveyed
to the _Cestrian_ transport and slept that night in my old corner of the
smoking-room. At 2.45 a.m. the surgeons detailed to join the army were
up. A hasty cup of coffee and an apology for a wash—and we were down
the ship-side, and on the way to the _gare_. The railway station at St.
Nazaire at this time looked quite picturesque in the early morning. Its
platforms were covered with straw, and rows of sleeping French soldiers
lay comfortably around, while a stolid Grenadier sentry stood propped
against the wall. There is no hurry at a French military station. The
train was timed to start at 4 a.m., but that did not matter. At 5 a.m. it
was quite ready. “C’est la guerre.”
There were five of us travelling together—all medical officers—two
Scotchmen, one Irishman, one Englishman, and one New Zealander. A very
gruff Railway Transport officer gave me a military pass for the party.
This gave us permission, we noticed, to travel to Paris viâ Le Mans.
The pass was signed by the French authorities, but we were never asked
to show it again. The khaki uniform proclaimed we were British, the
Sam Browne belt and stars showed we were officers, and the red-cross
brassards on our left arms indicated our particular line of business.
As the train moved off we wished our Railway Transport officer—an
Englishman—a good morning, but this seemed to offend him, for he glared
at us. Our Irish surgeon remarked that all Railway Transport officers
were queer fish and very unpopular. Perhaps their particular specialty
makes them so, but I have never heard an R.T.O. referred to in any
other but denunciatory terms. A sanguinary adjective is always prefixed
to the mystic trinity R.T.O. It is said that they lead unhappy lives
and generally die of long, lingering illnesses. We soon settled down
comfortably in our luxurious first-class carriage and tried to get
to know each other. No very difficult task amongst doctors, who are
generally most sociable animals. One of us was a specialist in fevers and
had passed most of his days in typhoid and scarlet fever wards. One was a
neurologist, with pronounced views on the power of suggestion in treating
cases of incipient insanity. One was a pure physician, who said that the
surgeons were not men of science but merely craftsmen, and were too fond
of using the knife.
The surgeons, as became their calling, treated all criticism with
good-humoured complaisance. We talked a lot about the duties of the
doctor in this war, and we were all very curious to know the rôle played
by a doctor when he was attached to a cavalry regiment, to a battery,
or to a field ambulance. None of us knew very much about it, but we
all were agreed that we had somehow to get alongside Mr. Thomas Atkins
when he was wounded in battle, get him to a safe place, and give him of
our best. Curiously enough, although we were all scattered later on to
various units of different divisions, I met all my fellow-travellers
again one time or another in the firing line. One of the Scotchmen I met
just as he came out from under heavy shrapnel fire, and I asked him how
he liked it. His reply is not printable. One I met in a field ambulance
later with sleeves rolled up and busy dressing the wounds of a crowd of
men just brought in from the firing line. One I met in a town in northern
France looking cold and wet and miserable, and asked him also how he
liked the war. He gave an expressive shrug. I have not met anyone yet who
liked the war, except artillery officers.
Our train travelled slowly from St. Nazaire along the Loire to the
capital city of Nantes. This charming city is situated on the banks of
the delightful river. We had a lot of khaki and French soldiers on board
the train, and as usual they fraternised well together. Tommy Atkins gets
on amazingly well with the French piou-piou, and the French grenadier
chaffs Tommy a lot and enjoys his company. When they get together they
exchange caps for a time. This is a sign of unalterable friendship.
To see a French Cuirassier wearing a khaki cap and a Highlander in kilts
wearing a Cuirassier’s casque with its flowing horsetails always excited
the merriment and loud “vives” of the French people. The kilts of our
Highlanders are also greatly admired by the French. They were consumed
with curiosity to know if the Scotchmen wore any trousers under them.
Khaki was a great novelty along the Loire valley at this time, and our
appearance roused tremendous enthusiasm and applause. At Nantes the good
people brought us baskets of apples, and little French flags which we
duly stuck on our coats or caps and wore till the train steamed out of
the station.
Crowds of people rushed down to the railway platform to see us and cheer
us on our way. Tommy’s “Are we downhearted?” and its stentorian “No!” had
a very optimistic sound, and the French liked it.
At Angers the train stopped two hours, and the officers strolled round
the town. The men were not allowed off the platform. Angers, the ancient
capital of the old Counts of Anjou, is a delightfully sleepy city. A
princess of Anjou was in the long ago a Queen of England, and a fine
statue to her memory stands in the centre of the town. It was dressed
with an intertwined Union Jack and the Tricolor when we were there.
The old castle of Angers, with its deep moat and castellated towers, has
withstood the ravages of centuries and is one of the finest examples
of mediæval military masonry. Our walk through this city excited
considerable comment and notice. It was Sunday, and a big congregation
just leaving church stopped to stare at us and possibly to wonder why
khaki was in Angers. As we passed a café crowded with loungers sipping
wine and coffee at the little tables on the street, all stood up to
look at us. We felt very embarrassed and did not much like the novel
experience, so sat round a small table ourselves, and while drinking our
wine turned round to look at the people also. A French colonel caught
our eye, and one of our party held a glass towards him, saying, “Vive
la France!” The effect was theatrical: all jumped up, and lifting their
glasses shouted, “Vive l’Angleterre!” “Vive l’entente cordiale!” Several
French officers and citizens with ladies pulled up their chairs to our
table, and we all drank wine very sociably together. One of our party of
surgeons had been educated as a youth in Belgium and was an excellent
French linguist. The people were all very anxious to hear the latest
news. We had none to give except that large British reinforcements
were coming over, and that England was now fairly on the job. In these
early days of the war, when everything in France was “electrical,” such
sentiments were always cheerfully received. We drank a good many toasts
before we left, and had our photographs taken three times. Just before
the train started crowds of gentlemen and ladies, old and young, shook
hands with us in the usual French way, with the left hand as often as
the right. One beautiful and sparkling little French lady embarrassed
one of us by a sudden warm embrace and a sisterly kiss on the cheek. The
surprise of the khaki man was only momentary, and the lady, in return,
was well and truly kissed on the lips. We were all sorry to leave
Angers, the city was charming, the wine was excellent and the people
were most entertaining.
After Angers we had a long and dreary night ride to Le Mans. One curious
incident occurred during the night. Our train was pulled into a siding
at a small station and held there for three hours. At the end of this
time a train, made up of forty-one huge locomotive engines, thundered by
at sixty miles an hour going south. We were told that these were Belgian
engines sent south to escape capture by the Germans.
In the cold shiver of a dark morning we bundled out at Le Mans, and at
once made a dash for the railway buffet and got hot coffee and rolls. I
then found my way with some difficulty in the darkness to the quarters
of the A.D.M.S., to whom I had to report our arrival. He was in bed when
I arrived, but got up and took my report. As usual he was surprised to
know we were coming, and our visit was naturally an unexpected pleasure.
He told us that we should have gone right on to Paris, as surgeons were
badly wanted with the army which was retreating on to Paris. We were
always being told that doctors were urgently required and were always
delayed. We had definite orders to get out at Le Mans and report. The
orders were in writing. No one was more anxious than we were to push
rapidly on, and we chafed at the continual delays. The A.D.M.S. could
not tell us when we would be able to get away from Le Mans as the
train service was erratic. We were advised to “hang about the railway
station” till “some train” started for the front. As this was highly
unsatisfactory, I tried to find out how matters stood myself.
The stationmaster did not know when a train would start for Paris, as the
line was blocked farther on by the military mobilisation. I found out,
however, that a supply train conveying provisions and supplies for our
men was to leave from Maroc some time during the day. Maroc was a small
siding five miles from Le Mans. Here trains were made up for the various
Army Corps. Maroc is a desert of sand and a truly desolate spot. We got
our kits and a box of medical supplies—obtained with great difficulty at
Le Mans—conveyed to this miniature Morocco, and we camped on the sand
under the doubtful shade of the only two trees the place possessed,
till 4 o’clock that afternoon. The only excitement was seeing a huge
locomotive run off the track and block shunting operations for two hours.
At last our huge supply train was ready. We all got into an empty guard’s
van and disposed our valises in the various corners. Two officers of the
Royal Flying Corps joined us here and found accommodation in a waggon
loaded with bags of wheat. We all clubbed together for mess, and laid
in a stock of sardines, bread, butter, and a dozen bottles of red wine
and cider. We learned from our flying friends that the army was retiring
every day, and was supposed to be making for Paris.
We got some definite news for the first time of our big engagements at
Mons, Landrecies, and Le Cateau, and how our army was furiously attacked
and compelled to fall back, and that although the retirement at first
was precipitate it soon became ordered and steady. We were also told that
there were over 15,000 casualties, and that the medical arrangements had
quite broken down. However, we had a sublime faith in our own countrymen,
and knew that they would come out all right, somehow, somewhere.
At daybreak our train reached Tours, and at Blois we had a welcome wash
and a decent cup of coffee. Our quarters in the guard’s van had been
most cramped and uncomfortable, and we were all anxious to leave the old
tortoise of a train. At midday we passed through Orleans, and here French
officers told us that the Germans were advancing on Paris, and in spite
of prodigious losses were hacking their way through by weight of numbers
and numberless batteries of artillery. We were told that the British army
was to form part of the garrison of Paris, that Paris was fully prepared
for a long siege, and that President Poincaré and the Government were
at Bordeaux. All these rumours gave rise to keen discussions, and they
certainly helped to while the time away in our dreary old van.
During the night we passed through Paris, and at break of day pulled up
at the railway siding of Coulommiers.
The railway siding was full of ambulance trains, British and French.
All the trains were filled with recently wounded men, and we got our
first information that we were close to the actual scene of fighting.
One French medical officer had rigged up a small dressing station on the
station platform. An upturned box held his dressings, instruments, and
antiseptics, and he had about twenty-five wounded Frenchmen all round him
patiently waiting their turn. Most of them were slight cases, for the
serious ones had already been put aboard the hospital trains.
Coulommiers at this time was the refilling point for the Army Service
Corps, and our supply train was emptied here.
CHAPTER V.
THE ADVANCE TO THE MARNE.
Coulommiers at this time looked a little bit _dégagé_. It had been
occupied by the Germans some days previously, and now the British had it.
The French inhabitants were in Paris. The narrow old streets looked very
cheerful and inviting when I passed through, for our Army Service men had
several fires merrily blazing at the side of the _pavé_, and the smell
of frying bacon and roasting coffee beans was inviting and appetising.
Signs of the German occupation were everywhere apparent. Round the ashes
of their fires in the side streets and square were the charred remains
of old and valuable furniture—a carved leg of an old chair, a piece of
the frame of a big mirror, a bit of a door, and so on. I think the German
soldier enjoyed the novel sensation of cooking his food over burning
cabinets and tables and chairs made in the times of the Louis’ of France.
Our men were extremely careful to avoid damage to French property and
made their fires of chopped wood logs. Tommy has good feelings and is
always a gentleman, and he genuinely pitied the French in their despoiled
towns.
My orders were to report to the Principal Medical Officer of the 5th
Division of the 2nd Army. I could not find out where the 5th Division
headquarters was, but ascertained that the 2nd Army headquarters was
at the small hamlet of Doui, three miles away. My next problem was how
to get there with my kit. Luckily, I found a motor-car driver about to
start for the headquarters and he offered me a lift. This driver was one
of the many gentlemen of leisure who had volunteered for service at the
beginning of the war. He took out his own car at first and it broke down
during the retreat, so he abandoned it by the roadside and got another
car, the driver of which had been killed. We set off from Coulommiers
at a rattling pace and passed part of the 3rd Division on the way. The
headquarters of General Smith-Dorrien, the Commander of the 2nd Army, was
a little cluster of houses by the roadside, and when we arrived the whole
staff were standing by the road, while the grooms stood near holding
their horses. Smith-Dorrien with another staff officer was poring over a
map and indicating some spot on it with his finger. The Principal Medical
Officer, Colonel Porter of the Army Medical Staff, now Surgeon-General
Porter, was just coming out of a cottage, and I walked up, saluted, and
reported my arrival. The Colonel gave me a cheery greeting, asked if I
had breakfasted, and noticing the South African War ribbon on my tunic,
said that as I had seen service before I would soon be quite at home.
He asked me where I came from, and when told that it was New Zealand,
inquired if the trout-fishing was still good. New Zealand seems to be
principally known in England for its excellent trout streams.
I was then told to report to the officer commanding a section of the
15th Field Ambulance, which was lying about 500 yards farther down the
road. I reported to Major O—— of the Royal Army Medical Corps, who told
me that he was waiting to evacuate some wounded to Coulommiers before
moving up to rejoin the headquarters of the ambulance which was advancing
with the 15th Infantry Brigade. There were sixteen wounded British in a
small farmhouse beside the road. They were lying on straw on the floor
and the wounds of all of them had been dressed. When I entered they
were drinking milk supplied by the old farmer and his wife. This old
farmhouse had been occupied by the Germans two days previously, and the
old farmer brought me through the house to show what the Huns had done.
His two wooden bedsteads had been smashed. All his wife’s clothes had
been taken out of a chest of drawers and torn up, and the chest had been
battered badly with an axe. The windows were broken and two legs of the
kitchen table had been chopped off. An old family clock lay battered
in a corner, and an ancient sporting gun was broken in two. The farmer
showed me one of his wife’s old bonnets which had been thrown into the
fire by these lovely Germans and partially burned. Fancy burning an old
woman’s bonnet! All the fowls and chickens had been killed. Two German
soldiers got into the fowlyard and struck all the birds down with their
bayonets. A fine Normandy dog lay dead at the garden gate, shot by a
German non-commissioned officer because the poor beast barked at him.
The old-fashioned furniture and adornments of the house had been
destroyed. All of the pictures were broken except two—one of these was a
framed picture of Pope Leo XIII., and the other was one representing the
Crucifixion. We guessed that the German troops must have been Bavarians,
who are mostly Catholic.
I have described this wrecked home as it was typical of hundreds of
others that I have seen in France. It all seemed so stupid, so senseless,
so paltry, and mean. Conceive the frightfulness of burning an old lady’s
bonnet and smashing an old clock that had been in the family’s possession
for three generations, and had ticked the minutes to the farmer’s folk
and whose face had been looked at by those long since dead. The old
farmer was in tears and very miserable. He said that the German soldiers
were very drunk and had brought a lot of bottles of champagne with them,
round which they spent a very hilarious night. One of the men had a very
fine voice and sang a German drinking song, whilst the others hiccuped
the chorus. There were certainly a lot of empty champagne bottles lying
about, and I don’t think that the old farmer’s beverage ever soared above
_vin rouge_, so the bottles must have been German loot.
About eleven o’clock, while we were still waiting for returning empty
supply waggons to take off our wounded, we heard that some German
prisoners were being marched in. This caused some excitement, and,
speaking for myself, I was consumed with curiosity to see some specimens
of this great German army and observe what manner of men they were. Under
a strong guard of cavalry three hundred prisoners with about ten officers
were marched into a field close to our farmhouse. It was laughable to see
our old farmer. He rushed frantically up the road, his eyes blazing with
excitement and joy, and stood gazing at his country’s enemies with an
expression of malicious joy and delight.
I was struck with the appearance of these prisoners. They were very
tired, absolutely done in, and marched along the road with a most
bedraggled and weary step. Were these the men who had goose-stepped
through Belgium’s stately capital and had pushed the united armies of
France and England before them in one of the most rapid marches in
history? They were utterly broken down with fatigue, and their famished
expression and wolfish eyes betokened the hardships they had recently
undergone. When they were halted in the field they simply rolled on to
the ground from sheer exhaustion. On looking closer, however, one could
see that they were fine soldiers, athletic, well-built, lean, wiry
fellows, with shaven heads and prominent features, slim-waisted and
broad-shouldered, clothed in smart, well-fitting, bluish-grey uniforms,
well-shod with good serviceable boots, each with a light water-bottle
clipped to his belt and a haversack over the shoulder; certainly no
fault could be found with them as specimens of muscular and active
soldiery.
The officers, disdaining to show fatigue, sat by themselves in a group
apart and smoked pipes and cigarettes. The famished men were supplied
with British bully beef and biscuits, and buckets of water were brought
to them for drink. They at once threw off their exhaustion and simply
rushed the food. We realised that they had been marched to a stop, and
that the commissariat of that particular Army Corps must have broken
down. The augury was a good one. Amongst them were some slightly wounded
men—principally hand, scalp, and face wounds. These we dressed, and the
men seemed very grateful to the medical officers for what was done.
One of my men, with a slight shrapnel wound of the wrist, after I had
dressed and bandaged it, seized my hand and kissed it. That is the
German way, perhaps, but un-British, and I do not love things German or
un-British to-day. One of the men had a slight wound, but a very painful
one owing to a small shell splinter sticking on to a nerve. Lieut. M’C——
administered a few whiffs of chloroform while I extracted the fragment
of iron. Poor M’C—— remarked to me that this was the first anæsthetic
that he had administered during the war, although he had been through
the whole retreat from Mons, and that it was for a German. I say poor
M’C——; this splendid young doctor was killed later on in Flanders while
gallantly attending wounded in the trenches under a hellish shrapnel
fire. This group of prisoners belonged to the Jägers of the Prussian
Guard, one of the best infantry units in the German Army. We were all
very pleased that they had been bagged, and I don’t think that they
worried much about it themselves. The officers, however, seemed very
sullen—that also pleased us.
Shortly after the arrival of the Guard Jägers some empty motor supply
waggons, returning from the front, were stopped. We packed plenty of
straw on them and put our wounded British and Germans comfortably on top,
and sent them all off to the hospital train at Coulommiers. Then our
commanding officer, Major O——, gave the order to our ambulance drivers
to harness up the horses and prepare to trek. We knew that our army was
making a stand at last, and that the long retreat from Belgium was over.
All the morning heavy firing was heard on our front towards the river
Marne, and we were not sure what was happening. We knew that our cavalry
was at work somewhere, for the Guard Jägers had been bagged by our
horsemen, but more than that we did not know. However, we were soon on
the road, and following Napoleon’s maxim to his Generals—always to march
on the firing. The roads were terribly dusty, the day was hot and sultry,
and a blazing sun beat mercilessly down upon us. We all cursed our caps,
and certainly the present khaki cap supplied to our officers and men
deserves a curse. It gives no protection to the head or neck in summer,
and in rainy weather it is soon soaked.
Marching on foot behind lumbering ambulance waggons on a dusty road,
and under a hot sun, is no picnic. Eyes get full of dust, throat gets
parched, feet get hot, and the khaki uniform wraps round one like a
sticky blanket. So for many miles we marched, and all the time the sound
of the guns became more and more distinct and intense. We passed St. Ouen
and by St. Cyr, and at 4.30 o’clock we seemed to be in the centre of the
artillery thunder area. Great guns were screeching and roaring all round
us, and some of the enemy’s shells were bursting to our left front near
the road along which we were moving. We were then ordered to pull our
waggons off the road and bivouac them under a clump of trees near at hand
in order to conceal them from enemy aeroplanes, which were hovering high
up in the blue. The reason for at times concealing a Field Ambulance is
that when a column is on the march the Field Ambulance has a definite
position in the column; generally it is behind the ammunition column. The
ambulance waggons, with their big white tented covers and conspicuous red
crosses, are often the most prominent features on the road. The enemy
flying-man when he sees a Field Ambulance knows that there is at least a
brigade consisting of four battalions and an ammunition column in front
of it, and he can then direct his gunners to plant their shells in front
of the ambulance and so get the ammunition column and the brigade. Hence
the necessity for sometimes hiding the whereabouts of a Field Ambulance.
After we had bivouacked, our section cook managed to light a fire in a
hollow in a clump of trees, and soon brought us a much-desired mess of
fried mutton, good bread and marmalade, and a can of tea. We rushed this
as badly as the German prisoners did the bully beef earlier in the day.
It was an odd meal, as we sat by the roadside viewing a desperate
artillery duel, and between sips of tea snatching up field-glasses to
gaze at the bursting shells on the ridges held by the angry Germans.
CHAPTER VI.
WHAT I SAW OF THE BATTLE OF THE MARNE.
In a battle one really sees very little and knows very little of what
is going on, except in the near neighbourhood. The broad perspective,
the great view of a battle, cannot be seen by one pair of eyes. This can
only be understood and appreciated afterwards when facts and events are
gathered together and dovetailed to form the battle story. When I was
sitting by the roadside on this August afternoon, amidst the crashing and
shrieking of the guns, the bursting of the shells, the furious crackling
of the rifles, and the snarling notes of the machine-guns, I guessed that
a battle was in progress and that we were blazing furiously at an enemy
who was blazing furiously back at us. Beyond that, I did not know very
much. During the night I learned a good deal more of the day’s events.
But the whole story was not connected up till many days afterwards. I am
quite sure that the people of London knew more about the battle of the
Marne from the War bulletins than I did, although I was one of the humble
units present in the actual fighting.
On this sultry summer day our ambulance section was resting by the side
of the dusty road that stretched in our rear towards Paris and on our
front towards a lovely green valley at the bottom of which meandered the
river Marne. It wound its sinuous way from our far right to our near
left. Directly before us, and on the distant side of the river, was a
steep ridge, part of a low chain of uplands which rolled hazily away to
the right and stopped abruptly in clear-cut lines in our front. The road
beside which we sat, dipped into the valley and crossed the river on a
fine stone bridge and continued through the undulating country beyond
to the north. Small villages were scattered about—Mery to the right,
Saccy at the bridgehead, and small clusters of houses and farms on the
countryside over the river. Some squadrons of dismounted cavalrymen
were standing by their horses in a meadow near the bank of the river.
These horsemen had been busy earlier in the day, and had done some hard
riding, cutting off stragglers from the retreating German Army Corps.
Infantry were hidden from view in the depths of the valley. Batteries on
our left were sending a plunging fire of shot and shell on to the ridge
and dips beyond the river, and the road leading from the bridge. With a
field-glass, moving dots, and what looked like waggons, could be made out
on the road and the field alongside. It was on these moving dots that our
guns played, and cloud-bursts of earth and dust showed that our gunners
had the range beautifully.
[Illustration: AMBULANCES AT THE MARNE.]
General French passed us twice in his Limousine car. General
Smith-Dorrien passed twice—General Sir Charles Ferguson passed—all in
motor-cars travelling like mad. Gallopers with messages spurred up and
down the road. Guns thundered into position, unlimbered and were quickly
in action. Infantry marching rapidly passed down the road into the
valley where a tornado of rifle-fire was going on. One could make out
the distinct note from our own rifles and the muffled one from the more
distant German Mausers. Two German shells burst short of the battery on
our left and uncomfortably close to us. We were in an odd position for an
ambulance—in front of our own battery, which was pelting shot into the
Germans and which a German battery was trying to locate. When the enemy
shells fell short they fell near us. Our position, however, was a dress
circle box seat as a view-point, so we stopped where we were. It was not
every day that one could look on at a real live battle. Before dusk came
on, an aeroplane appeared over the ridge flying towards us, and was shot
at by enemy aircraft guns. The shells burst all round it, but it sailed
triumphantly through them all, and to our intense relief landed safely in
our lines with some valuable information.
I was much interested to see our Generals on this day dashing about in
powerful automobiles. A General is always interesting at the front, be
he a Brigadier-General, a General of Division, or an Army Corps General.
One gets a fleeting glimpse of a “Brass Hat” in a motor-car and asks,
“Who is that?” Some one with a keen eye or a nimble fancy will enlighten.
“That’s Haig, 1st Corps,” or “Smith-Dorrien, 2nd Corps,” or “Ferguson,
5th Division.” “Wonder what’s up?” is the next usual query, for a General
moving around means that “something’s up.”
Smith-Dorrien is a General well worth seeing. It was “S.-D.” who handled
the 2nd Army Corps from Mons during those terrible hard-fought days of
the retreat, and he was now commanding the 3rd and 5th Divisions on this
day on the Marne, when they forced the passage and deployed on the other
side.
When the action was at its hottest and every gun was busy, a car raced
up from the valley in a swirling cloud of dust. The brakes were jammed
hard down opposite us, the side door opened, and out stepped a well-knit,
muscular, lithe figure, looking physically fit, smart, and cool in a
well-made khaki uniform and red-banded cap. The face was a burnt-brick
red, the moustache white, the eyes alert, wide open, and “knowing.” A
savage, obstinate, determined chin dominated the face. It was the chin
of a strong, stubborn nature, the chin of a prize fighter. This was
Smith-Dorrien, the commander of the 2nd Army Corps, and at this moment
the 2nd Corps were at grips with the enemy. With a few rapid strides he
had reached the battery on our left, asked some question of the battery
commander, and at once clapped field-glasses to his eyes and gazed long
and intently at a spot on the other side of the valley pointed out to him
by the battery commander. Our party of officers, filled with curiosity,
also got out field-glasses and focused in the same direction. Our shells
could be seen bursting on a far ridge, and after a long stare we managed
to make out what we thought were some guns, but we were not sure. A few
more words to the battery commander, a careless salute, and Smith-Dorrien
was back in his car, which was rapidly turned and disappeared “eyes out”
down the dusty road up which it had but just come.
As the car disappeared a tremendous rifle-fire broke out all along the
valley beyond the stream. It made one’s pulses beat with excitement.
The 2nd Army Corps was fighting hard in the valley at our feet, and
Smith-Dorrien was down in the valley with his men.
When the devil’s din was at its loudest, another powerful Limousine
coming from the rear pulled up opposite us. “Go on, go on,” shouted
a voice from the inside, and the car again sped on. Inside was
Field-Marshal Sir John French poring over a map held out with both hands
over his knees. His car also disappeared into the valley, and we again
surmised that there must be some big thing going on down below to draw
thither Field-Marshals, Corps Commanders, and Divisional Generals.
An hour elapsed. All of the batteries except one had ceased fire, the
cracking of our rifles was still heavy but more distant, and now two cars
were seen coming slowly towards us from out the valley. In the front car
were French and Smith-Dorrien. We augured that all was well, for the
car was proceeding slowly, and the Field-Marshal was placidly smoking a
cigar. Our augury was correct. We had forced the passage of the Marne,
and were grimly in pursuit of the retreating foe.
CHAPTER VII.
THE NIGHT OF THE MARNE.
When the long day closed and darkness shrouded us all, the firing ceased
completely, and the world felt strangely silent. The batteries limbered
up and took the road down towards the river, and our ambulances followed
the same way. The only sound heard was the crunching of the waggon wheels
on the road. All else was soundless and still, a great quiet reigned
over the valley which a short time before had been so tormented by the
earthquake thunderings of battle.
We went down deeper and deeper into the valley, and in pitch darkness
entered the quaint old village of Saccy on the Marne. Saccy is an old,
world-forgotten village of narrow cobbled streets and ancient stone
houses. Situated on the south side of the bridge which spans the Marne,
the old village has ambled sleepily through the centuries disturbing
no one by its existence, and undisturbed itself by the big events of
history. During the preceding forty-eight hours the old place was
suddenly engulfed in a cyclone of movement, for a German Army Corps had
retreated rapidly through its streets and over its bridge,—too rapidly to
stay and sack the houses in the manner so loved by the German soldiers.
Their big guns had hurtled their iron messengers of death over the town
from one side of the valley to the other, and sweating, panting British
infantry, the finest warriors in the world, had pressed steadily along
the same streets and over the bridge so lately trod by the enemy. Saccy
had seen two armies pass through her, and had emerged safe and unhurt.
When our ambulances entered Saccy the narrow streets were packed and
congested with supply waggons, ammunition carts, guns, and marching
infantry. The dull lights from shuttered windows or an open door and
the occasional powerful glare from a big motor headlight lit up a scene
of cursing drivers, struggling and straining horses, heavy lumbering
waggons, and tired, thirsty, dusty marching men.
The headquarters of the 5th Division was established in a café on the
main street, and when we passed through the staff were at dinner in the
large front room opening on to the street. We saw plates of steaming
potatoes, a roast leg of mutton, bottles of pickles, and many bottles of
red wine. The headquarters’ cook was evidently a man of resource and knew
his job.
After passing through the village we turned abruptly to the right and
then we were at the bridge, a splendidly built stone affair with a
parapet and side walks. The bridge was fine and wide, but our crossing
was a slow process, owing to the mass of waggons, buses, and equipment
ahead. Some artillery and infantry had already bivouacked on the other
side of the bridge, and their camp fires with dicksies of boiling stews
and of coffee looked very cheerful. Some of the men were sitting or
standing round the fires, smoking their ever-popular Woodbine cigarettes;
others were engaged lopping off branches from the forest trees for the
fire; many had taken off their puttees, boots, and socks, and were
cooling their feet. They all looked very happy, and cheerfully exchanged
compliments and remarks with the drivers of the waggons, who still had
some miles to go before they could rest. Our ambulances were, however,
about a quarter of a mile farther on, swung up a narrow cutting into a
field, and here we found the headquarters of the 15th Field Ambulance,
with seven ambulance waggons, supply carts, water carts, horses, tent and
hospital equipment. When we joined up the unit was again complete. We had
crossed the Marne behind the 15th Infantry Brigade, but our work was not
yet done.
It was now eleven o’clock of a pitch black night with threatening rain.
Our ambulances were packed in a semi-circle in the field near an old
farmhouse. A huge log fire was blazing about 200 yards away, and round
this were sitting some of the medical officers of the ambulance and two
chaplains. I made my bow to my new comrades and introduced myself as the
latest medical recruit to the unit, and was given a box to sit on, and
a cup of hot tea, bread and marmalade. All of these officers had been
through Mons and Le Cateau, and were now veterans. One who had just come
in from the front with some stretchers, said that our cavalry had done
splendidly during the day, and had made a very fine charge, cutting off
some companies of retreating infantry. Our Lancers had ridden through
a squadron of Uhlans, turned round, and galloped through them again,
spearing and slaying on their two bloody passages.
We were in for a busy night, for all the stretcher parties from the
various ambulances were out in the field collecting the wounded, whose
arrival was expected now at any moment. An operating tent had been
pitched in the field near by, and was brilliantly lit up with a huge
acetylene lamp. The operating table was fixed in the centre of the tent
and along each side were the instruments, basins, and dressings lying on
the lids of the panniers, which made excellent side-tables. Very soon the
ambulances lumbered up with the men picked up from the fields close at
hand. The stretchers, each holding a wounded man, were taken out of the
waggons and laid on a heap of straw near the door of the operating tent.
Sixteen men were taken out and laid side by side. New stretchers were put
in the waggons, which again set out to bring in more wounded. One surgeon
stood on one side of the operating table, another stood opposite him, and
a third surgeon was ready to assist or give an anæsthetic if necessary.
Quietly and quickly one wounded man after another was lifted on to the
table, his wounds were speedily dressed, and he was again carried out
and laid on the straw with a blanket below and another above him. Those
with painful wounds were given hypodermics of morphia. All who were fit
to take nourishment had hot soup, tea, bread and jam. Stimulants were
given freely to those requiring it. The wounds were mostly from shrapnel,
and only one case required an anæsthetic. He had a bad compound fracture
of the thigh and was in terrible pain. We made some good splints and
fixed up the limb comfortably and in good position. One poor devil had
a bad abdominal wound for which we could do nothing. He was given a
good dose of morphia and slept quietly and easily till five a.m., when
he ceased to breathe. At one o’clock in the morning wounded were still
coming in, and the surgeon on duty was relieved by myself. So with coat
off, bare arms and covered with an operating apron, I did my spell of
surgical duty during that night on the banks of the Marne. Our stretcher
parties at last were finished, and had all come in with the report that
all the wounded had been brought in. They reported that there were large
numbers of British and German dead on the roadsides and in the fields.
At six o’clock our large list of wounded were sent off to railhead at
Coulommiers on returning-empty supply waggons and under the charge of a
medical officer. The operating tent was struck and all the panniers and
equipment were packed. The Field Ambulance had done its “job.” It had
followed its brigade into action, had collected all the wounded of that
brigade, had dressed their wounds and made them comfortable during the
night, and had then loaded all the wounded on waggons and sent them to
railhead to join a hospital train. Having done this the ambulance was
again ready to follow its brigade and do the same again. The long night
was over and a new day was upon us.
This was the only occasion on the march that our Field Ambulance had to
pitch an operating tent in a field. Generally a house or château was
made use of as a dressing station. The tent made an excellent first-aid
dressing station, but of course was unsuited for any major surgical
operation, and we tried to avoid as far as possible doing much in the way
of surgery. We examined every wound carefully to see that no bleeding was
taking place, and all the fractures were very carefully splintered with
firm wooden splints. The men suffered very little pain comparatively,
and were remarkably cheerful when they had been dressed and placed on
the straw. They seemed anxious to talk and review the events of the
day, and they told us great tales of the Germans running away. One man
said that he, with his company, was in a belt of trees lying down and
watching an open space in their front. Some Uhlans, not knowing the
British were so close, cantered up and halted; our men took careful aim
and emptied twenty saddles with the first fusillade, and then fired on
the panic-stricken, terrified horses who were careering off with the
remaining Germans; when the horses fell the riders surrendered at once.
The man who told me the story was slightly wounded later in the day, and
had a Uhlan helmet as a souvenir of the affray near the forest.
CHAPTER VIII.
FROM THE MARNE TO THE AISNE.
At 7 a.m. our Field Ambulance was ready to march. Breakfast was over,
and we stood by awaiting orders. While waiting, some of us strolled
back towards the bridge which we had crossed the previous night. It was
now empty of men and vehicles. The ashes of the bivouac fires and the
lopped branches of trees were all the tokens left of the passage of a
German and a British Army Corps. The Marne is a deep stream with a slow
current, and is a popular boating river. Two or three boating-club sheds
lay pleasantly situated on the banks of the stream, bowered in foliage
and trees. Up and down the river the scene was exceedingly beautiful. It
was curious, when standing on the bridge, to think that in the previous
forty-eight hours the tide of war had rolled over this lovely valley;
that artillery had plastered the landscape with shrapnel and high
explosives, and that riflemen had lined the banks where to stand exposed
for one minute meant instant death; that many hundreds of men had died
and many hundreds had been wounded and crippled for life. The ambulance
lorries climbing out of the valley to the rear with the loads of wounded
men were the aftermath of the glitter and panoply of war, and of the
deadly struggle in the now peaceful valley.
At eight o’clock we received our orders to follow on. So “Field
Ambulance, fall in!” and away we went on the great walk to the Aisne.
At this time I did not have a horse. Every ambulance medical officer is
provided with a horse; but horses were scarce just then, and with three
other doctors I “foot-slogged” the way. It was a beautiful morning. The
night’s rain had settled the dust on the roads, the sun was shining
pleasantly, but drifting rain-clouds threatened a change. Major B—— and
myself marched at the head of the column on foot. Behind marched the
men of A Company—the stretcher-bearers and orderlies, followed by the
six ambulance waggons of A Company. Then the men and the waggons of B
Company, followed by the men and waggons of C Company. Water carts, kit
waggons, supply and equipment carts, brought up the rear. Our _personnel_
was about 250 men, and these with the waggons, carts, and horses made
a fairly long column. Our road led in a snake-like way through the
gradually rising uplands beyond the Marne on to the plain beyond. The
countryside was typically French: clumps of forest were on our right,
villages were dotted about everywhere, and there were many isolated
farmhouses surrounded by belts of trees and orchards. The countryside
was agricultural. The wheat and oats had been cut and newly-made stacks
were standing in the stubble fields, and some of the fields still held
the “stooks” of grain. About nine o’clock we came on the grim evidences
of war. Our road led right through a country over which the Germans were
retreating and we were pursuing. Two large motor-cars, broken down, were
lying in a ditch beside the road. These were German staff cars. One had a
badly burst tyre and that seemed to be all that was the matter with it.
Farther on was a smashed French ambulance waggon, with a broken axle,
and full of equipment and stores, abandoned by the Germans. This car had
evidently been captured from the French during the German advance. Four
German soldiers of the Mecklenburg Corps were lying together in a ditch.
All had been killed by shrapnel wounds in chest and head. It seemed as
if the four men had sat down exhausted in the ditch by the roadside and
that one of our shrapnel shells had burst right over them, killing them
all outright. We removed their identification discs in order that they
could be sent to Germany later on. Close by was another dead German
lying face downwards on the earth and with both hands extended above his
head. Shrapnel had caught him full in the back of the neck. In a small
clump of trees to the left of the road were two more dead Germans. One
was lying on his back with his left hand over a wound in the chest. The
other soldier had evidently been trying to assist him, for he had been
kneeling on the right side of the wounded man when he too received a
mortal hurt and fell dead across his dying comrade. His head was lying
in a deep puddle of coagulated blood. The rifle of one lay some distance
off, evidently violently thrown away by the first man when he received
his chest wound. The rifle of the other soldier had been laid carefully
against a tree within reach. The poor fellow did not reach out for it
again. Two young Germans were found lying close together in a clump
of vegetation. They had been sorely wounded and had crawled off the
roadside into the friendly shelter of the trees. Left behind by their
countrymen, grievously wounded and in dire distress, they had curled up
together in the damp grass and died during the night. One had died from
hæmorrhage and one from a brain injury. Another group of four soldiers
had crawled into a ditch and were lying close together in their last long
sleep—killed by one of our heavy shells.
A small footpath at one place ran from the side of the road towards the
gate of an orchard of apple trees. Two German soldiers were lying here
dead, and with their rifles alongside them. One had just reached the gate
and the other was close on his heels when a burst of British shrapnel
stopped their further progress. Stragglers from the retreating army,
they were making for the orchard to hide when death came suddenly upon
them. So the grim picture went on. The German dead dotted the roadside,
the clumps of trees, and the fields on either side. Thirty Germans were
found killed on a small ridge to our right. Another one was found alive,
but dying. His wounds were carefully dressed and we carried him into
a neighbouring cottage to die. Our artillery at the Marne did deadly
execution and our shrapnel must have made of that roadside and the fields
alongside a perfect hell.
Our gunners had got the range of the road and plastered it and the
adjoining land with a murdering hail of lead and iron. It was curious
to note how badly wounded men seemed to try to escape from the open and
crawl into the shelter of a ditch or a clump of trees.
A man wounded in the field would do as a wounded stag or rabbit
would,—try for cover. Some men died after crawling away a few yards. Some
got some distance away into the ditches and died there, a bloody trail
marking their last painful journey.
The expressions on the faces of the men were on the whole peaceful. Some
had a look of wild surprise in their upward, staring eyes. Some looked as
if a great fear and terror had possessed them at the last awful moment.
The expression on the face of one finely built German officer, with a
clean-cut intellectual face and firm jaw, was that of a sublime contempt.
His eyes and nose and the curl on his lips betokened a contemptuous
regard that was curious to see in a dead man.
One burly young man killed by a shell wound in the abdomen had lived some
time after having received his mortal hurt, for he had plucked some straw
from the wheat stack near which he lay and made a pillow of it. On this
he had rested his head. His military cloak lay over him, pulled tightly
round his neck. There he lay with one hand under his head and resting on
his pillow of crumpled straw, and the other hand pressed on his wounded
abdomen as if to give it some support. He looked like a man sleeping the
peaceful sleep of utter fatigue, and when painlessly asleep his heart had
ceased to beat. In his haversack there was a hard sausage and a piece
of hard white bread. His water-bottle was empty and the cork had not
been replaced, nor had the bottle been hooked on to his belt. Wounded,
bleeding, thirsty, and exhausted, he had slowly crept off that awful
field into the friendly shelter of the haystack.
The dead Germans were young sturdy men, strong-jawed and wiry. This was
no canaille whom we were fighting, but a trained, determined soldiery who
would fight hard and die gamely.
Our route for the remainder of this day lay through such scenes of blood
and devastation. We passed abandoned ammunition trains, field guns,
saddlery, field kitchens, and war equipment of all sorts. There could
be no doubt about the precipitate retreat of the Germans, nor of the
tenacious and pressing character of the pursuit. Large numbers of dead
horses littered the roadsides and fields. Some had been wounded or killed
by our fire. Some lay with outstretched necks and open mouths, dead from
exhaustion, and some had evidently been shot as temporarily useless by
the Germans themselves who did not wish them to remain alive for the
enemy. One sorely wounded horse as we passed tried painfully to get up.
We gave him the merciful dispatch with a revolver shot.
Rain fell heavily during the afternoon for about an hour and then the
sky cleared again. Continuous heavy fighting was going on all day on our
front and flanks, and muffled waves of artillery bursts could be heard
from the far distance. The whole French and British Army was advancing in
one wide semi-circle, endeavouring to “roll up” two German Army Corps.
After a hard, gruelling march of twenty-two miles we reached Chiezy. It
was then pitch dark and we were all exhausted, for we had been on our
feet for over twenty hours, part of the time marching, and part of the
time standing by waiting to go forward. When a column is marching along
a road, pursuing an enemy who is every now and again making a temporary
stand to get a brigade or a battalion out of a tight corner, the going
is necessarily slow and there are many waits—sometimes for ten minutes,
sometimes for an hour or more. The waits on the roadside are really more
tiring than the steady marching. When one is “soft” and not accustomed
to long walking, a day’s march like this proves a torture. If such a
“tenderfoot” sat down by the wayside for a few minutes, it was almost
impossible to get the cramped body into the erect attitude again. Towards
the end of the long, long day, and in the darkness of the night, with
feet swollen and sore, brain and body numbed with fatigue, one did not
march, but only stumbled and lurched along the never-ending road like
a drunken man. A tired brain induces muscular fatigue, and physical
exhaustion causes mental torpor. When our ambulances pulled into the
stubble field at Chiezy, we had lost all interest in the war, and in
everything else on this earth except a cup of tea and a long sleep.
However, certain duties had to be attended to before one turned in. The
horses were looked after, the ambulances parked, and rations served out
to the men. We had about twenty patients, all of them British soldiers
with sore feet—men who had fallen out of the regiments on the march and
had waited by the roadside for the ambulance waggons. We always ordered
these poor devils to jump into the waggons and take off their boots and
socks. This gave instant relief. The sores on the heels and across the
instep were painted with iodine. In a few days the men were generally
well and fit to rejoin their regiments.
On bivouacking this night we got all these “foot birds” to wash their
feet. This was a novel experience to men who had marched from Mons
without a wash or change of socks. The officers’ cooks soon had coffee
and stew ready, and our servants had spread straw on the ground, on which
our valises were unrolled. The night was beautiful; about two miles away
the guns were booming and the bright flashes of the bursting shells
reminded us that war was close beside us. Without even taking off our
boots we lay down on our valises and were asleep as soon as our bodies
assumed the horizontal.
At four o’clock next morning we were roused by the penetrating voice of
the O.C., Major X——. “Turn out, turn out!” There was no escaping that
voice or the caustic remarks that would be sure to come if one did not
“turn out.” We all got buckets of water, and stripping in the open had
a good morning bath in the buckets. It was cold, but bracing. Breakfast
of coffee, bread, jam, and fried bacon. Day broke shortly afterwards and
we found that we had camped on the scene of a struggle of the previous
afternoon. Close by were a number of dead horses with their saddlery
still on. Some newly-made graves were distinguished about 500 yards from
our sleeping quarters. A German cavalry patrol had been bivouacked near
a wood hard by our camping-place, and had evidently been very badly
handled, judging by the signs of confusion, the litter left behind, the
dead horses, the recent graves. In a small hollow I picked up a very
fine German saddle and bit, and a good waterproof sheet. A bundle of
letters was lying near in a small leather satchel, and on the cover of
the satchel was stitched the photograph of a very pretty woman’s face.
Our O.C. had been educated in Germany, and being a good German scholar
read the letters. They were of no military importance, and had been sent
by the lady of the photograph to the owner of the satchel—evidently
an officer. There were congratulations about his “promotion,” and an
earnest, loving message for his safe return.
Poor devil! We surmise that he must have been a young cavalry officer in
command of the patrol. His “promotion” was short-lived, for he lay under
one of the new mounds of clay, and the poor lady with the charming face
would have some very sad hours when she learned from the German casualty
lists that “Ober Lieutenant X—— was missing.” One of our men picked up
here a very fine pair of new German boots. As his own were a little the
worse for wear he put on the German ones, and said that they were much
more comfortable than the British military boot. I believe that his
observation was quite correct. Amongst other souvenirs picked up at this
interesting corner were a pair of field-glasses, a revolver, a good set
of razors and mirrors, an ivory-backed hair-brush—all made in Germany.
Our greatest find was yet to come. As our ambulance was getting under
way one of our R.A.M.C. corporals hove in sight marching proudly at the
head of eleven fully-armed German prisoners. The corporal’s tale was
full of interest. He was searching in the wood for more “souvenirs” when
he came suddenly upon the eleven soldiers lying together in a small
clearing. The corporal thought that his last hour had come. All the
tales of German atrocities he had heard unfolded rapidly in his mind,
and when the German non-commissioned officer got up and approached him,
speaking German, which our corporal did not understand, he thought
that his death-sentence was being pronounced. By signs, to the utter
amazement of the corporal, he grasped the fact that the Germans wished to
surrender. He beckoned the enemy to follow him, and the eleven hungry,
tired, and very dirty-looking Mecklenburghers came docilely into camp.
Our O.C. approached them, took their rifles, and ordered them coffee,
bully beef, and biscuits. The prisoners set to without delay, and ate as
only hungry Germans can eat. Three of them had badly blistered feet, and
when we marched off these were accommodated in the ambulance waggons. The
remainder marched behind the waggons of A Company, under charge of the
corporal who “captured” them. Later in the day we handed them over to the
Norfolk Regiment, as it was clearly against the etiquette of war for a
Field Ambulance to have prisoners of war. We hadn’t a gun amongst us.
The capture of eleven prisoners of war by our Field Ambulance was the
occasion for much joy to our men, and the corporal was a very proud man.
I don’t know what the Germans thought when they discovered that they had
surrendered to an unarmed party. The 15th Field Ambulance is so far the
only ambulance which has taken prisoners of war, and I hope that the
R.A.M.C. messes at Aldershot and Netley will duly treasure the fact in
the archives.
Rain fell heavily when we left Chiezy, and we were soon soaked to the
skin. The roads were quagmires of greasy and sticky mud, heavy lowering
clouds made everything sombre and grey, and the countryside looked
mournful and cheerless. Mile after mile we trudged in the pitiless rain.
I shall always remember the march from the Marne to the Aisne, for its
wet and mud. Shortly after leaving Chiezy we came upon some gruesome
evidences of German savagery. Near a stable built on to a farmhouse we
saw a Frenchman lying dead across a manure heap. The top of his head had
been blown off, and his brains were plastered over his face. The man,
evidently the proprietor, had been shot the previous day by a German
officer. There was an old woman at the farm, and she told us this, and
that she had seen him fall. What was the reason for the brutal murder she
did not know. She said that the officer and the farmer seemed to be in
conversation near the stable, and the farmer appeared to be protesting at
something. Suddenly the officer placed the muzzle of his revolver close
to the farmer’s forehead and shot him. The wound had been inflicted at
close range, and we were filled with disgust at such a callous murder.
About a mile farther on, we met another poor devil who had been done to
death. A middle-aged man with a bald head, bare-footed, and dressed in an
old pair of blue pants and a cotton shirt, was lying near a plough close
to the road. His head had been battered in, probably with the butt-end
of a rifle, and he had been dead for about twenty-four hours. Why the
poor wretched man had been killed we did not know. The third instance of
this fiendish villainy I saw later on in the day at Billy. This time it
was a young man, a mere youth, and he lay face downwards at the door of
a cowhouse, dead from a bullet wound in the chest. I examined the wound
with some care, and would be quite prepared to swear in any court of law
that the man who shot him had pressed the revolver against the dead man’s
chest when he pulled the trigger. This is the German way. These examples
of nauseous and disgusting frightfulness amazed me. I had never before
come up against such tragedies, and I felt an unholy pleasure that our
big guns farther along the road were pouring shrapnel and shell amongst
the living devils who did such things.
At Billy our Brigadier-General, Count Gleichen, ordered us to bivouac for
the night. Major B—— and I billeted in a small cottage abutting on a very
smelly cowshed. At the cottage fire we dried our soaking uniforms, and
dug dry underclothing out of our valises, which we spread on the kitchen
floor and lay upon. Madame of the cottage was full of the latest war
news. She was _très intelligente_ and very satisfied with the progress
of the war. She told us that our advanced guard had entered the village
only six hours behind the retreating Germans; that the Germans were in a
great hurry and were too tired almost to march; that their officers were
angry and cursed and struck the men who lagged behind. She also assured
us that some Uhlans had ridden through, and that they were very drunk and
had bottles of champagne suspended in festoons round their necks. While
making some tea, and boiling eggs, she cheered us up with the assurance
that the war would soon be over, for Monsieur le Curé had told her so
himself, bless his heart.
The Curé opened his church and allowed our men to carry in straw and
sleep there for the night. This was a godsend to our men during that
night of pouring rain, and the Curé got many a rough blessing for his
kind act. The villagers at Billy were much heartened at seeing the
British so close on the German heels, and one old fellow—he must have
been a centenarian—got very drunk on the strength of it all, and assured
us that he was a veteran of the _soixante-dix_ and had killed many
Germans at that time. He was too drunk to remember the exact number.
During the night I was awakened by a tremendous artillery fire. The
batteries beyond the village had got the range of something and were
giving them hot potatoes. Madame of the cottage was very alarmed, and
thought that the Germans were coming back. Her confidence in the British
was not as firm as she had led us to believe the previous evening.
We were all out and ready to march at five o’clock next morning, but
did not move off till seven o’clock. Rain still continued to pour down
and we were all miserably muddy and damp. Whenever a big artillery duel
took place heavy rain was sure to follow. This was so on the Marne and
on the Aisne, and some one with a meteorological bent had made the same
observations during the Peninsular War. All day long we marched or
waited on the muddy, sopping _pavé_ with waterproof sheets tucked round
our necks and shoulders, off which the water streamed. The advance now
was very slow, and we were told that our men ahead were meeting with a
more organised and steady resistance. We no longer met evidences of a
precipitate retreat. There were no more German dead or abandoned material
by the roadsides.
At 9 p.m. in the dark we entered the doleful village of Chacrise. For
sixteen hours we had been on our feet and had only covered about eight or
nine miles. The soft roads, ground down by our heavy waggons and guns,
were in a bad state, and we walked through ankle-deep mud and slush. When
we entered Chacrise we were told that all the billets had been taken
up. The church, the _Mairie_, the shops, and houses were all occupied
by our soldiers. It looked as if we should have to sit all night on the
cobble-stones of the street, and what with the darkness, the incessant
pouring rain, and the fatigue, we were all very sorry that we had come to
France to fight Germans. But every cloud has its silver lining. We found
an unoccupied house down a dark alley. The windows were firmly shuttered
and the door securely locked. The occupants had locked up their house
and bolted when the Germans were known to be about. By a little skilful
burglary with a jemmy we opened a window. One of us got in and opened the
front door from the inside: very soon our cook had a fire lighted and a
hot supper ready. We got all our men and horses under good cover, and
our night at Chacrise, which promised so badly, turned out very happily.
We were all given an issue of rum this night. Rum is an oily, nauseous
drink, but given certain surroundings and a certain physical state
it has a most excellent flavour. On the night at Chacrise everything
conspired to make the rum very palatable.
At 4 a.m. next day our never-sleepy O.C. disturbed our dreams with his
“Turn out, turn out!” and out we turned. We had no choice when he was
stalking round. Again we stepped out on muddy roads, and under a heavy
downpour of soaking rain, and marching and stopping, reached the village
of Serches on the Aisne at eleven o’clock in the morning. The rain then
ceased and a glorious, welcome sun appeared. The whole countryside was
bathed in a delightful warmth, and we felt glad to be alive.
We were ordered to bivouac our ambulances in a field behind the village,
and were told that the German rearguard was holding up our advance most
determinedly along the Aisne banks, and that the enemy artillery was in
great strength.
Our march from the Marne to the Aisne was accomplished, and we now
entered upon a new and different phase of the great war game. Our Brigade
was in action on the Aisne banks, and we had to take up a position behind
it and be prepared to receive its wounded and sick.
The Field Ambulance with a marching army takes its number from the
Brigade which it serves. The 15th Field Ambulance followed the 15th
Brigade; the 13th Field Ambulance, the 13th Brigade, and so on. Four
regiments or battalions form a Brigade, and all the other units attached
to the Brigade, such as cavalry or ammunition columns, are also medically
attended by the Field Ambulance attached to their Brigade.
Our Brigade consisted of the Norfolks, Cheshires, Bedfords, and Dorsets,
and the Brigadier was Major-General Count Gleichen, now a General of
Division.
It was from these regiments that we received most of our casualties on
the Marne, on the Aisne, and later at La Bassée, and, as the following
few notes will show, we were serving with regiments who had proved
themselves doughty warriors in the past.
The Norfolk Regiment was created in 1685 in the time of the Stuarts to
help suppress the rebellion of Monmouth. Their badge is the figure of
Britannia, well won, in 1707, for their gallant bearing at Almanza. This
great regiment has done sterling service in many lands, and has as battle
honours, Roleia, Corunna, Peninsula, Sevastopol, Afghanistan, and South
Africa. Their nicknames are three, “The Holy Boys,” “The Fighting Ninth”
(they were formerly called the 9th Regiment of Foot), and the “Norfolk
Howards.”
The Bedfordshire Regiment, with its badge of the united red and white
rose, and its battle honours with the proud names, Blenheim, Ramillies,
Chitral, was a magnificent unit in France when we joined it. The regiment
had been raised in the last years of James II. in 1688, and from 1809
to 1881 was known as the 16th Regiment of Foot. The nicknames of the
regiment are “The Peacemakers,” “The Featherbeds,” “The Bloodless Lambs.”
This regiment lost heavily at Missy on the Aisne, and at Ypres later on
in the war it had over 650 casualties.
The Cheshires, with a united red and white rose for a badge like the
Bedfords, were raised in 1689, and were in old days the 22nd Regiment
of Foot. Their war record includes Martinique, Hyderabad, Scinde, and
South Africa, and their nicknames are “The Two Twos,” “The Red Knights,”
and “The Lightning Conductors”—when marching in Ireland about fifteen
years ago the regiment was struck by lightning. The Cheshires have
suffered terribly during this war, and at Missy we had a number of their
casualties to treat, and many were buried near the old village on the
Aisne.
The Dorsetshire Regiment has a proud motto, “Primus in Indis,”
commemorating its great services in India, and the fact that it stands
first in order of precedence amongst British regiments that have seen war
there. The drum-major of this regiment still carries the staff of the
Nawab’s herald on parade. It was captured at Plassey, where the regiment
was in action under Clive.
Sir Horace Smith-Dorrien, Commander of the 5th Division, “particularly
mentioned the fine fighting of the Dorsets. They suffered no less than
400 casualties. Their Commanding Officer, Major Roper, was killed, but
all day they maintained their hold on Pont Fixe.” Their battle story is
a great one, and includes Plassey, Albuera, Vittoria, Sevastopol, and
Relief of Ladysmith. The 1st Battalion was raised in 1702. The “Green
Linnets” is their nickname.
CHAPTER IX.
THE AISNE AND THE TRAGEDY OF THE SUNKEN ROAD.
On arriving at Serches on the Aisne our ambulance pulled off into a
sloping grassy field, and the tired horses were taken out, fed, and
rubbed down. Fires were lit and we all prepared to enjoy ourselves by
resting in the glorious sun’s rays, washing, shaving, and smoking a pipe
in comfort. For the past few days we could not smoke in the open owing to
the rain.
A tremendous artillery engagement was going on at the front. Our
batteries were posted behind a long ridge not far from where we were,
and every gun was in action, making the air resound with the bursting
charges. It was not by any means a one-sided affair, as we were soon to
know. The enemy were firing from a ridge on the other side of the river,
and they had got our positions very accurately. At one o’clock a Taube
flew over our position and dropped three bombs. Two fell near us with a
terrible clatter, one on the road to our left down which we had come, and
one about 400 yards behind us in a belt of trees. The third one actually
fell in our field, and plunged itself angrily into the soft turf. Our
position was obviously not a safe one for a Field Ambulance, and we got
orders to retire two miles farther back. We did not move off, however,
till 5 p.m.
[Illustration: HALT AT SERCHES.]
Major B—— and I walked through the village of Serches and turned up the
road leading to the right behind a steep ridge which flattened out into
a plain of about one to two miles’ width. This plateau fell abruptly
on its northern side right on to the Aisne River. When climbing up
this road, which led to the summit of the ridge, we passed numerous
stretcher-bearers bringing in wounded to the 13th Field Ambulance,
which was also quartered in the village. The men with slight hand or
head wounds were walking, and the serious cases were on stretchers. The
Germans had got the range of the ridge summit towards which our road led,
and were freely plastering it with shrapnel and Black Marias.
On approaching the top of the rise we saw two of our batteries on our
right, and three on our left well forward in the plateau, and busily
engaged. Our guns at this date were not concealed from inquisitive
Taubes by trees and foliage—that lesson had not yet been learned by the
conservative Briton. German shells were bursting on the ridge in good
line for our guns, but about a quarter of a mile short. Our road now
took a direct turn for the far side of the plateau, and here it went
through a deep cutting down to a bridge which spanned the river. On the
left-hand side of the road at the cutting there was a large gravel pit
or cave where road-metal was obtained. The road across the plateau was
open and exposed, but from the cutting to the banks of the river it was
lined with pine trees. Major B—— and myself were standing on the road
at the top of the ridge trying to make out the German positions with
our field-glasses. A gunner officer, seeing the red-cross brassards on
our arms, hurried up and said, “You are urgently wanted in the sunken
road about a mile and a half down. Two doctors have just been killed and
there are a lot of badly wounded on the road.” We had no dressings of
any sort with us. We had come thus far out of curiosity, not expecting
that it was such a “hot corner.” We, however, went forward at the double
along this exposed road, passing upturned waggons, dead and dying horses,
khaki caps and overcoats, overturned and smashed water carts. Out of
breath, we reached the cave and found how urgently necessary we were.
The scene defied description. The cave was a shambles of mangled forms.
Nineteen wounded men were lying in the loose sandy gravel, having just
been brought in by their surviving uninjured comrades. One was on the
point of death from a shrapnel wound of the brain—the bullet had passed
through the orbit. There were fractured limbs, shrapnel wounds of the
chest, abdomen, and head, shell wounds and concussions. We did all we
possibly could with first-aid dressings. We got the uninjured men to take
off their puttees, and these we used as bandages; rifles were employed
as splints for the lower limbs, and bayonets for the upper limbs. One
poor officer, Captain and Quartermaster M——, an old soldier with two rows
of ribbons on his coat, had a badly shattered thigh and knee. He was
suffering tortures, and his anguished face showed the strong efforts
he made to control himself. Lieut. W——, R.A.M.C., a civil surgeon, had
a smashed ankle-joint. We sent at once for ambulances and stretcher
parties. These soon arrived, and the terribly wounded men were conveyed
to the Field Hospital which had just been arranged at Serches.
Poor Captain M—— died that night, and was buried near a stone wall in the
garden at the old farmhouse of Mont de Soissons, and the doctor had to
have his leg amputated later. He was a very plucky man. Even when wounded
and lying in helpless pain, he gave instructions about the other wounded
men.
After the wounded were sent away I walked a few yards down the road to
the place of the disaster. Here was a scene of ghastly horror. On the
road lay mangled and bleeding horses, dead men lying in all sorts of
convulsed attitudes, upturned waggons, smashed and splintered wood.
Add to this the agonised groans of our wounded men, the shrill scream
of dying horses, and that impalpable but nevertheless real feeling of
standing in the face of the Creator—one can, perhaps, then feebly picture
this scene of carnage, of the solemnity of death, and of the pitiless
woe of this devastation. Where could one find here a trace of the glory,
pomp, and magnificence of war?
The story of the incident is one not uncommon. A party of men of the West
Kents were sitting by the roadside beyond the cutting, having a meal of
bully beef and biscuits. As they were eating, a cavalry ambulance came
up from the bridge over the Aisne. When the ambulance was abreast of
the West Kents, a German battery landed a Black Maria on the ambulance,
and at the same moment shrapnel burst right amongst them all. The heavy
explosive and the shrapnel did terrible execution. Captain F——, R.A.M.C.,
was killed outright, the other doctor was badly hurt. Eight men of the
West Kents met instantaneous death; eight horses were killed, and three
horribly mangled and flung off the road by the violence of the explosion.
On examining these dead men on the road it was noticeable that they had
all received a multiplicity of wounds. One man, a burly sergeant-major,
had a big hole in his head, another huge hole in his neck, a lacerated
wound of the chest, and one boot and foot blown completely away. All had
widely open staring eyes. The expression seemed to be one of overwhelming
surprise and horror.
Poor fellows! Their moment of surprise and horror must indeed have been
brief, for death is dealt out at these times with a lightning flash.
[Illustration: GUN TEAMS AT THE MARNE.]
[Illustration: THE WAY TO THE SUNKEN ROAD.]
In describing events in this war one unconsciously has to turn to
superlatives. “Devilish, hellish, bloody, awful, and terrible” are words
that come most trippingly to the tongue. This war is superlative in
all its moods and tenses. Superlative in the number of men engaged, in
the extent of the battle front, in the duration of the battles, in the
misery it is causing and has caused, in the awful loss of life, in the
mutilating wounds caused by the shrapnel, in the number of the missing,
in the atrocities, inhumanities, and blasting cruelties of the enemy,
and in their wanton destruction of all that is sacred and revered.
“Few few shall part
Where many meet.”
CHAPTER X.
MISSY ON THE AISNE.
We left Serches at 5 p.m. and retraced our road for about two miles till
we reached the ancient Château-farm of Mont de Soissons. This historic
farm was our headquarters during September and till the date we left in
October 1914, and it was during this eventful period that all the great
stirring events “on the Aisne” took place. “On the Aisne,” how much of
tragedy and pathos, of great deeds, of gallant deaths, stubborn fighting,
and indomitable courage are associated with those words?
On the night after our arrival at Mont de Soissons, the ambulance
officers were sitting about eleven o’clock round a table in the
old dining-room of the Château, when an urgent order arrived from
headquarters to send doctors, stretcher-bearers, and ambulance waggons
with equipment to Missy. The orders were for the ambulances to get to
Missy in the dark, pick up the wounded, and at all costs to come out
again in the dark. To get to Missy, which was situated on the far side
of the Aisne, we would have to cross the river, and,—reading between the
lines of this definite order to get in under cover of darkness and get
out again in the dark,—one could see that our night ride was to be a
somewhat perilous one.
Section C, the section to which I was attached, was ordered to undertake
the task, and at twelve o’clock, on a pitch-dark rainy night, our section
was ready to move off. We had five waggons, with the complete _personnel_
of one section. Major B—— was in command, with Lieutenant I—— and myself
as the other medical officers, and with us Monsignor, the Catholic
chaplain attached to our field ambulance, also came as a volunteer.
Monsignor was the salt of the earth, and whenever he thought that he
could be of service to our wounded men he was there. There was no demand
on him on this wild rainy night to leave the comfortable shelter of the
farmhouse and voyage out towards the enemy lines; but he had a strong
sense of duty, and behind the priest there was more than a _soupçon_ of
the knight-errant, who warmed at the thought of a dangerous adventure.
We were not permitted to light our waggon lamps, and in the darkness
we rumbled off, anxious not to lose any time over our mission, and if
possible complete it under cover of darkness.
Misfortune dogged us from the start. We had but one map; and as nobody
could give us any directions, that was our only guide. We mapped out the
route, Mont de Soissons to Serches—Serches to Venizel on the banks of the
Aisne, where was the bridge by which we were to cross the river—Venizel
to Bucy le Long, and thence to Missy. Altogether, we reckoned that we had
7 or 8 miles at least to go; but it proved to be a “long, long way to
Tipperary.”
After being five minutes on the march we discovered that we were on the
wrong road, and it took twenty minutes to turn the waggons on the narrow,
muddy _pavé_ and get on again. Passing through Serches, we turned to the
left and followed the road through a valley leading to the banks of the
Aisne. Here again we were nearly off on a wrong road, and lost about
another twenty minutes righting ourselves. The country was intersected
with roads not indicated on our map. We now got on to a narrow road
dipping sharply down towards a clump of trees, and here one of our
waggons slipped over the embankment, and one of the horses was killed. We
could not get the waggon up again, so abandoned it and pushed on with our
remaining four waggons, water cart, and supply waggon. The loss of this
waggon was a serious blow to us, as events will show.
As we entered the forest we were challenged by a sentry of the Cameron
regiment, who passed us on. A Cameron officer met us here and told us
that we were going into a bad place, as late that afternoon he had lost
some men from shrapnel at the very spot where we then were. Progress was
very slow for the next 500 yards, as the road was barricaded with felled
trees, and trenches had been dug alongside. After negotiating this nasty
corner we got on quickly to Venizel.
We reached Venizel right on the banks of the Aisne, and learned to our
chagrin that the fine stone bridge had been destroyed by the German
artillery that day. The engineers with superhuman energy had just about
completed a pontoon bridge. We were kept waiting here for an hour. Then,
one waggon at a time, we got across. The bridge was very doubtfully lit
at either end by darkened lanterns, and one seemed to be very close
to the swift current of the Aisne, already in flood. At the far side
of the bridge our progress was again very slow for some time, as we
had to meander gingerly between the trenches dug for the men who were
holding the bridge-end. As we left the pontoon an optimistic engineer
lieutenant, in clothes dripping with water, cheerfully called out “Good
luck. Hope you get back all right.” In reply we warned him that he would
get pneumonia if he didn’t change his clothes, and that it was foolish to
take baths in the Aisne with a uniform on.
Our road lay now along a flat plain, curving to the right. The night was
very dark and ominously silent. Our men were forbidden to talk or smoke
cigarettes, as we were approaching the enemy lines. Reaching Bucy le
Long, we inquired the way from a Scottish officer who was standing near
a stone well on the village street. All his men were alert and under
arms and expecting an attack at any moment. The officer, speaking with
the good Doric accent, indicated our way and told us to hurry on and get
under cover, as Missy was very “nasty” just then and they expected a
German attack.
We realised by this time that we might get into Missy in the dark, but by
no possibility could we bring the wounded out in the dark; and by the
serious preparations for repelling an attack in the village street we
knew that we could not get out in daylight. It looked as if we were soon
to be in the thick of that most sanguinary of all forms of war—street
fighting.
So on we went, and after taking another wrong turn and losing another
half-hour we got on to a straight road leading direct to Missy. It was
extraordinarily difficult to find one’s way, as the night was dark and
everything was strange and unfamiliar. There seemed to be hundreds of
roads, and the greatest care had to be exercised; for a wrong turning
would land us very speedily in the German lines, and none of us wished
our expedition to end in an inglorious pilgrimage to Germany.
As the first doubtful streaks of dawn appeared we reached Missy.
The main street of the village was full of men of the Norfolks and
Cheshires, all up and armed, and awaiting the Germans. There had been a
very hot skirmish outside the village on the previous afternoon, and the
Norfolks and Cheshires had lost heavily. It was the wounded from this
mêlée that we were to get to. A cheery Norfolk sergeant directed us down
a small lane to the right of the street, telling us that there were a
lot of badly hit men somewhere at the bottom of the lane. The lane was
too narrow to admit of our ambulances, so they were parked in front of a
baker’s shop and the horses were taken out. We hurried down the lane and
found the wounded men.
Dawn was breaking and shafts of grey light and shadow were thrusting
through the darkness. Then, like a clap of thunder, the German batteries
opened up, and from that moment till nightfall we lived through one of
the most hellish artillery duels that any mortal man could imagine. A
tornado of shot and shell swept across that beautiful Aisne valley.
It seemed as if all the fiends of hell were let loose. The noise was
deafening, ear-splitting, the bursting of the shells, the mighty
upheavals of earth where the shells struck, the falling trees, falling
masonry, crashing church steeples, the rolling and bounding of stones
from walls struck by these titanic masses of iron travelling at lightning
speed, the concussion of the air, the screeching, whisking, and sighing
of the projectiles in their flight, made an awful scene of destruction
and force. Add to all this the snarling, typewriter note of the Maxims,
the angry phut of the Mauser bullet as it struck a house or a gate,
and the crackling roars from our Lee-Metfords—truly it was the devil’s
orchestra, and the devil himself was whirling the fiery baton. The
steeple of the village church was struck fairly by a German shell, and
with a mighty crash the stones were hurled madly on to the road down
which we had but just passed, and killed one of our horses. Another shell
plunged right into the old church and sent its roof in a clattering hail
over the surrounding houses. A stone house at the top of our alley-way
got another shell and was levelled to the ground, killing two women who
were inside. The corner of the building in which we were located was
struck by a passing shell and a huge hole was ripped out of the solid
masonry. Shrapnel burst over the house, in the garden in front, on the
doors of the house, on the roof, and down the alley. Our red cross flag
and Union Jack were badly holed with shrapnel. At the kitchen door a
large piece of shell fell, sending mud and gravel against the windows
and into the room. A railway line ran past the foot of our garden, and
stretching from this railway line to the banks of the Aisne in the
distance was a wide grassy meadow on which some cows were grazing. A
thicket of tall trees, surrounding a small farmhouse, was situated to the
right of the meadow. This house was the headquarters of Count Gleichen,
the commander of the 15th Brigade. The Germans evidently were aware of
this fact, for the first shots they fired at break of day were at this
house. We could plainly see one shot fall short of the house, but in
a straight line for it. The second shot we thought had really got the
house, but fortunately this was not so. It landed near the door, as we
learned later. After this shot the headquarters galloped off as hard
as they could go, and the enemy tried to reach them with shrapnel, but
without success. Alongside the railway line there was a line of trenches,
and every inch of that line seemed to have been covered during the day by
the German fire. Their artillery practice was perfect, and at this period
of the war the enemy artillery mightily outclassed ours. Our guns from
the ridge on the other side of the Aisne made but a feeble reply to the
terrific German bombardment.
Now for the story of our wounded at Missy. When we got down our alley at
dawn on this eventful morning we found eighty-four grievously wounded
men. In a little stone fowlhouse to the left of the alley, fourteen men
were lying packed close together. There was no place to put one’s foot
in trying to walk over them. To the right of the alley a gate opened
into a gravel yard of a fine two-storied stone house, a very old and
solidly built building. The house formed three sides of a square; a
beautiful flower garden with a rose pergola formed the fourth side.
The gravel yard was in the centre. The lower story of this building,
with the exception of the kitchen and an adjoining room, consisted of
stables, granaries, saddlery rooms, and coachhouse. Lying on the floors
of the stable, kitchen, etc., were wounded men. They had all been wounded
the previous evening in an attack on the enemy concealed in a wood.
The wounded in the small fowlhouse were carried, under shrapnel fire,
across the alley to the big house and placed in the room adjoining the
kitchen and in the saddlery room. The cooks made up a big fire and soon
had hot water boiling. The three medical officers were soon rapidly at
work. The first case attended to was that of a young soldier of the
Norfolks who had been struck by a shell in the abdomen. His intestines
were lying outside the body, and loops were inside the upper part of
his trousers. Under chloroform we did what we could. He died painlessly
four hours afterwards. There were many bad shell wounds of the head; one
necessitating a trephining operation. One poor fellow had his tongue
half blown off. The loose bit was stitched on. The compound fractures
were numerous and of a very bad type, associated with much shattering
of the bone. Four men died during the day, but our arrival and timely
help undoubtedly saved many men. We made the poor fellows as comfortable
as we could, and we were incessantly busy from the moment we entered
this blood-stained place. I personally shall never forget the sight
of these poor, maimed, bleeding, dying and dead men crowded together
in those out-houses, with not a soul near them to help, and I am more
than thankful that I was privileged to be of service and to employ my
professional skill to help them in their dire hour of need. We knew that
we were in a tight corner. We expected that at any moment we would be
all blown to pieces; we did not know how we were to get these men back
to our own lines; but we knew also that whatever happened we would stand
by our helpless countrymen to the last, and if we failed to get them
safely back it would not be our fault. I mentioned previously that when
our ambulance got orders to go to Missy, Monsignor, the Roman Catholic
chaplain, volunteered to come with us. It is difficult to attempt to
write of our brave Monsignor. He was the bravest of the brave. When the
three medical officers were working hard with the wounded—dressing,
operating, anæsthetising—Monsignor was very busy too. He made hot soups,
hot coffee, prepared stimulating drinks, set orderlies to work to see
that every man who could take nourishment got it. One man injured in
the mouth could swallow only with the greatest difficulty. Monsignor
patiently sat by this man, and one way or another with a spoon managed
to give him a pint of hot Oxo soup and a good stiff nip of brandy. This
splendid prelate carried straw with his own hands and made pillows and
beds for our men. He took off boots and cut off bloody coats and trousers
in order to help the work of the surgeons. He rummaged in a cellar in
the house and discovered a box of apples. These he cut into slices for
our men. He stood by our dying men and spoke words of cheer and comfort
to the poor helpless fellows. He was absolutely reckless about himself.
Exposed to shrapnel and shell fire many times during the day, he was too
busy attending to the wounded to think about anything else. Towards dusk,
when our work eased off, we collected some pieces of shell which fell
near him—as souvenirs. I looked at Monsignor many times during the day,
and was struck with his expression of content and his happy smile. He was
exalted and proud and happy to be where a good priest,—and what a good
priest he was!—could be of such great service. I am not a Catholic, but
I honour the Church that can produce such a man as Monsignor, and I very
greatly honour Monsignor.
As darkness came on the hellish artillery fire quietened down and then
ceased altogether. The rifle-firing continued intermittently for a little
while longer and then it too ceased. We were now “up against” the last
and greatest trial of all—the evacuation of our wounded. During the day
some more wounded men had crawled into us, and we had now 102 men to
bring back to our lines. We managed in the darkness to get two large
French country carts to act as ambulances. Our four ambulance waggons
were, of course, not enough, and even with the help of the country carts
we could not accommodate 102 wounded men. Every man wounded in the head
or arms who could walk, was told off to march with our stretcher-bearers.
We packed the wounded lying-down cases into the ambulance waggons and
on to the country carts. Plenty of straw had previously been placed in
these latter. We were compelled to load up our waggons and carts far too
heavily, but our position was a serious one; we had to get the wounded
out somehow, and we had no one to help us. Our troops had retired from
Missy during the day and we were left all alone in front of the Germans
and quite at the mercy of their guns. The _via dolorosa_ of our sorely
wounded was on this night a very pitiable one. Exposed to rain, lying in
the utmost discomfort, compelled to keep for hours a cramped position,
they deserved our pity. The wounded men who had to march were also in a
sorry plight. These poor fellows were not fit to march; weak with shock,
pain, and loss of blood, they ought all to have been in bed; yet they had
to march, for we could not leave them behind.
At last all was ready to start. Strict orders were given against lights
and cigarettes. No talking was allowed, for the Germans were just “over
the way,” and they are people with “long ears.”
Before setting out we buried four officers and five men in a grave by
the railway, near the bottom of the garden. This mournful duty over, the
ambulance moved off.
This time we anticipated no delay, as we knew the road—vain hope. The
night was again very dark, and a drizzle of rain was falling. We had just
emerged from the silent village on the road to Bucy le Long when the
inky blackness of the night was cut through by the powerful beam of a
searchlight played from the German lines. The light swept slowly up and
down our column in a zig-zag wave once, and then a second time, this time
more slowly still. Every detail was illuminated with the brilliant glare.
The light was then fixed ominously on our front waggon, which had a big
red cross painted on its canvas sides. The column kept moving slowly on,
but for ten minutes that sinister, baleful light played all round the
first ambulance. We all thought that our last hour had come—that after
going through such a hellish day in the farmhouse at Missy we were to be
finally scuppered on the muddy road. We knew that the Germans were only
about 800 yards away. With strained nerves we waited, expecting them to
turn a machine-gun on us. The searchlight played up and down the column
once more and then was turned in another direction. My impression is that
the Germans made out the red cross on the leading waggon and so let us
pass. If they wished they could have destroyed us easily. We all breathed
again and continued on our way. After passing through Bucy le Long,
where we again saw our soldiers, we came across some returning-empty
motor lorries. We placed all our marching wounded on to these and eased
off the pressure in the country carts by taking off a few men. At Venizel
we were held up for five hours. The pontoon bridge had given way during
the day under the weight of a piece of heavy French artillery. The gun
had been fished out from the bottom of the Aisne with great difficulty,
but the horses were drowned. The Engineers were straining every nerve
to repair the bridge. It was vitally important to hurry, as this bridge
was the only artery of communication between our advanced troops and
the ammunition supplies. At last we got across and reached Mont de
Soissons, our ambulance headquarters, at nine in the morning. The wounded
were handed over to the other medical officers. Men and officers were
completely done up. We had been marching during two anxious, harassing
nights, and had lived through a bad day, but—we got out our wounded.
CHAPTER XI.
ON THE AISNE AT MONT DE SOISSONS.
Our Field Ambulance headquarters at the Château-farm of Mont de Soissons
was occupied by us till October. During this time our army was fighting
hard. Most of the days were rainy, and the trenches on the other side of
the river suffered from this. To our right was Braisne on the river, and
to our far right was Reims. To our left was Soissons—about eight miles
away. We were about fifty-eight miles from Paris.
Our billet was a good one. Imagine a huge hollow square surrounded by
stone buildings, and the square itself filled with an enormous manure
heap. One side of the square was taken up by the two-storied old stone
building containing kitchen, hall, sleeping-rooms, and offices. Stables
for sheep, cows, and horses formed two sides. The fourth side was a truly
beautiful and artistic one. It was formed by a wonderful old chapel, and
remains of what was part of the refectory and cellars of a monastery.
These buildings were in a splendid state of preservation, and were now
used to hold straw and cattle fodder. The chapel had been built by the
Knights Templars, and was in its day a place of renown. It is indeed a
pity that such historic buildings are so neglected and forgotten. In
the lofts of the dwelling-house and in a shed outside we put our sick
and wounded men. In a bedroom downstairs we put the wounded officers. We
were principally concerned at this time in the transportation of sick and
wounded to railhead. Although we were at headquarters of an ambulance,
no preparation or effort was made for any special treatment. Very few of
our cases remained more than twelve to twenty-four hours. Motor lorries
arrived at Mont de Soissons every morning, and on these our men piled
straw and placed the men, covering all with a huge tarpaulin cover raised
tent fashion on upright sticks. This method of transporting wounded was
crude and brutal. There were no motor ambulances at this time. The first
motor ambulance arrived after we had been ten days at Mont de Soissons.
Why motor ambulances were not with us from the beginning of the war is a
question which the Army Medical Department will have to answer when the
war is over, and the necessary public washing-day arrives.
Several wounded men and officers died at Mont de Soissons and were
buried in the garden alongside a stone wall. Wooden crosses mark each
grave-head, and two of them have stone crosses erected and engraved
by one of our orderlies. And the women of the house and neighbourhood
attend to the graves, and place flowers on them. It is beautiful to see
how reverently the French women look after our soldiers’ graves. The old
lady—the owner of this farm-château—has the names and dates of burial of
all officers and men interred in this garden, and the relatives of these
dead heroes will be able one day to visit this quiet corner of a garden
in France and will see how beautifully the graves have been tended by the
simple, kindly French peasant women.
[Illustration: MONT DE SOISSONS, SHOWING THE OLD TEMPLARS’ HALL AND
CHURCH.]
Our life at this place was full of interest. In front of us were our own
batteries, behind the ridge; then beyond was the river, and beyond that
our advanced troops in the trenches. To our left, the French occupied
Soissons. The French artillery was continually in action, pounding on
every day _sans cesse_ and generally also through the night, and it was
excellent and well served; but our guns were silent most of the day. At
eleven o’clock in the morning they would open up and leisurely plunge
their shot across the valley at Fort Condé for half an hour; then remain
silent till four or five in the evening, when another bombardment would
commence and continue till dark.
Occasionally they seemed to wake up and become very angry, and on
these occasions would bark and roar and screech for a couple of hours.
The Germans never refused an artillery duel, and when our batteries
seemed to wake up the Germans did too, and hurtled across their shot
at a tremendous pace. The Germans at this time wasted an enormous lot
of ammunition, but they nevertheless were extraordinarily formidable
and effective with this arm. There was a small embankment outside our
farmhouse, and this was a box seat _de luxe_ every afternoon from four
till half-past six o’clock. On our right, stretching on to Reims, and on
our left towards Soissons, the artillery, German, French, and British,
was then at its best. Sometimes the sound would be deafening all along
the line, sometimes it would concentrate itself in our particular corner.
Directly opposite us, on the far side of the river at Fort Condé, the
Germans had a very strong artillery position. Their guns there outranged
ours at first, and used on fine evenings, at the usual concert hour,
to give us some splendid exhibitions. First would come one shot to the
right, and then one to the left. Then four flashes of yellow flame
followed by huge cascades of earth would appear to strike the same
spot, and a few seconds after the dub-dub-dub-dub of the explosions
would reverberate and re-echo across the hills and valleys. They would
sometimes pick out one particular area of ground on our front and simply
cover every yard of it with bursting shells. At other times they would
plant a line of shells right across a particular place. Again they seemed
sometimes to go “shell mad,” and would wildly send shells to all points
of the compass. In the darkness of an autumn night the bursting of the
shells was a terribly magnificent sight. We could see our shells, and
especially the French shells, burst over the German positions. The French
artillery always excited our admiration. The great guns, the men, the
rapidity of fire, the noise, and the terrible bursting charges were all
wonderful. No wonder France is proud of her big guns and her splendid
gunners.
About ten o’clock in the mornings we frequently were surveyed by Taubes.
Many of them were most daring. They were always pursued by our men and
the French; and wonderful pursuits and flights were witnessed. Two of our
aeroplanes often started together after a Taube. One would fly directly
for the enemy craft, and one would circle into the upper blue and try to
get above it. We were told that they used to fire at one another with
carbines, but we never could hear the shots or see any smoke. The Taube
always made off. Sometimes a Taube would be up alone, and after hovering
and circling over our gun positions would make a sudden dash to directly
above a battery, drop a smoke signal, and fly away; this signal would
be rapidly followed by some German shelling. The greatest spectacular
effect of all was to watch the German shots from their anti-aircraft
guns bursting round our aeroplanes. It was like pelting a butterfly
with snowballs. We could see the burst and flash long before the sound
reached us. The bursts produced white and black smoke balls, the black
one appearing a little higher and later than the white. The white smoke
balls unrolled themselves into a curious shape, very like a big German
pipe. There was a huge bulb and a long, curling, thick stem. We stood
often with “our hearts in our mouths” expecting that one of our daring
flyers had been hit. Smoke-bursts would appear below, above, and round
the craft, and then one shot would seem to actually hit it. But no; a
minute afterwards we could make out the little machine flying higher or
emerging swaggeringly from the midst. We watched our own bursts round a
Taube with a different spirit, waiting eagerly for the _coup de grâce_,
and having no humane thoughts for the daring pilot. One afternoon we were
certain that a Taube had been struck, for one burst appeared to be right
on, but when the smoke cleared away the Taube was still going merrily.
Then it began to slowly descend, then ascend again, and then suddenly
plane away to our right. From the last shot she really had “got it in the
neck,” as Tommy Atkins puts it, and the machine plunged down behind the
French lines. The pilot was killed, the observer got a fractured spine,
and was dragged out of the wreckage—paralysed.
On the 19th September, orders from General French were read out
congratulating the British troops upon their valour and tenacity at the
Marne, and commending their courage on the Aisne. We were assured that by
holding on to our present positions the enemy would be forced to retire.
On one Sunday, service was conducted by Monsignor, our Catholic chaplain,
for Catholic soldiers, in one of the stable lofts at the farm. The
preacher and the men had to climb up a ladder placed on the outside of
the building, and get into the loft through a small door. The ladder
was a crazy affair, but Monsignor tested it by going up first. He was a
light-weight and very active, but a burly Falstaffian sergeant looked
very hesitatingly at it, and it certainly creaked and bent considerably
as he slowly mounted. The loft was packed with men, and we heard
afterwards that the floor was not meant for a heavy weight. We were
relieved to learn that there were no casualties at the service, and that
Monsignor and his flock had not gone through the floor and startled the
horses underneath.
I spent one forenoon in an advanced artillery observation post, and tried
to make out the German positions through a telescope. We could make
out some white waggons moving on a road far off, but they were out of
range. The observation officer got to his post by walking up a cutting
and then crawling into a hole, and there he stood for hour after hour
patiently watching the other lines, while his sergeant sat close by, well
concealed, and with a telephone receiver over his head. Any observations
of importance were ’phoned back to the battery. These observation posts
were dangerous “spots,” for they were well within the reach of enemy
shells and afforded very little cover. The observation officer here was
an enthusiast, and I think he was familiar with the outline of every tree
and rock on the other side. It requires some practice to be really expert
with a telescope. General officers occasionally came up to talk to our
observer and peer at the opposite ridge. I met this artillery observation
officer later on in the north of France, and this time he was a patient
in hospital with a scalp wound. He had been in a house well in advance
of our own advanced line, and had made a small hole in the roof through
which he obtained a good view of the enemy dispositions, and directed
the fire of his battery. The German is a wily man, and evidently did not
like the position of this house, for he shelled it out of existence. I
was glad that the major got out with nothing more than a scalp wound,
for good artillerists are worth much to our army to-day. Our artillery
officers seem to enjoy war more than any other branch of the service.
This major told me that one day his own and a French battery got fairly
on to a German battery that had done considerable damage. The Allied
guns destroyed the Germans, and the French were frantically delighted,
their colonel coming over and warmly embracing Major X—— and kissing him
on both cheeks. We told the major that he was a certain starter for the
Legion of Honour. The major was a happy man when he was standing in a
hole, or peering round a piece of rock, telescope to eye, and a sergeant
lying near him with a telephone receiver strapped on his head.
One afternoon on the Aisne we heard that the Norfolks, who were in the
trenches on our front, were hugely delighted. They had just killed a
sniper. This particular sniper had become notorious, for he was a dead
shot and had hit many of the Norfolk boys. Owing to the vigilance of
this particular sniper they could not get hot tea into the trenches, and
several of the Norfolk “Bisleys” were keenly anxious to bag him. One
day a tree was observed to rustle after a sniping shot, and at once the
Norfolks sent a hail of bullets into that particular tree. This brought
the man down, for winged by Norfolk bullets the arboreal Prussian fell
out of the branches like a ripe acorn, amidst the cheers of the men in
the trenches.
It was said that these snipers on the Aisne belonged to the Forest
Guards, who were rangers in the Imperial forests of Eastern Prussia,
and were dead shots, accustomed all their lives to shoot wild pigs and
wolves. They were highly unpopular amongst our men.
Sniping is quite in accordance with the rules of war, but the soldiers
feel that sniping as the Germans play it is not “cricket.” They naturally
feel very angry with a sniper who gets up a haystack with some provisions
and ammunition, and after having eaten all his food and fired off all his
cartridges calmly emerges and surrenders.
Our men are extraordinarily good to wounded Germans and to prisoners,
but these sniping sneaks stir their venom and ire. I saw one of these
surrendered uninjured snipers at Ypres meet with savage scowls and
epithets from some men of a company whose officer had been killed by him
that morning.
About the last week of September I brought over some motor ambulances
full of sick men to Braisne. This charming little town, situated on
the Aisne and on the Marne Canal, was full of ambulances and clearing
hospitals. Every house almost had a red-cross flag up, for the place was
crammed with sick and wounded, and the clearing hospitals had been very
busy with the big casualties. Three doctors had been killed a few days
previously at Vailly when in action with their regiments, and another
doctor had died the next day after having had his leg amputated for a
bad shell wound. He was awarded the V.C., but did not live to enjoy that
signal honour and distinction.
The clearing hospitals and ambulances were sending large numbers of
sick soldiers down to the base _en route_ for England—mostly cases of
dysentery, lumbago, and rheumatism. Many of these men looked bad wrecks,
and no wonder, when one remembers the rapid, arduous retreat from Mons
and Le Cateau in the broiling summer heat, followed by the hard fighting
and marching in the rain from the Marne to the Aisne, and how this was
succeeded by the hardships, miseries, and discomforts in the wet sodden
trenches at a time when it was impossible to give them hot cooked food
and sufficient warmth. More men were wanted, and until they arrived the
few had to do the work of many. The 5th Division had been promised a rest
in reserve to recuperate, but not a man could be spared from the line
we were so hardly holding, and so they simply had to “plug on,” and, as
cheerfully as they could, sing “It’s a long, long way to Tipperary”; but
they did not sing much at this time.
While we were at Mont de Soissons and a week after the arrival of our
first red-cross motor ambulances, we were given instructions to look out
for a mysterious red-cross motor-car driven by an officer in khaki who
had a beard and wore a red-cross brassard on his arm. This car seemed
to be very busy and was constantly travelling up and down the roads and
always at high speed—too high a speed to be challenged. Sitting at the
front of the car and next the driver was a nurse, dressed in nurse’s
uniform, wearing a white cap, and also with a red-cross brassard on the
left arm. We smelt something fishy about it all. Firstly, none of our
medical officers wore beards; secondly, medical officers did not drive
motor ambulances about; thirdly, there were no nurses with us. Nurses
are not allowed in the fighting line. We watched for this car always,
and always wondered what we would do if we did sight it, for none of
us had arms, and this villain with the beard would be sure to have a
loaded six-shooter near at hand. Two days after our warning the car was
spotted by a sentry, who challenged, but the driver went furiously past
him. He was not out of the bush though, for a barricade had been erected
half-way across the road at a very sharp turn, and to get round this the
car had to slow down to “dead slow.” A British sentry was here, and other
soldiers were standing not far away. The bearded driver was ordered to
stop and get out under cover of the sentry’s rifle. The guard came up and
the two motorists were arrested.
The man with the beard was a German spy right through, and he was handed
over to the French, who shot him at daybreak next day. They say he died
very gamely.
The “nurse” who sat beside him was not shot. We were told that “she” was
really a man, a dapper little German waiter who had been on the staff of
a leading hotel in Paris for some years. I saw the man with the beard
shortly after he was arrested. He looked quiet and scholarly and somewhat
meek, but “still waters run deep.”
At 4 a.m. on the 27th of September we were all “turned out” by our O.C.,
who had just received urgent orders to be prepared to leave Mont de
Soissons as the Germans “were over the river.” After standing by for
two hours we got word that it was a false alarm. Something had been
irritating the Germans this morning, for at daybreak they opened a
furious fire on our positions. As far as we knew it wasn’t the Kaiser’s
birthday or the anniversary of any prehistoric German victory, so we
put it down to nerves. Their gunners made a dead set on a field in our
front just behind the ridge along the Aisne. Hundreds of Black Marias
and shrapnel were sent on to that unlucky piece of ground, and it was
wonderful to see the shot-ridden earth sent up in huge volcanic bursts.
The enemy thought that we had a battery there, but we hadn’t one nearer
than half a mile, hence our enjoyment of the spectacle.
On the afternoon of this day we heard that Mr. Winston Churchill was with
us and was dining with the Scots Greys. At least that was the rumour,
but we hardly believed anything we heard out here. He was reported to
have said that the war would last another eighteen months. This piece
of information, following on an early morning’s alarm and in cold wet
weather, was distinctly cheering! However, as a kind of set-off, in the
late afternoon we heard that the Crown Prince had been buried again, this
time in the Argonne, and that it had been authentically established that
he was quite dead before having been buried. We were glad to know this,
because on the other occasions when he had been buried, he had not really
been quite dead.
We were at this period suffering from the effects of a dislocated postal
system. I had not yet received any letters from England, and did not know
if mine had reached there. We were all anxious to get the London papers
to “see how we were getting on at the front.” We knew what was going
on around us, but knew nothing more. One medical officer returned from
Braisne, told us that he had heard a great rumour there. We were all agog
to hear it. After whetting our appetites he gravely told us that a Padre
had informed him that, “All Europe was in the melting pot and the devil
was stirring the broth.” This officer was duly punished by having his rum
ration cut off.
One day on the Aisne I was an interested listener to a discussion
between two British officers and three French officers on national
characteristics, and this led up to a review of the way that the British,
French, and German charge with the bayonet.
The French charge magnificently with the bayonet, but they charge in a
state of tremendous excitement. When rushing across an open space to
the enemy they shout and scream with excitement, “France!” “A bas les
Boches!” “En avant!” They are uplifted with the wild ecstasy of the
onfall. Men fall in the mad rush never to rise again. _N’importe_—all
is unnoticed, on they go, an impetuous and irresistible avalanche of
steel, yelling, stabbing, slaying, overwhelming. They are superb, these
Frenchmen. I have seen them charge, and know from what I saw the splendid
fellows they are. In the Argonne, on the Aisne, and in Flanders, the
French soldier has carried out as resolute and daring bayonet charges
as ever his fathers did under Napoleon, when they stormed the bridge at
Lodi, swept over the field of Marengo, and hacked their bloody path at
Austerlitz.
The British charge stoically and more grimly. They do not shout. I have
heard them cursing. The British line advances as a sinister cold line of
steel, in a sort of jog-trot. It is a line of cool-brained gladiators,
alert of eye and thoroughly bent on slaughter. Our Briton sees his foe,
and smites savagely with the calculating judgment of a good Rugby forward
and with the bound of a wild cat. The disciplined valour and the savage
relentlessness of the British bayonet attack has been heralded in story
from Malplaquet to Waterloo, from Badajos to Inkermann, and historians
will chronicle the undying glory of the 7th Division at Ypres when with
rifle and bayonet it held the gate to Calais.
The German, in spite of what is often said to the contrary, is a brave
and determined man with the bayonet. The German discipline is undoubted.
It is a part of the people. It is the fibre of the nation. Discipline,
subjection to authority, has not to be taught to this people; it is
absorbed into their very being. The discipline of mind and body as
we understand it is not the discipline of the German, for his is an
obedience to authority only,—a “go” when ordered to “go,” a “come” when
ordered to “come.” But it is also a DIE when ordered to face certain
death. Men with whom this discipline is a message may not make saints or
pleasant companions, but do make sturdy foes and stubborn fighters.
They charge well, advancing with a stooping, jerky trot, uttering hoarse
guttural cries and “Hurrahs.” On they come, in solid masses shoulder to
shoulder, hoping by the weight and speed of the dense columns to get a
momentum that nothing can withstand. When in a solid compact phalanx
this German charge is very dangerous and formidable, and has been able,
although at a frightful cost, to brush aside and overwhelm veteran
British and French troops.
But if this compact line and solid column is broken, as it so often is
to-day by shrapnel, rifle, or machine-gun fire, the sense of cohesion
or “shoulder to shoulder” support is lost, and the heavy column is then
no match for the lightning bayonet onfall of the French infantry or the
weighty heave forward of a British regiment. The German infantryman is
not an “individual” fighter, but he is nevertheless a brave soldier, and
knows how to meet death. All three peoples have a great respect for each
other when it comes to close quarters and take no chances.
A curious feature of French bayonet charges was told me by a French
officer. He said that if the daily dispatches were read carefully it
would be noticed that the Germans, when they attacked the French,
generally made them vacate the first trench, but that the French always
counter-attacked, retook their own, and carried the charge on into the
German lines. He said that the Frenchmen are very easily surprised and
are only at their best when they know what they are up against and what
they have to do. They also require at times to be worked up to the “fire”
of the business, and that this was specially true of younger troops. The
officers know this, and when their men fall back from the front trench,
they get them together, tell them that they must go forward again,—that
France is watching them, that the cursed German has his foot in beautiful
France, that the sons of the men of Jena and Wagram must still show
their metal; then drawing his sword, and with “En avant, mes enfants,”
the officer leads forward, followed by his cheering men, and they are at
these times irresistible.
There is a story told at the front of a famous Scottish regiment whose
deeds have won admiration in nearly every battle in English history,
which occupied some advanced trenches. The Germans rushed them in
overwhelming numbers and drove them out with the bayonet. Another
regiment, composed almost entirely of little Cockneys, was called up in
support, and gallantly rushing forward drove out the Germans and took
many prisoners. They then told the brawny Scotchmen that they could go
back to their trenches again and if they felt anxious at any time the
M—— boys from London would be only too pleased to come back and comfort
them. Some weeks afterwards the Kilties helped the Cockneys out of a hot
corner, so the odds are now even.
Talking of bayonet charges leads up to bayonet wounds. It is a curious
fact, well noted amongst surgeons at the front, that there are very few
bayonet wounds to treat. Yet bayonet charges are constantly taking place,
and very bloody mêlées they are.
Where are these men who have been speared by the bayonet? The majority
are dead, for the bayonet when it gets home is a lethal weapon. When it
pierces the chest or abdomen it, as a rule, reaches a big artery; a rapid
hæmorrhage follows, and death comes speedily.
The majority of bayonet wounds are in the chest and abdomen, and ghastly
terrible wounds they are. After the Bavarians and Prussians were hurled
back at Ypres and La Bassée there were comparatively few bayonet wounds.
Amongst the vast number of wounded men in the Clearing Hospital at
Bethune I had personally to treat only one or two cases of bayonet
wounds. These were, as a rule, simple flesh wounds, and were the lucky
exceptions amongst the bayonet victims.
This feature about bayonet wounds was also noted by Larrey, the
surgeon-in-chief to Napoleon during the great Continental wars, by
M’Grigor, surgeon-in-chief to Wellington in the Peninsula, and by
surgical observers at a later period during the Crimean War. A war
correspondent in the Crimea wrote that a man who has been bayoneted dies
in great pain, that his body and limbs are twisted and contorted by the
last agonised movements preceding death. This belief is fallacious. Men
who die speedily from a sudden loss of blood die easily and quietly. They
go to sleep.
The German bayonet is longer, broader, and heavier than that of the
Allies. The French bayonet is not a blade, but is shaped like a spear or
stiletto. The British bayonet is a blade, short and light. It is not,
however, the blade or the stiletto, it is the man behind that counts.
I mentioned before that our sick and wounded were housed in a loft of
the farm-château of Mont de Soissons and in a shed outside. This shed or
lean-to was a most uninviting place for the sick. One side was formed
by a stone wall, from the top of that a roof projected, and this roof
was held up by wooden pillars. There was no floor and there were no
other walls. It was quite open to every wind that blew, except for the
protection of the stone wall and the roof. Straw was laid on the ground
of this lean-to and this straw, owing to the constant rain and the very
muddy, filthy state of the roads and yards round about, got very sodden
at times. New straw was then put on top of this old straw—that was all.
It wasn’t very much, truly. Yet badly wounded men were brought in in
large numbers from the trenches and kept lying on this sodden straw for
hours, and in some cases for a whole day and night. If the wounded man
arrived after eleven o’clock in the morning he had to put up with a night
on the straw in this lean-to. If the man was sick from one of the usual
diseases prevalent at this time—lumbago, rheumatism, and sciatica—he
was led up to the loft in the main house. If he had a slight wound he
was also led up to this place, but if he had a compound fracture or an
abdominal injury it was necessary to carry him up on a stretcher, and
the stair up to the loft was so narrow that the task was an extremely
difficult one, and full of pain and misery to the patient. The loft was
a draughty hole and not fit to accommodate a sick mountain goat. But it
was a Buckingham Palace to the Whitechapel lean-to on the stone wall
outside. Yet on this dirty sodden straw I have dressed foul, septic
compound fractures, have elevated a fragment of loose bone pressing on
a man’s brain, and have stood by men dying from gas gangrene, and from
pneumonia due to exposure from lying out in the rain and cold after
having been wounded. And every time I saw men lying out in that open
shed I have asked, “Why have we not motor ambulances at the front?”
Every morning empty lorries returning from distributing their supplies
at the front called in at Mont de Soissons and took our wounded down to
railhead; and this method of transportation of the wounded was one of
the horrors of war. Our wounded and sick did not arrive according to any
time-table, and if they arrived at midday or in the afternoon or evening,
they had, willy-nilly, to be accommodated at the château-farm, and the
only accommodation we could offer was the windy, inhospitable loft or
the straw-covered lean-to outside. If we had had motor ambulances all
of this would have been avoided. Then the patients would not have had
to be sent to our headquarters at all, but could have been carried to
railhead at once. Why did we not have motor ambulances at the outset of
war? God knows. Had anyone asked me five years ago what was the best way
of transporting a wounded or sick man with an army in the field, I would
have answered at once, “By motor ambulance, of course.”
[Illustration: LOADING WOUNDED AT SOISSONS. THE FIRST MOTOR AMBULANCE ON
THE AISNE.]
[Illustration: THE LEAN-TO AT SOISSONS. UNLOADING WOUNDED.]
If a man is wounded in the streets of London or any other city in the
civilised world he is conveyed to the nearest hospital by an ambulance
motor-car. When the Army Service Corps had to arrange its transport for
this war, they naturally thought of nothing else than motor traction. Yet
in spite of the lessons of army manœuvres in this country, and of the
dictates of reason, our Army Medical Department sent Field Ambulances
to the front with the old horse-ambulance of the days of Napoleon and
Wellington, and did not have a solitary motor ambulance where they were
so vitally necessary. The position was so odd and incomprehensible that
I wrote about it to Lord ——, who, I knew, would look at the matter from
the view-point of common sense and humanity. Lord —— has a great name in
the Empire, and has been one of the best and ablest of governors of one
of our Dominions beyond the seas. I knew that if I wrote to him, and he
chose to act as I was sure he would, something would occur. I did not,
owing to army postal delays, get his answer till long after, and it was
worded as follows (allowing for considerable deletions of some parts of
it, and for names):
“MY DEAR MARTIN,—I received your letter in London on Wednesday
night. Within half an hour of its arrival I hunted up Mr. ——.
I found him in a state of great indignation because of the
obstacles put in the way of —— giving the assistance they
desire to the wounded at the Front. I understand, however, that
sixty motor ambulances will be ready on Wednesday next, and
that further ambulances will be provided later. Your letter has
been read by Lord Kitchener. It arrived at an opportune moment,
when the great want of motor ambulances at the Front was being
realised here. I hope that even before you receive this letter
the scandal which makes you so righteously indignant may have
been removed and that proper arrangements are now in successful
operation for the treatment of the wounded.
“Please let me hear from you from time to time how things are
going, and always remember that I shall be more than pleased if
I can give you the slightest assistance in getting those things
done which you may think necessary.—Believe me, yours sincerely,
“——.”
Shortly after this, motor ambulances appeared, and the position eased,
to the infinite and lasting benefit of our wounded officers and men.
I still, however, often wonder why motor ambulances were not landed
in France with the other motor vehicles when our Expeditionary Army
disembarked. Many lives would have been saved, and much suffering would
have been avoided.
CHAPTER XII.
FIELD AMBULANCES AND MILITARY HOSPITALS.
The military medical unit known as a Field Ambulance deserves some
description.
The Field Ambulances are officially designated as Divisional Troops
under the command of the Assistant Director of Medical Services. A Field
Ambulance consists of three sections, known as A, B, and C sections,
and each of these sections is divided into a “bearer” and a “tent”
subdivision.
The _personnel_ consists of a commanding officer, generally a major or
a lieutenant-colonel of the Royal Army Medical Corps, who is always in
one of the tent subdivisions, and of nine other medical officers and
a quartermaster, generally an honorary lieutenant or captain, of the
R.A.M.C. In addition there are 242 of other ranks, bearers, orderlies,
cooks, Army Service Corps drivers, officers’ servants, dispensers,
clerks, washermen, etc. The _personnel_ is fairly evenly divided amongst
the three sections, so that on occasion a section of a Field Ambulance
can carry on a limited but complete service. As will be seen later on at
Bethune, one section of our ambulance did this, and for a time acted as
a Clearing Hospital and passed thousands of wounded through its hands.
B and C sections have three four-horsed ambulance waggons, and A section
has four, making a total of ten waggons for the transport of wounded.
The other transport of a Field Ambulance consists of six general service
waggons, three medical store carts, three water carts, a cooks’ cart, and
an extra cart for odd jobs. The drivers and grooms have about one hundred
horses to look after.
The Field Ambulance carries a complete hospital emergency equipment.
Theoretically, if necessary a serious abdominal operation, a trephining
operation, or an amputation could be carried out at an ambulance station
by skilled surgeons surrounded by the latest and best of surgical
instruments and in antiseptic surroundings. I said theoretically, but as
a matter of fact such a state of affairs is not achieved, and the surgery
performed at Field Ambulance stations is crude and temporary.
A Field Ambulance station is a first-aid station, and surgery is avoided
as much as possible. The equipment of our Field Ambulance to-day
leaves very much to be desired, and I earnestly hope that during this
war the whole organisation will be thoroughly reviewed, reorganised,
and remodelled, and that there will be evolved a medical unit more in
consonance with the modern conceptions of good clean surgery. The Field
Ambulance should receive the wounded from the Brigade which it serves,
and as long as it holds these wounded it should be able to give them
the very best surgical and medical help. It must send the wounded as
speedily as possible to the hospitals and stations in the rear, and keep
the fighting line, of which it is really a part, as clear of wounded as
possible. It must conform to the demands of the military situation; for
after all war is war, and the purpose of a war is to beat the enemy with
sound troops and get the wounded out of the way. A Field Ambulance can
do all this and must do all this, and yet it need not be too obsessed
with the idea that immediately a badly wounded man is brought in he must
necessarily be bundled off to the base, irrespective of the nature or
magnitude of his wounds. The future of very many battlefield injuries
depends on the first treatment received, and a skilled surgeon surrounded
with familiar tools and appliances to ensure absolute cleanliness can
be a god of mercy and confer health and power on many a stricken man. A
blundering, incompetent amateur, lacking the divine essence of knowing
his own imperfections and courageously taking responsibilities which are
sky-high above him, can inflict a lifelong wrong and deprive a man of his
power to earn his livelihood in the future. The cautious and conservative
surgeon is ever the boldest when boldness means success. In every Field
Ambulance in this war and in future wars, let us see to it that we have a
cautious and conservative surgeon.
The medical officer is not as a rule a good horse master. From my
experience (and I am speaking both from what I saw in the South African
War and in this war), the medical officer is a very indifferent horse
master. He will do his best, as he always does in all circumstances; but
it is clearly unfair to ask a doctor, who knows as much about horses as
a monk does about antelopes, to take charge of a unit comprising about
one hundred horses, sixteen four-horsed waggons, and seven or eight
two-horsed carts, Army Service Corps drivers, and a miscellaneous lot
of grooms. I have seen an amiable and competent Army Medical officer
dismayed when he was compelled, owing to some duty, to get on a horse’s
back, and the horse seemed to know and enjoy it, for, usually a docile,
mild-eyed beast, he at these times became exceedingly sportive. Yet this
officer may have, owing to his rank, to assume charge later of a hundred
horses and a lot of waggons. A shoemaker should stick to his last, and a
doctor is only at home with his own professional work.
The remedy is to put Field Ambulances under trained officers of the
Army Service Corps. They are experts in the management of convoys and
transports, and could manage the field work of an ambulance to the
infinite satisfaction of everybody. Leave the doctors to the purely
professional work. There is enough of that to be done. Doctors are too
valuable as doctors to spare them for work which A.S.C. subalterns and
young captains can perform. The arranging of advanced dressing stations,
the choosing of buildings as hospital sites, can be done by the A.D.M.S.
of the division, and the purely workman’s part of the job can be done by
the A.S.C. officer and his men.
The transportation of wounded from the fighting line has been
extraordinarily well carried out by the Royal Army Medical Corps and the
Red Cross since our army took up its present fighting line in France and
Flanders. During the great retreat the transportation was ineffective,
and there is no doubt at all that many of our wounded who had to be left
behind could have been rescued if we had had motor ambulance convoys as
we have to-day.
On the Marne, and for the first week on the Aisne, the transport of the
wounded to the base was most imperfect. Who is to blame for this is a
matter that will have to be thrashed out when the piping days of peace
arrive, and we have time once again to put our house in order and profit
by the lessons of the war. The only means of transport previous to the
arrival of the motor ambulances was by transport lorries belonging to
the Army Service Corps. These waggons brought provisions and supplies to
the front, and on returning empty had to call at the various ambulance
stations. Straw was laid on the floors of these lorries, and the wounded
were packed tightly on the straw. This method of transportation for a man
suffering from pneumonia or compound fracture, a chest wound or a wound
in the abdomen, was a terrible ordeal, and undoubtedly added intense
suffering, misery, and discomfort to our badly stricken soldiers. Things
improved directly on the advent of the comfortable, well-sprung motor
ambulance. From the firing line to the horsed or motor ambulance the man
is carried on a stretcher by hand, but all future transportation is by
motor ambulance, train, river-barge, and steamer.
When a man is wounded at the front he is brought in by regimental bearers
to the dressing station of the medical officer of the battalion. This is
generally either a “dug-out” or is situated in a cottage a little way
back or sometimes behind a stone wall or near a clump of trees. Here
the regimental doctor simply dresses the wound, as cleanly as possible
under the circumstances, stops all bleeding and applies rough splints to
fractured limbs, and administers morphia if there is much pain. These
regimental aid posts are dangerous places well within shell fire, and
the wounded are got out of them as quickly as possible, and generally
at night. They are carried on stretchers to the ambulance waggons—horse
or motor—which are drawn up on some point of a road, or sometimes in
a village farther back. From here the wounded man is conveyed to the
headquarters of the ambulance in a village or château or church, and
his wounds are again dressed, if necessary, but as little handling as
possible is done, although the soldier thinks that his wounds should be
frequently dressed. At the ambulance headquarters urgent operations,
often of a serious character, have sometimes to be carried out, but no
operation is done if the case will permit of safe transportation farther
back. The next rest-house for the wounded man is the Clearing Hospital
or Casualty Clearing Station, and through this pass the wounded of
many ambulances. Many wounded are brought direct from the trenches to
a Casualty Clearing Hospital without calling at all at the ambulance
headquarters. All urgent operations are performed at the Casualty
Clearing Station, and this station should be thoroughly well equipped in
staff and _personnel_ as well as with all the modern appurtenances so
necessary for the safe performance of intricate and dangerous surgical
operations.
For obvious reasons the Clearing Hospital or Casualty Clearing Station
could not fulfil its destiny during the retreat of our army from Belgium
to the east of Paris. If the army is retreating, the Clearing Hospital
must go. It is part of the line of communications and would impede and
cumber the fighting divisions as they fall back. If full of wounded at
this time, it would of course be captured by the advancing enemy, as
the Clearing Hospital has no transport of its own, and depends on the
regular transport department of the army. There ought to be a transport
attached to a Clearing Hospital and solely under the control of the
commanding officer, and it would be of great advantage to have the whole
Clearing Hospital under the command of an Army Service Corps officer of
experience, a man accustomed to the transportation of supplies and to
commanding drivers of vehicles and mechanics. To put a Clearing Hospital
under the command of a doctor as is now done is as absurd as it would be
to place a large civil hospital under the control of a doctor.
Our civil hospitals are governed by Boards and a Secretary who has the
whole administration at his finger-ends. The medical staff do not
control or govern a civil hospital. They are busy enough in their own
sphere, which is a purely professional one—the treatment and cure of the
sick inmates. So with the Clearing Hospitals, the Army Service Corps
officer should be in charge of the hospital, and the purely professional
part of the hospital, the treatment of the wounded, should be entirely
and absolutely under the control of the medical staff, and completely
outside the range of action of the administrative chief. The evacuation
of the wounded from the Clearing Hospital to the hospital train and Base
could be controlled also by the administrative lay head of the hospital,
and all that the medical officers would be concerned with would be the
cases suitable to evacuate and when they should be evacuated. There would
at first be considerable opposition to this course by the regular Army
Medical Corps, but they could not advance any cogent arguments against
the devolution of administrative authority from them to the Army Service
Corps.
The Royal Army Medical Corps is, or should be, a professional body of
men. Anything that impairs their professional efficiency is bad. The
control of Field Ambulances and Clearing Hospitals is not a professional
man’s _métier_, and he does not shine in this position. Too much military
control or command changes the army medical officer from a doctor to a
military officer, and this change is not to be desired.
In civil life the more experienced a doctor is, the bigger becomes his
practice and the wider becomes his sphere of professional usefulness. In
military life, experience means promotion to higher rank, and the higher
the rank the less the professional work and the more the administrative
work.
In war time, as witness South Africa and this present war, civil surgeons
have to be called in large numbers to undertake important surgical work.
The experience of medical officers of the army in peace is professionally
a poor one. They are rarely called upon to perform serious surgical
operations, for a man requiring an important surgical operation is no
longer of use as a soldier, and is invalided out of the army. This man
then necessarily comes under the civilian surgeon, who sets about to
cure him, if possible, of his affliction. An urgent appendix operation,
a rupture, the removal of a loose cartilage in a knee joint and varicose
veins in their various manifestations—these, roughly speaking, compose
the experience in surgery of the army doctor in times of peace.
In advanced and intricate surgery in the abdomen he gets no practice, and
yet it is just the experience gained in this branch of surgery that is so
vitally important to surgeons at the front to-day.
A surgeon at the front should be a man of ripe judgment and a good
operator. He should know when to operate, and what is equally important,
when not to operate. He should know whether a wounded man should be
operated upon at once without exposing him to the risk of further
transportation, or whether he could be transported to a Base Hospital
without endangering his safety. And if the case demands immediate
surgery at the front, this surgeon should be able to undertake the
operation himself. Surgeons of approved judgment and skill are not hard
to find, and every Base Hospital, every stationary Hospital, every
Casualty Clearing Hospital, every Field Ambulance should have one officer
on its staff possessing the qualities and attributes mentioned. And such
a distribution is the easiest thing in the world to effect.
These men can be drawn from the civil side of the profession, as the
military side, the Royal Army Medical Corps proper, cannot provide them.
There are of course able surgeons in the Royal Army Medical Corps, men
who, were they in civil life, would have large consulting practices and
great reputations, but these men are few and are of that surgical bent
which will rise superior to its military environment, and keeping touch
with modern work, will absorb all that is good and new in the methods and
technique of surgery.
This lack of appreciation of the requirements of modern surgery has been
evidenced in so many instances at the front with our Field Ambulance and
Clearing Hospital equipment.
One day early in the war I had a number of wounded men to treat, all
with dirty septic wounds. The method of sterilising our hands was
inefficient and I asked for rubber gloves. Rubber gloves for the hands
of the surgeon are absolutely essential when dealing with a number of
septic cases. After handling septic cases he may be called upon at
any moment to operate on a case requiring the strictest antisepsis or
asepsis to give the wounded man a fighting chance of life. I asked a
senior medical officer of the ambulance for these rubber gloves. Judge
of my consternation and amazement when he said that “There were no
rubber gloves in the ambulance equipment, and _he did not believe in the
necessity for rubber gloves_.” When the ambulance was being equipped
previous to leaving this country at the outbreak of war he could have
obtained as many pairs of rubber gloves as he wished, but because he did
not think them necessary, they were not obtained. He did not realise what
war surgery would be like and had not been accustomed to operate on a
large scale. This blunder on his part was inexcusable and serious, and
the one who suffered from such a blunder was not himself but a wounded
officer or man.
In a Clearing Hospital in a small town in France to which I was
temporarily attached for some days, again I could not obtain rubber
gloves, although I had there to operate on profoundly septic cases, on
the cases of appalling gas gangrene and also on recent wounds of knee
joints, of brain, and abdomen. I asked for rubber gloves and was promised
them. None came. On my own initiative I wrote to a London surgical supply
establishment and obtained three dozen pairs of rubber gloves by return
mail.
Was this fair to our wounded?
At another time I had a difficult bowel operation to do, and the only
fine needles in stock could not be used as the finest silk available
there would not go through the eyes of the needles. The examination of
the silk and the needles had not been carried out when the equipment
was being put together in England. At this same place I had nothing
strong enough to ligature blood-vessels at the bottom of deep septic
wounds, except silk. The catgut was too fine and brittle to hold a big
blood-vessel, yet any surgeon will tell you that to put a silk ligature
on a vessel in a foul wound is very bad surgical technique. Yet it had to
be done. Again, in a dangerous operation on the knee joint I could not
get any sterilised towels nor an aneurism needle nor a pair of scissors.
The only scissors had been lost, and only one aneurism needle, which
had also been lost, was supplied in the instrument case. The patient
was an officer who had been struck by shrapnel at the back of the knee,
on the shoulder, and on one foot and one hand. He bled smartly and was
admitted to this Clearing Hospital with a tourniquet round his thigh to
control the bleeding temporarily. I opened up the wound behind the knee
and secured the large bleeding artery and veins there, and all I had
to ligature these vessels with was silk. There was no stout catgut, as
there ought to have been. Also I could only get two sterilised towels,
and these I had to boil myself. This was in a Clearing Hospital at the
front in November last year. There were no gloves. There were none of the
things round one to treat shock from which the officer suffered after
the operation. It made one despair. Yet all of these things should have
been at hand, and could have been easily obtained by the exercise of
some forethought. No wonder the wounds in so many cases were at this time
sent back to England in such a foul and septic condition. It was not
the military authorities who were to blame. The military chiefs did all
they could to help the medical department and always have done so. The
fault lay at the door of the Royal Army Medical Corps chiefs, and after
the war these things will again be reviewed in order to prevent a future
repetition.
My criticism is meant entirely for the good of our wounded officers
and men. They deserve the best, and it is the duty of the Army Medical
Department to give them of the best. It is only by pointing out defects
that improvement can follow, and the only man who can point out these
medical defects is a surgeon who has actually had to operate on wounded
men in a Field Ambulance or in a Clearing Hospital under adverse
surroundings.
It is an easy matter to arrange for a modern surgical equipment for a
Field Ambulance or a Clearing Hospital. Sterilisers for instruments
and towels and dressings are not cumbrous appliances and do not take
up much space. The surgical instrument case at present in use by the
Royal Army Medical Corps is out of date and requires a complete revision
and overhaul by a surgeon who is accustomed to operate, and not by a
committee of senior or retired officers of the Army Medical Staff. The
younger officers of the Royal Army Medical Corps and the “professional”
men amongst the seniors recognise the defects of the present system,
but naturally they cannot say much. This lack of medical equipment and
the “unreasonableness” of the medical department is a common subject of
conversation at the front amongst civilian medical officers, and I have
seen some of these men indignant beyond measure at what they have seen
and met with.
The Clearing Hospital, in addition to being a “rest-house” on the _via
dolorosa_ of the wounded, is also a sieve. It has to sift the lightly
wounded from the seriously wounded and the serious cases from the
desperate cases. In this process of sifting a large collection of wounded
men, it discriminates between those who are fit to be sent to the Base
and those who must remain for a longer or a shorter period. Many claim
that the Clearing Hospital is not a hospital _per se_ but holds a purely
administrative position. I feel sure that it will become more and more
a hospital as time goes on, and that its present surgical and medical
equipment will necessarily undergo a complete reorganisation. To-day
its equipment is little more than that of a Field Ambulance. It is not
equipped to deal with extensive and serious operations, and yet serious
operations have been performed and will necessarily continue to be
performed at the Clearing Hospital.
There is no shadow of doubt that many of the men operated upon at Bethune
in the Hôpital Civil et Militaire later on in the war owe their recovery
in a very large measure to the excellence of the complete sterilising
equipment and cleanly surroundings. No trouble can be too great and no
expense should be spared to make the surgical stations at the front up to
date in all that makes for surgical cleanliness.
It is even more necessary to have the skilled surgeon at the front
than at the Base, but we have any amount of skilled surgeons for both
places. A skilled operating man of experience should not be attached to a
regiment as regimental surgeon while a recently qualified man is deputed
to blood his ’prentice hand at a major operation in a Clearing Hospital.
Yet this has been done, and I know of an instance where a recently
qualified man performed his first trephining operation on a soldier
with a bad head injury whilst a few miles away there was an experienced
operator engaged solely in first-aid work as regimental surgeon.
I was told by a senior officer of the R.A.M.C. that in the city of X——
before the war he had as assistant in his military operating room a
very clever young R.A.M.C. orderly. This man was well trained in the
sterilisation of instruments and dressings and in the preparation of a
room for operations. When the ambulance was mobilised in this city on
the outbreak of war the medical officer applied for this man, who would
have been invaluable, to be appointed to the tent section of the Field
Ambulance. Here the training and knowledge of this orderly would have
been of great service. Instead of that, the man was appointed to look
after the water waggon of an infantry regiment and was killed early in
the war. Any untrained man would have done for the water cart, but a lot
of training is necessary to make a good hospital room assistant.
At the Clearing Hospital the wounded man meets for the first time the
Army Nurse. This is the nearest point to the firing line that our nurses
are allowed to go, but I know lots of them who are extremely anxious to
go into the trenches. The nurse is a welcome sight to both officers and
men, and no man nurse can adequately take the place of a trained woman.
The presence of nursing sisters in a hospital is good and wholesome, and
where they are the hospital work is carried on infinitely better and
the patient is well looked after. R.A.M.C. orderlies do not like our
nursing sisters. The sister makes the orderly work, will not allow him
to smoke in the wards, makes him wash his hands and keep tidy. To the
slacker, of course, these things are highly unpalatable, and there are
many slackers about. Our British nursing sisters are splendid women,
and work ungrudgingly and sympathetically always. It is good to see
a bright-faced, white-aproned nurse amongst the wounded, and she is
extraordinarily popular with her patients.
The hospital train in France is a well-run unit. The accommodation for
the sick and wounded is excellent, trained nurses accompany each train,
and the medical arrangements are controlled by three doctors, generally a
regular army medical officer in charge and with two temporary lieutenants
or civil surgeons to assist him to do the actual professional work. No
surgical or medical work worth mentioning is done on hospital trains;
they are simply means to an end—the end is the Base Hospital.
The Base Hospitals in France are well-run units also. There are here big
medical and nursing staffs, a large number of orderlies, and any amount
of equipment. I was for some time Surgical Specialist at No. 6 General
Hospital at Rouen, and this hospital was splendidly administered by the
commanding officer, Lieutenant-Colonel ——. In the Base Hospitals there
are good operating rooms, and in fact every modern appliance that one
could desire. It is a pity that the same care in administration and
equipment had not been carried farther up and nearer our soldiers at the
front.
CHAPTER XIII.
GOOD-BYE TO THE AISNE.
Early in October, and at night, the Ambulance again took the road—we
turned our back on the Aisne and with the 2nd Army Corps began the famous
move across the French lines of communication to the Belgian frontier and
into Flanders. This change of position will be written up in the future
as one of the most masterly episodes of the war. It was a formidable
task to move the British Army and its supplies across the French lines
and bring them into an entirely new position on the front. It had to
be carried out with the utmost secrecy. None of us knew where we were
going. Each day the secret orders were issued and the various brigades
and columns carried out the indicated programme, while the French took up
our positions and trenches as we retired from them. This was done also
with great secrecy. I can imagine the perturbation of the Saxons and
Wurtemburgers on our front on seeing French _képis_ and uniforms where
for weeks they had seen the khaki. The 2nd Corps moved off first. The 1st
Corps left a week later.
On the first night we marched through Nampteuil and reached Droszy about
midnight. It was a beautiful starlight night with a biting frost. We
billeted in a spacious château, with plenty of cover for the ambulance
waggons and with stables for the horses. The men slept in stable lofts
and the officers on the floor of the marble hall. The hall was a
beautiful room, containing some valuable old furniture. The walls were
covered with relics of the chase of the days of Louis XIV., and old
hunting horns, knives, and boar spears. Part of the château was modern,
and part consisting of a wonderful old tower, loopholed for arrows, was
evidently all that was left of the keep of a strong feudal castle. The
proprietor was an old rear-admiral of the French Navy and he received
us with the greatest courtesy; the Norfolks arrived an hour after us
and quartered in a big house and yard close by. Our brigadier, Count
Gleichen, arrived early in the morning and slept in our château.
A Taube was seen approaching in the morning and every one was ordered to
get under cover or stand stock-still. This Taube was evidently trying to
find out the reason for the absence of British in the old trenches and
the presence of the French in their place. We surmised correctly that
the Teutonic curiosity was considerably aroused. A few hours afterwards
another Taube appeared—or it may have been our first visitor—and flying
very fast, for a French airman was in hot pursuit. Both soon disappeared
into the upper blue, but we laid our odds on the Frenchman.
[Illustration: CHÂTEAU OF LONGPONT.]
[Illustration: VILLAGE OF LONGPONT.]
At 6.30 that night we again got under way and had a magnificent night
march to Longpont, arriving there at 10.30 p.m. Longpont is a wonderful
old place. The Château Longpont dates back to very early times and
contains some marvellous old tapestry. It is the home of the Comte and
Comtesse M——, and they were in residence at this time and entertained
as their guests on this day General Sir Charles Ferguson and his staff.
Sir Charles was the Commander of the 5th Division of the 2nd Army Corps.
The Comte and Comtesse had as guests, some weeks previously, General
von Kluck, Commander of the right wing of the German Army, and had some
interesting anecdotes to tell of this hard-fighting General and his staff.
Abutting on the château were the famous ruins of the abbey of Longpont.
The remains of the old abbey are so historic that they are known in
France as “Les Ruines.” It was built by the Cistercian monks in the
twelfth century, and in the adjoining priory over three hundred monks
were accommodated in the days when the Church was omnipotent in France.
During the Reign of Terror the beautiful old abbey was destroyed by the
revolutionaries, but the massive character of the pillars and walls
proved too much even for these iconoclasts, and stand to-day, clothed in
ivy and moss, the monuments of a glorious past. The venerable and stately
majesty of these ruins, where every stone seemed to speak of the grandeur
of other days, impressed the imagination of all who gazed upon them.
The day following our arrival at Longpont was a Sunday. Divine service
was conducted at 10 a.m. round the old broken altar by our Church of
England chaplain, and Sir Charles Ferguson, the Divisional General, read
the lessons. Monsignor conducted the Catholic service at 11.30. Both
services were largely attended by our own men and by French soldiers
occupying the village. In imagination one could see the princely abbots
and the cowled monks who, during a period of six hundred years, had
chanted their litanies and passed in procession inside the beautiful
abbey, gazing wonderingly at the simple military services held round the
tumbled masonry of the ancient altar.
After the services we spent the day wandering through the old-fashioned
village of Longpont, examining its ancient gateways adorned with the
crests of the kings of France, or strolling through the fine woods
bordering the lake. Heavy artillery fire from the French batteries could
be heard all the day. We were now right behind the French lines.
I cannot pass from Longpont without describing our sleeping quarters on
the night of our arrival. The officers of the ambulance had to sleep
on the straw of an old stone stable. The stable looked comfortable and
inviting, and it was not till we had crawled into our valises that the
“fun” commenced. We had just lain down and blown out the candles when
we felt curious obscure movements under our valises. Then a rustling
of straw and a scampering of some objects over our beds. One doctor at
once yelled out, “Good Lord, the place is full of rats.” He turned on
his electric torch and immediately there was a wild scurry and stampede
to cover of hundreds of rats. The torch was turned off, and after a
little while the scampering and squeaking started again. The rats were
either enjoying a game or were upset by our occupation of their stable.
At one end of the stable was a feeding trough, and sitting in a row on
the edge of the trough were innumerable rats. Conspicuous amongst them
was one enormous fellow, about the size of a cat—some one said he was
as big as a calf—with huge grey moustaches and very knowing eyes. This
was undoubtedly the leader. We christened him Von Hindenberg. Somebody
threw a bottle at him, but the cunning old rascal dodged it by making a
tremendous leap into the middle of the stable and disappeared. One young
doctor then said that he would rather sleep out in the open than amongst
the rats, and he carried his valise outside. The rest of us decided to
stop where we were, but we all pulled our blankets well over our heads.
Our childhood horror of rats still remained, and we were just a little
bit afraid of them—especially of Von Hindenberg.
From Longpont we had a hard gruelling march of fifteen to eighteen
miles through the night, and arrived at Lieux Ristaures at 6 a.m. We
were stopped a long time on the road at the little village of Corcy by
hundreds of motor vans, waggons, and buses containing French troops. We
realised on this night what “crossing a line of communication” actually
means. The French were hurrying up heavy reinforcements to strengthen a
part of their front which at that moment was withstanding a most resolute
German attack, our Brigade was moving as quickly as possible to another
point of the front. The roads of the two armies crossed at Corcy, and
of course one had to wait till the way was clear. It all looked very
confusing and chaotic, but it was really very cleverly managed. Our
road at first led through a forest, and anyone who knows the forests of
France knows the beauty and charm of the tall trees. Little could be
seen, however; high overhead one could make out a few stars, but the
track itself was in Cimmerian darkness. About 2 a.m. we reached Villars
Cotterets and marched through the old cobbled streets without a pause.
This old town looked interesting, and one would have liked to have
explored the birthplace of Dumas. After Villars Cotterets our road lay
through more open country and a grey dawn made things clearer. We were
all dog-tired with the long march and the constant halts; marching at
night was more monotonous and fatiguing than day marching.
On the way from Villars Cotterets to our next bivouac, Lieux Ristaures,
at night time, when we were all feeling very done up, a most surprising
rumour reached us. Far ahead on the long column we suddenly heard distant
cheering which grew in intensity as it travelled quickly down to us
preceded by a message shouted from one to another, “The Kaiser is dead.
Killed yesterday morning. Pass it on.” When the message reached us we
laughed, and did not pass it on. Cries came out of the darkness in front,
“Pass the message on. It’s official. The Kaiser’s dead.” So we passed
it on, and the cheering travelled back across country to the marching
men far behind. It cheered the men up wonderfully; they were delighted.
It of course turned out to be a fake, cleverly engineered by some wags
at the head of the column. Of rumours there was no end. The Crown Prince
had been buried in Flanders, in the Argonne, at Soissons. But he always
got out of his grave. We buried Von Kluck, Hindenburg, and Bulow, and
each burial was related with a wealth of detail that left nothing to the
imagination. The most accepted rumour of all, and one which is still
believed by many, was the harrowing story of the Prince with the velvet
mask. This story had a distinctly Dumas flavour, and it had a great
vogue. It was related to me first on the Aisne by a doctor in a Scottish
regiment, who had had it from the Colonel, who had received it from
somebody higher up. I, of course, passed it on lower down the social
scale, and our Division knew it that afternoon. The Crown Prince at this
time was said to be living in a richly furnished cave opposite Reims.
On dull days he would sit on a chair outside and order the shelling of
Reims Cathedral, while he gazed through a powerful glass at the falling
masonry. One day the Prussian Nero was missing from his cave, and the
story then shifts to Strasburg, whither in the dead of night a wounded
officer of apparently august rank was conveyed in a motor-car. Two
powerful Limousines accompanied this car, one before and one behind, and
these were full of highly placed army officers. A special train with
steam up was awaiting the arrival of the cars, and as the wounded officer
was carried across the platform on a stretcher, closely surrounded by
Generals, it was noticed that a velvet mask covered his face. The mask
fell off as the body was lifted into the train and the Crown Prince’s
face was exposed to view. I believe that this story was afterwards
circulated in the French press. We certainly did not hear of His Imperial
Highness for many months afterwards.
Another rumour circumstantially related by a field chaplain and duly
passed on with the _imprimatur_ of the Church, was that Prince Albrecht
of Prussia, son of the War Lord himself, had been wounded and taken
prisoner into Antwerp by the Belgians. He was operated upon by Belgian
surgeons in the presence of two German medical officers, and a bullet
was extracted from his spine. The bullet was a Mauser—a German one. The
Prince died and his body was handed back to the Germans.
On the way to our next bivouac we also heard that Arras was being
bombarded by the Germans and that they were investing Antwerp. We had
quite a lot of war news to discuss for the remainder of our road, and
until we pulled our waggons under the trees round an old mill at Lieux
Ristaures. The men were billeted in out-houses and wood sheds belonging
to the mill, and the officers were cordially welcomed by the hospitable
miller and his kind-hearted womenfolk. They prepared coffee, bread and
butter, and eggs for us, and we had the use of two bedrooms and a small
office. A rapid mill race ran through the garden and under the kitchen
floor of the house to the orchard beyond. When the miller’s wife wanted
fresh water, all she had to do was to lift up a trap on the kitchen floor
and dip the bucket into the tumbling water below. Lieux Ristaures has a
fine old ruined church all to itself, but it is disfigured by some modern
attempts to restore it to its ancient grandeur, and these attempts have
spoiled completely the beauty of the ruins. At Lieux I received my first
mail since leaving England. It was now October, and I had left England in
August. This will give an idea of the marvellous work of our Army Post
Office, but as no department has received such abuse as this one, I will
spare its feelings and say no more.
[Illustration: ON THE ROAD TO COMPIÈGNE.]
A fine contingent of French cavalry passed by on this day. The men and
horses looked splendid. The brass helmets, plumes, and cuirasses caught
the sun’s rays, and we described the passing as a “gorgeous cavalcade.”
The helmets and cuirasses, however, seem to belong to old-world armies,
and look stagey amongst the simpler uniforms of this age.
We stopped two nights at the quaint old farm of Lieux with its rushing
mill race, and at three o’clock on the second day marched to Bethisy St.
Martin, where we had an excellent tea at a cosy house in the town—butter,
eggs, bread, cold beef, and pickles. We sat round a table with a
tablecloth! our first since August. The good woman who prepared the meal
made us very welcome. We slept on the floor of the _Mairie_ in the
centre of the town till 5 a.m., when we again took the road to Santines
and Verberie, passing near Senlis. Verberie showed many evidences of the
Prussian sign manual—shelled houses and smashed walls. We reached the
river Oise at 10 a.m. and crossed by a pontoon bridge, as the fine old
stone bridge had been blown up; marched through Rivecourt and bivouacked
for three hours by the wayside. It was a glorious morning, the going was
good, and everybody was cheerful and looked very hard and fit. At Halte
de Meux, where was a railway siding with troop trains, we received orders
to embark on one of the trains for a destination unknown.
The train by which we were to travel had to carry the Norfolk Regiment
also. When the Norfolks were all on board we found that there was not
room enough left for the Field Ambulance, with its ambulance waggons,
supply waggons, horses, and men. C section, with its waggons and
equipment, had to be left behind, and get on as best it could by some
other train; so we of C section took the road to Compiègne. We reached
this charming and historic city in the dark, and found that there
was no train for us. We crossed the Oise again on a bridge of moored
barges, as the magnificent stone bridge spanning the Oise here was in
ruins, destroyed by the French during the German advance. The night
was desperately cold; we slept, or tried to sleep, on the boulevard
alongside the river bank, but had to get up and march about to keep up
the circulation. The men lit a fire under the trees of the boulevard
and sat round it all night. There was no reason really why we should
have slept out on the open boulevard, for there was a large, half-empty
infantry barracks about 20 yards away and the French offered us the use
of it for the night. Our commanding officer, however, decided otherwise,
and consequently we passed a most miserable night.
Compiègne, situated on the Oise, is one of the most charming and
fascinating cities in France. In the palace, Napoleon Bonaparte
and the Empress Marie Louise, Louis Philippe, and Napoleon III.
frequently resided. The tower where Joan of Arc was imprisoned, the
sixteenth-century Hôtel de Ville with its belfry tower, and the old
church of St. Jacques well repay a visit. The city appeared on the
surface to be leading a normal life except for the large number of
French soldiers and the many Red Cross Hospitals. Compiègne was at this
time a favourite afternoon call for the Taubes, and they frequently
dropped bombs, meant no doubt for the old palace. Old historic châteaux,
cathedrals, and churches have a strange fascination for German
artillerists and bomb-droppers.
I must now relate an episode of some interest that occurred on the
march up to Compiègne—nothing less than seeing General Joffre, the
Commander-in-Chief of the Allied Armies. I had dropped behind from my
ambulance, and had given my horse to my groom to lead behind my section
on the march. A marching regiment was coming up behind us, and as I
knew the doctor I waited till the regiment came up, and then joined in
and walked alongside my medical friend. A large château was situated on
the side of the road some distance on, and as we came up we saw a large
group of French officers standing at the old gateway. A whisper travelled
rapidly down the line that this was the French Headquarters Staff and
that Joffre himself was there. At once the subalterns “tightened up”
the marching men, heads were lifted, shoulders squared, the step became
smarter and rhythmic. Low muttered commands snapped out: “Smartly
there,” “By your right,” “Keep your distance, men.” As we came abreast
of the group at the gateway, the sharp, clear command rang out from
each platoon officer, “Eyes right!” the officers saluted smartly, and
with a parade swing the fine regiment marched past. I gazed long and
interestedly at the officer at the gateway who took our salute. He was
easily distinguishable as Joffre, for he was exactly like the pictures
seen of him in every shop window in France, or rather the pictures were
faithful representations of Joffre. When I got past, I stepped out of
the company I was marching with on to the far side of the road, and
while the remainder of the regiment was still passing by I had a good
long look at the man who means so much to France, and in whom France is
so sublimely confident. He was dressed in a well-fitting but easy blue
tunic, with stars on the sleeves near the cuff indicating his rank of
General, and with a gold band on the shoulders, the familiar red French
trousers, and black polished cavalry jack-boots. On his head he had a
gold-braided _képi_. Joffre is of middle height, strong and sturdily
made, broad-shouldered and with a figure stout and heavy. His face is
full, genial, and attractive, browned like the faces of men who have
lived and worked in the tropics, and with a white moustache which gave a
somewhat benevolent air. He was evidently interested in the march past
of our regiment, for he walked three or four paces forward from his
staff and towards us, and seemed to take in all the details of men and
equipment as his eye scanned up and down. His salute was given with the
careful exactness and ceremony always bestowed by the French upon this
act, which the British officer goes through so casually.
Joffre did not look the dazzling military leader of romance, but he
looked very business-like. Here was not the lean figure and the hawk nose
of a Wellington, the glittering swagger of a Murat, or the inscrutable
pose of the little Grey Man of Destiny. Yet this broad, homely,
comfortable, and democratic figure standing by the roadside and carefully
observing us, is the most powerful man in France to-day—the man against
whom no political criticism is levelled, the idol of the soldiers, and
in whom the people of France have such a simple faith. He is called “Our
Joffre,” and the possessive phrase indicates the pride the people and
army feel in him. The French will tell the following story, which has
gone the rounds, with great gusto. After a big battle in Poland, Von
Hindenberg’s Chief of Staff contracted a “political illness” and was sent
to Berlin to recover his health. The Kaiser wired to Hindenberg, “Whom
do you nominate for your new Chief of Staff?” The reply came back, “Would
like Joffre.”
French officers at the front will tell you that Joffre is an Aristides
the Just; that he ordered the shooting of four French Generals early in
the war because they were traitors to France, and that he has “retired”
all the old Generals who are slow to think and too fond of cocktails to
be good campaigners; that he speedily rewards ability and initiative by
promotions on the field, and is merciless on an officer—no matter of what
rank—who shows incompetence.
Joffre was met early in the War of the Trenches by an old friend, who
greeted him with, “Well, how are things going?” The General’s eyes
twinkled humorously as he replied, “Laissez-moi faire, je les grignotte”
(“Leave me alone, I am nibbling them”). A French surgeon who knows
Joffre, told me that he is a good sleeper, and that during the worst days
he never missed one night’s sleep. It was Shakespeare’s Cæsar who said, I
think, to Mark Antony:
“Let me have men about me that are fat,
Sleek-headed men and such as sleep o’ nights.”
Joffre has never interested himself in politics, and he is one of the
few great Frenchmen who have avoided the glamour of the political stage
on which so many ephemeral reputations have been made and so many good
ones blasted. Joffre, like most men who “do” things, is a silent man. I
am glad that I have seen “Joffre _le taciturne_,” and been privileged to
salute him.
Joffre and French are both over sixty years of age. Pau, the one-armed
French General, known as the “Thruster,” is a veteran of the War of
1870. Gallieni, the “rock of Paris,” the General destined to hold
Paris when Von Kluck was bearing so hastily down on the capital, is
an old man. Von Hindenberg, the pride of Germany, is sixty-seven. Von
Kluck, the Commander of the right wing of the German Army, who so
furiously hacked his way almost to the gates of Paris, and was rolled
back in a crushing defeat, is over seventy years of age. Napoleon and
Wellington were forty-six at Waterloo. Nelson died at forty-seven. Ney
was thirty-five when he was shot. Von Roon, the German Minister of War
in the Franco-Prussian War, was sixty-seven when the campaign began.
Bismarck was then about fifty-five, and Von Moltke was an old man—a
septuagenarian. Are we too old at forty? No. I knew a chaplain at the
front who was fifty-eight years of age. In times of peace he took very
little physical exercise; he was a student, a scholar, and an author.
I have seen this chaplain march mile after mile in rain and mud, and
under a broiling sun on dusty roads, and he was then fitter than he ever
had been before, and could eat bully beef and hard biscuits like the
hungriest youngster. He had the face and eyes and voice of a young man,
and he laughed like a merry boy.
We left Compiègne at 3 p.m.; our horses and waggons were entrained and
officers and men got into an old and evil-looking “100th” class carriage
and again set off for a destination unknown. No one seemed to know where
we were off to, but the entraining and route were really well carried out
by the staff of the railway. At Amiens we received orders to get off at
Abbeville, and after a tiring journey we reached the mouth of the Somme
at 2 a.m. The waggons and horses were quickly taken out, and in the dark
we trekked through Abbeville across open country to Gapennes, nine miles
away. Here we met the 13th Field Ambulance, temporarily quartered in a
most luxurious château. Our little party was dead beat for want of sleep,
and some of us lay down on the floor of the village schoolhouse and slept
heavily for three hours. The school was not “in” that day, otherwise I am
sure the children would have been highly entertained to see three weary
doctors in khaki soundly slumbering on the floor.
Still sleepy, we again had to take the road and tramp the weary miles. A
large number of French ambulances passed us going back to Abbeville, and
we heard that there had been some very hard fighting on the French left
wing.
The 13th British Infantry Brigade caught up with us, and we pulled aside
to let them pass. The officers told us that they were in a hurry—that the
French had moved up a lot of troops to the south of Lille and that the
whole British Army was to form up on the left of the French, and that
terrific fighting was going on round Lille and Arras, and French and
German cavalry screens had met farther west.
[Illustration: COMPIÈGNE, SHOWING THE BROKEN BRIDGE.]
[Illustration: AMBULANCE CROSSING THE OISE ON A PONTOON BRIDGE.]
At 5 p.m. we found the headquarters of our ambulance located in a
pig-sty of a farmhouse and were told that it was to move off shortly
and march through the night. All the romance of night marching had gone
for us, and we wanted to sleep. We were tired of walking, tired of
everything, tired of the war, and vaguely wondered why we had been so
foolish as to leave England.
So at nine o’clock on the same evening off we marched again into the
outer darkness of a depressing, gloomy night, and we were on our feet
through the whole of it. Most of the time we were standing by the
roadside waiting for the congestion of the long columns in front to ease
off. Sometimes we would sit in a ditch by the roadside and go off to
sleep, only to be wakened a minute after by the cry, “Forward!”
About 6 a.m. we reached Croisette. The name sounds attractive, but it
really was a mean-looking farmhouse at a cross-road; however, we got a
very good breakfast of coffee, bread and fresh butter, and eggs. The
farmer’s wife was anxious to know how the war was going on. She rarely
got news, but heard lots of rumours. Everybody appeared to be hearing
rumours as well as the British Army. We told her that we had killed
thousands of Germans and were on the way to slaughter those that were
still left; and as this appealed to the patriotic instincts of the farm
lady, she was very satisfied with our latest war bulletin.
In three nights and three days I had had only three hours’ sleep, and
had got to a stage when I marched, rode, and ate my food in a sort
of subconscious state of reflex animation. In the late afternoon we
rumbled into Thielyce, and tried fruitlessly to find some billets for our
officers and men. The place was full of small cottages, and the cottagers
eagerly offered each to take in one or two men; but we could not allow
this, as in the event of sudden orders through the night we might not
be able to get all our men together. We always lived in one large party
or habitation like gipsies. One old woman of the village was extremely
anxious to have some khaki soldiers stop at her house. She was curious to
observe the English at close quarters, as she had never seen one before
and had heard that they were such terrible fighting men. Our looks belied
our reputation; we looked harmless, very dirty and dusty, but very tame.
The ambulance was parked in a field off the village street and inside a
delightful clump of trees. Too tired to eat, I lay down as I was, armed
cap-à-pie, at the foot of a tall umbrageous tree and slept a dreamless
sleep.
At five o’clock next morning the sharp call of our O.C., “Field
Ambulance, turn out!” aroused me again to a world of marching men and
war; but I was my own man again and optimistic, and no longer wondered
why I had left England.
We had a picnic breakfast sitting on the grass in the field, and at seven
o’clock received orders to move off: we were to follow the 13th and
14th Brigades into Bethune and on to La Bassée, and be prepared for big
casualties, as a stern battle was expected and the two brigades would
probably be in action before midday. There was a feeling of expectancy
in the air that morning. All the rumours about a big battle and all our
quick movements and marchings by night seemed to presage a clash at arms.
We hoped for old England’s sake that we would do well; our pulses were
stirred and we were all very much alive.
We moved off smartly down a fine old tree-lined road towards the sound of
heavy guns which had been in action from daybreak. On our way we passed
thousands of hurrying refugees going towards St. Pol. Without stopping,
our ambulances growled their way through the ancient cobble-stoned town
on to the big high road leading to Bethune. Here again we met thousands
of refugees, nearly all young men of military age. We were curious to
know why these men were not in the French Army, and a French officer told
us that they belonged to Lille and the surrounding districts, and had
been ordered out by the French authorities to report at military dépôts
farther south for training and active service. These “mobilisables” would
have been good captures for the Germans and a considerable loss to the
French Army. Amongst them I counted twenty-seven priests in black caps
and cassocks; they, too, were on their way to shoulder a French rifle.
One young man I noticed carrying a white rabbit in a bird-cage in one
hand and a bundle of clothes and boots in the other; he was saving his
rabbit from a German pie. Another fellow was walking along the road in
carpet slippers and with a pair of heavy boots suspended round his neck.
The poor refugees looked tired, disappointed, and depressed, and no
wonder. It is hard suddenly to have to leave your home, your friends,
your wife and children, and to go away with a gnawing fear that they will
be in the power of an arrogant and brutal enemy who knows no mercy. We
pitied them all.
After all, there was no battle that day. We halted on the way some time,
and then were rapidly marched forward towards Bethune. We were now
passing through coal-mining towns and villages, and they recalled very
much the villages and houses round coal areas of Scotland like Falkirk.
The type of coal-miner and the coal-miner’s cottage are very much the
same all over the world. These people did not seem very curious or
interested in our passage through their villages or towns—simply gave us
a glance at passing.
That night we bivouacked in a château near Bethune and on the main road.
We could not get any farther forward, for the road in front was blocked
up by big guns and little guns, ammunition columns, engineer battalions,
and infantry. We saw a number of waggons loaded up with big pontoon
boats, and speculated that we must be near water. So we were. We were
near the famous canal, but the boats were intended for farther west.
After tea in the kitchen of the big château, some of us got on our horses
and rode into the city of Bethune, now full of troops, and the bustle
of warlike preparations. There were all nationalities in the streets of
Bethune that night. Arabs in flowing robes were on horseback in the
square, looking strangely out of place in this old western city. Spahis,
French Grenadiers, French gunners, Alpine Chasseurs in round cloth caps,
Belgian, French, and British officers, and, of course, Mr. Thomas Atkins,
quite at home, smoking a Woodbine cigarette and being petted and openly
admired by the women and the girls. We heard here that Antwerp had
fallen, and thought the news very serious. It was quite unexpected, as we
had not known that it had been strongly besieged.
At five o’clock next morning we were on the road in a dense fog, and
after going forward about half a mile were told to bivouac in a field
near the road till some ammunition columns and guns got past us. This we
did, but Monsignor wandered off alone farther down the road. We missed
him for a long time, and when he did turn up he told us that he had been
arrested as a spy by the French. Two or three French sentries with fixed
bayonets surrounded him, and I don’t know what arguments Monsignor used
to convince them that he was an Englishman. But he came back smiling, and
was evidently much tickled over the whole affair. He was the only officer
in the British Army, and in fact the only member of the Expeditionary
Force, who was not in khaki uniform, and it is no wonder that the French
thought it odd that he should be strolling about “on his own,” looking
at British guns and equipment. We were all delighted, of course, at
Monsignor’s arrest, and regretted that we had not been there with our
cameras. We were quite determined, if he were again arrested, to disown
all knowledge of him, just to see what the French would do next.
After some hours’ wait in the field we pushed on again through Bethune
towards the canal. This canal was to us then simply a canal and nothing
more, but along this belt of slowly flowing water was to be waged very
soon one of the most terrific and sanguinary struggles recorded in
history.
As we approached the canal the Norfolk Regiment came up, and we drew to
the side of the road to give them the right of way. I sat on a heap of
stones by the roadside and watched this fine regiment marching smartly
past, and I remember thinking curiously that probably that same day,
perhaps within a few hours, many of these fine fellows would have fallen
and many would be maimed.
It is an impressive thing to see a regiment going into action. The
Norfolks knew that they would very soon be in the thick of things, as
they were marching on the sound of the heavy guns, but they looked
perfectly cheerful and unconcerned. That night several of them passed
under my hands on the operating table, and many more were lying very
still on the wet earth not far away.
The King’s Own Scottish Borderers passed us earlier in the morning, and
with them was Dr. D—— as regimental surgeon. D—— was one of the first
medical officers over the Aisne, and he put through some splendid service
for the wounded under a heavy fire, and was mentioned in dispatches. Four
days afterwards poor D—— and his stretcher-bearers were captured and
sent as prisoners to Germany.
At 11 a.m. we crossed the narrow bridge spanning the now famous canal
leading up towards La Bassée, and installed our ambulance headquarters in
the Château Gorre on the road to Festubert. The château had up till that
day been the headquarters of a French cavalry general, and it was a most
palatially fitted-up place.
Our long journey was over. We had left the Aisne and taken up a new
position near La Bassée in the north of France. We were now in a
countryside destined soon to become the theatre of an intense and
sanguinary struggle. It was here that our men withstood the shock of the
most determined and relentless head-on attacks of the enemy. This was one
of the roads to Calais, and we held the gate.
CHAPTER XIV.
THE LA BASSÉE ROAD AT CHÂTEAU GORRE.
As the fighting is still going on round this district any description of
military positions or dispositions would be quite out of place.
Our headquarters at Château Gorre was a beautiful two-storied stone
building, quite modern, and well arranged in every way with spacious
lofty halls, dining-rooms, lounges, bedrooms, and bathrooms.
When we took up our quarters here we knew that we would soon be busy with
wounded, and the central hall of the château was at once prepared for
their reception. Two larger rooms opening to the right and to the left
off the hall were covered with mattresses and blankets, hot water was
prepared, operation table opened out, and towels and instruments made
ready. Just when we had about finished preparations our first arrivals,
four men of the Dragoon Guards, turned up. They had been wounded slightly
in the arms and face while advancing along the road towards Festubert.
Twenty minutes later fifty-four wounded arrived, Bedfords and Cheshires,
most of whom had slight wounds of the arms and hands and scalp, and were
able to walk.
Urgent orders came in to send six ambulance waggons down the Festubert
road. These were sent forward with stretcher parties and six medical
officers. This was the beginning of a very “bloody” night. All that
evening and all night wounded were continually coming in. I was on duty
in the château as surgeon till 4 a.m., when another medical officer
relieved me. Red Cross ambulances were driven up frequently and took
away all our lightly wounded and those fit to travel. These were sent to
Bethune, and thus the château was kept from becoming too congested. These
Red Cross ambulances had been provided and equipped by British residents
in Paris; they were splendidly handled, and proved a godsend to us.
Many of them were converted “Ford cars,” and could carry six lying-down
patients and one sitting up beside the driver. The stretchers were swung
on trestles and chains, and fitted easily. Our ambulance waggons and
stretcher-bearers were out all night and had a very dangerous time at the
front. At 10.30 next morning the heavy artillery firing eased off, and at
eleven o’clock occurred one of those extraordinary lulls when all the big
guns and little guns cease firing and everything seems strangely silent.
A chaplain arrived at the château in the morning and read the service
over one of our wounded who had died during the night from a broken
spine. The grave was dug near the flower garden at the foot of the lawn,
and many graves were dug there in the three succeeding terrible weeks of
fierce, bitter fighting. On this day the Dorsets, who were in reserve
and quartered near the gate of our château, went into action and were
badly handled by the Germans, suffering severe losses, chiefly from a
concealed German machine-gun opening on to them from near the canal. The
Devons had to move up later to support the Dorsets, and did it in a most
gallant style. About two o’clock in the afternoon we had a great number
of casualties; our waggons were constantly arriving, unloading their
wounded, and setting off again for the front.
The Red Cross ambulances were evacuating the light cases as speedily as
possible to Bethune, but we very soon had all our rooms full of wounded
men and were working at high pressure at the operation table. At three
o’clock the artillery firing was tremendously heavy, and every gun was in
action. The château shook with the explosions; every window rattled and
some were broken. The concussion of the air outside and the terrible din
were distinctly unpleasant. Then the cracking of the rifle-firing became
audible, and reports came in that our men were retiring. Shortly after an
imperative order was sent to our O.C. telling him to evacuate the château
at once with his wounded and move off the Field Ambulance to the other
side of the canal. The horses were at once put in the various supply
waggons. We had only two ambulance waggons at the time, as the rest were
at the front collecting wounded. Some Red Cross ambulances, however,
turned up and took away twelve of our most serious cases. All the lightly
wounded were sent under charge of R.A.M.C. orderlies to walk back across
the canal to Bethune. Some men with shrapnel wounds of thigh and leg
also had to walk and get along somehow, and miserable and pitiable these
poor fellows looked, limping and struggling along the muddy road in their
bloody bandages. Things looked pretty serious at this moment, and I was
ordered to mount and gallop ahead to direct the waggons on to the right
road and to “round up” our poor wounded fellows who were trudging along
the roads. To make matters worse, heavy rain came on. Big artillery
practice always brought down the rain. I soon reached the head of our
column and gave the sergeant the necessary instructions.
On the side of the road there was an old inn or _estaminet_. I pulled my
horse up here and put two men on duty to stop all our walking wounded and
collect them into the front room of the inn. I went inside and arranged
with the woman in charge to light a big fire, make some tea, and have
bread and butter and anything else she could get ready for our men, and
to do it quickly. She set to work at once. I had then to gallop back to
the Château Gorre to help get away the serious cases and to collect any
empty lorry or waggon I could get. When I reached the château the O.C.
told me that we had moved up some reserves, and the Germans in their turn
were now retiring. He said that he would now keep his serious cases at
the château till motor ambulances arrived. I was ordered to gallop again
to the head of our column and turn back all the supply waggons, equipment
carts, and water carts, but to send the ambulance waggons with their
wounded on to Bethune. It was now dark, and after incredible trouble
my mission was accomplished and our drivers were already driving the
carts back. I now looked in at “mine inn.” All our wounded fellows were
sitting round the fire having tea, bread and butter, and slices of cold
boiled ham, and looked very happy. I asked the woman of the inn what the
cost was, and she only charged me ten francs. I never parted with money
so willingly. The privilege of being able to do something for these
good lads, and their appreciation of the hot fire and the hot tea, was
something I would not willingly forget.
The Château Gorre was once more re-established as an advanced ambulance
dressing station, and continued so for over three weeks. It was situated
right inside the shell zone, and had many “alarms and excursions” during
this period, but none quite so dramatic and sensational as that recorded
above. The work done by this ambulance at the château was extraordinarily
good and useful, and owing to its very advanced position so close to the
fighting line it was able to receive and treat the wounded very soon
after they had been hit.
When the order came to evacuate at the time of the incident related
above, the instructions given to our Commanding Officer were to get out
all the lightly wounded cases and to leave the serious cases in the
château. Our O.C. was a soldier, and he said that if he had to go he
would get all the wounded out, and that he would be “damned if he would
leave any seriously wounded man in the hands of the b—— Germans.” Strong
language at times is sweet music, and our O.C. was a man of his word. The
wounded men heard this story, and I heard some of them talking about it
later to each other. The O.C. took a high place in their estimation.
[Illustration: LOW FLAT GROUND NEAR THE CANAL—WITH A TRENCH.]
[Illustration: TOWARDS LA BASSÉE.
Many British dead lie here.]
At the château I was talking to a young lieutenant who had just received
a commission in the D—— Regiment. He had served as a private at the
beginning of the war and won his sergeant’s stripes for general good
conduct and gallantry under fire, and was then given a commission in
another regiment. He was hard put for a smoke, and could not get any
cigarettes, but fortunately I was able to give him some.
Ten days later, at Bethune, he was brought in to me with a crushed arm,
hanging by only a thread of muscle to the shoulder, and I had to amputate
it under chloroform. He recognised me as the man who had given him the
cigarettes, and said, “Hullo, doctor, you’re always doing me kind things,
so now take my arm off.” I was very sorry that I had to do it, but such
is war and the aftermath of victory.
Next day after our big alarm I was sent back by the Assistant Director
of the Medical Service of this Division to take up duty at Bethune,
four miles back from where we were, at the Château Gorre, and to help
in the organisation for handling and treating our many wounded there.
Bethune was on the other side of the canal to the château, and during the
succeeding three or four weeks became a very big hospital centre for the
British engaged in the direction of La Bassée.
The Field Ambulance headquarters, with the waggons, still remained at
the château closer to the firing line, and evacuated their many wounded
as speedily as possible in to us at Bethune. These were strenuous days
of hard and obstinate fighting, and the casualties were heavy. The life
of the medical officer was at this place arduous and sleepless, but the
motto of the Royal Army Medical Corps is “In arduis fidelis,” which may
be freely rendered “Always do your job.”
CHAPTER XV.
BETHUNE.
Bethune held a position of great importance behind our lines, for our
wounded were evacuated thither from the front, and those fit to take the
journey were then sent on by hospital trains to Boulogne and Rouen and
then to England. This old city will be visited by many English after the
war, for many English officers and men are sleeping their long sleep in
the old cemetery and in various parts of the surrounding country. One
day, I am sure, a monument to the memory of the brave dead will be raised
in Bethune, and the mural inscription will commemorate the names of the
fallen, and place on record for all time the kindness, the sympathy, and
the generous hearts of the people of Bethune who helped us all so much
during the hard days of the war.
Owing to its many recent bombardments from guns and aeroplanes, and its
proximity to the famous canal and La Bassée, Bethune has become a city
of world-wide interest. Its population was at this time a cosmopolitan
one. The warriors of the East were in friendly touch with the warriors
of the West. The slanting, almond-eye Gurkha, the stately bearded Sikh,
the swarthy fighting men from the frontiers and central plains of India,
the Turcos with their flowing robes, the dapper Spahi, the black-eyed
Senegalese, the French Alpine Chasseur, and the splendid Cuirassier, were
all to be seen in its streets; and there also was Mr. Thomas Atkins,
making himself, as usual, quite at home with them all, and also with the
pleasant-faced smiling young women in the tobacconists and fruit shops.
Bethune, with its 14,000 inhabitants, is said to be the home of many
millionaires—those manufacturing and industrial magnates who control
the big industries of this thriving and populous part of France. The
situation of the city is not very attractive. It is surrounded by muddy,
swampy country, in some places nothing better than marshes or bogs in
winter, but it is supposed to be attractive in spring and summer, when it
is “a green prairie land.”
The old square in the centre of the city has a very Flemish complexion,
but is undoubtedly, owing to the irregularities in design and
architecture of the surrounding houses and shops, a very attractive and
fascinating spot. On one side are two fine old fourteenth-century Spanish
houses built for some Spanish grandees in the days when Spain was supreme
in the Netherlands. In the centre of the square is an old church and a
mass of hoary buildings forming an island, and out of this island group
of buildings the wonderful old Belfry of Bethune erects itself proudly
skyward. The belfry was built in 1346, and behind it is the venerable
church of St. Vaast, a product of the sixteenth century, with a very
ornate Gothic tower.
Naturally the belfry and the tower of St. Vaast proved to be irresistibly
attractive to the German gunners, and the batteries beyond La Bassée were
constantly having long bowls practice at them. From the top of the belfry
one could obtain a splendid view of the surrounding countryside and see
the shrapnel and big shells burst miles away. Taubes were constantly
flying over Bethune at this time, but later on they became very chary
about visiting it.
The life of the old city during the past eight months has been rather
unhappy, and it has gone through some stormy periods in the past. In 1188
a devastating plague swept the countryside, causing thousands of deaths
and plunging the population into an abyss of fear and misery.
When the plague was at its height Saint Eloi appeared to two blacksmiths
and recommended them to form an association of “charitables,” charged
to perform the last offices for the dead gratuitously and to help those
in distress. This curious association exists to-day in Bethune under
the name of Confrères des Charitables. During our stay in Bethune the
charitables lived up to their old tradition and took the deepest interest
in the welfare of our soldiers, made coffins for a very large number
of our dead, and in their curious three-cornered “Napoleonic” hats and
quaint badge and bands, solemnly followed the many dead to their last
resting-place.
Bethune has passed through many sieges in its day. In 1487 it was in
possession of the Germans under Philippe of Cleves, and was captured by
the French under Marshal d’Erquerdes at the victory called “Journée des
Fromages,” and at a later period of its history it was fortified by the
great French engineer, Vauban.
The people of Bethune opened wide their arms and welcomed our wounded.
From the Mayor of the city to the humblest little shop girl these good
people did all they could for our men, dead, wounded, or active. The
women of the town made delicacies, soups, and special dishes, provided
wines and more solid comforts, such as beds, mattresses, blankets, and
sheets. Had I but lifted my little finger and asked for volunteer nurses,
I could, I am sure, have obtained them in hundreds. Every day while I
was there I received letters from all sorts of people offering me help
and all manner of things for our men. On an afternoon at Bethune at this
time it was “the thing” for ladies to visit L’Hôpital Civil et Militaire
and see the British soldiers. Our lightly wounded men would generally
be sitting about on seats outside in the courtyard of the hospital
surrounded by convalescent Frenchmen and crowds of admiring ladies, who
had brought cigarettes, chocolate, and cakes for the soldiers of both
nations.
Although Tommy did not know a word of French and they knew no English,
they seemed to thoroughly understand each other, judging by the amused
faces of the elder French ladies and the screams of laughter of the
younger ones. We could never quite understand how Tommy has won such an
enduring place in French hearts. The French people certainly like Tommy.
I was glad to see this everywhere in France, for I, too, like Tommy,
although he is full of tricks.
A section of the Field Ambulance consisting of two medical officers,
Royal Army Medical Corps orderlies, waggons, cooks, and equipment had
already taken possession of the school called L’École Jules Ferry, and
was getting it into some order so as to act as a Clearing Hospital, or
temporary Dressing Station or temporary Clearing Hospital.
We were to hold the fort till a properly equipped Clearing Hospital with
its increased _personnel_ and supplies should arrive. This did not appear
for some days, and our Field Ambulance section had the herculean task of
handling all the wounded from the fighting front, where a bloody struggle
was in progress round the swamps and marshy country towards La Bassée.
L’École Jules Ferry was situated down a side street of the old city, and
near the railway station. It was a very large school, with several big
lofty rooms, many small side-rooms, porches and alcoves of many sorts.
There was a large courtyard with latrines, and the buildings formed a
hollow square with part of the courtyard in the centre. The face of the
buildings looking on to the courtyard had a long sweep of verandahs. The
orderlies soon got to work, cleaned and swept the rooms, and covered
the floor thickly with clean straw. No beds were then available. In a
small side-room off a passage-way an operating table was fixed, and the
surgical instruments and dressings were laid ready. Boiling water had
to be carried to the operating room in buckets from the kitchen at the
end of the building. The hospital was all very crude, but it was the best
that could be done under the circumstances.
We did not have to await events; the events were there at once in the
guise of crowds of recently wounded men. Motor ambulance after motor
ambulance dashed up with its load of wounded. These were rapidly lifted
out and carried into the building; then away went the ambulance to bring
in more wounded. Many and large as were the schoolrooms they were quickly
filled to overflowing. The corridors and porches were then covered
with straw, and this straw was soon covered with rows of wounded men.
The paved courtyard under the verandahs was covered with thick straw,
and again covered with wounded. Every foot, every inch of floor space
in the buildings and under the verandahs was utilised. In one room we
had closely packed rows four deep, with a narrow footway of straw down
the centre of the room for the doctors and orderlies to pass along. So
narrow was this track, that it required the agility of a mountain goat
to negotiate it without bumping some poor devil’s feet, and we walked
along it just as a man walks across a ploughed field, stepping high and
watching each step. Those densely packed rooms during that long night
were a lurid and impressive picture of the devastation of war. As more
and more wounded continued to arrive we had to pack our men closer and
closer together—gently push one this way, lift another one there, edge a
third one closer still. So it went on. We had in our rooms a number of
French wounded picked up and brought in by our ambulances, and also a
fair number of German wounded. There is no nationality amongst the men in
a hospital, and English, French, and German all had a little bit of floor
space and a bit of straw in our schoolhouse that night. All were glad to
get in out of the pouring rain, and be placed on the warm dry straw, and
covered with a blanket.
[Illustration: SLIGHTLY WOUNDED AND SICK AT BETHUNE.]
[Illustration: ÉCOLE JULES FERRY AT BETHUNE.]
All these men arrived with the first field-dressings on. Some had been
put on by the surgeon with the regiment, some by bearers and orderlies,
some by Field Ambulance officers, and some by the man’s comrades on the
field.
At first we were so busy “packing” our wounded that we could not
investigate the nature of the wounds, but we were very soon under way
with the professional side of our work. Every wound was examined; the
slight ones were left alone, but the serious ones were re-dressed and
a rough differentiation of serious and slight cases was made. Those
requiring immediate surgery were brought into our operation room and
anæsthetics were administered. All men in pain were given hypodermics of
morphia, and our orderlies made hot drinks and soups for all those able
to take nourishment. There were, of course, many men lying unconscious
with severe brain wounds, and most of these men died next day. The brain
injuries were amongst our most hopeless cases, but fortunately these poor
fellows suffered no pain whatever, and slept stertorously till death.
There was one particularly fine, strapping, young giant lieutenant of a
Scotch regiment who was comfortably placed on straw and covered with a
blanket, and who lay quietly sleeping, with gentle and easy respirations,
all the night till the next forenoon, when he suddenly became quite
still. The top of his head had been blown completely away.
The crowds of wounded behaved like brave men and took their gruelling
like good sportsmen. Next day the pressure was relieved by the opportune
arrival of a hospital train, and we were enabled to evacuate 250 of the
cases fit for transport. More doctors and Red Cross dressers were sent
to help, and the vacant places of the 250 sent away were occupied by the
arrival of another 300.
As the pressure for beds showed no signs of easing off, and as the
reports from the front were that the fighting was still violent and
obstinate, a search was made for another building to hold more wounded.
This was found at L’Hôpital Civil et Militaire, a permanent hospital of
the city of Bethune. It was a hospital of three stories, built of brick
round three sides of a big hollow square. The fourth side was occupied by
the porter’s lodge, the two gateways, and the residential quarters of the
Reverend Mother and Sisters of the Order of St. Francis, who formed the
nursing staff. The basement wards of one wing were for French military
patients, and the other wings were for civilian patients; but as a matter
of fact military wounded were put in all the wards except the midwifery
ward, which was full of young babies and mothers. One of these young
mothers, by the way, had just become the proud possessor of triplets. I
had a look at them, and they seemed very fit. Their father had been away
for the past three months in the trenches of the Argonne, but permission
had been asked to enable him to come down and see how well his wife had
done.
The top story of the hospital had two large empty wards, each capable
of holding seventy patients placed fairly closely together. I asked
permission of the Reverend Mother and the hospital secretary to use these
wards for the reception of our wounded.
“But yes,” I was eagerly told; “you are welcome, and we shall do all
we can for your English wounded.” I was also offered the use of three
side-rooms and part of another small ward for any wounded officers,
and—greatest boon of all—the use of the two operating theatres of the
hospital. These operating theatres were modern and splendidly equipped
with good surgical iron operating tables, suitable for adjusting in any
position, sterilisers for instruments, dressings, aprons, and operating
towels, glass cases full of the latest type of instruments, and hot and
cold water taps controlled by foot-pedals on the floor.
The lighting was all that one could desire. My joy knew no bounds now,
for I felt that at last I would be able to do good surgery and clean
surgery. Up till now the surgery I had done on the field was crude and
not very clean. It was absolutely impossible to be otherwise, for we
were the victims of stern military circumstances. But now things would
be different, and our wounded men and officers would get the benefit of
surgical cleanliness.
I asked the Reverend Mother if she would prepare one hundred straw
mattresses for me, and get in some blankets. “But yes” I would get
them; and also Monsieur le Docteur would have tables put in the centre
of the wards for the dressings, and would have basins and towels. An
electrician would fix up electric lights, and a kitchen stove would be
put in a side-room for cooking soup, boiling water, etc. I reported all
this to Surgeon-General P——, and that able officer quickly grasped the
possibilities of this hospital, installed me there as operating surgeon,
and directed that all serious cases requiring surgical operation should
be sent to me. A real Clearing Hospital arrived in the town next morning,
and next day took in patients. It established itself in the “College for
Young Ladies,” and very soon the spacious quarters of this big building
were filled with wounded and sick men. For besides our wounded at this
time we had also a large number of sick. This hospital also sent me any
case requiring surgical operation.
Work at my wards proceeded apace. The women of the city rushed eagerly
to assist, and in a _clin d’œil_ had made 180 straw mattresses, provided
blankets, hot-water bottles, and other sick-room adjuncts. The position
in Bethune was now as follows. One Clearing Hospital at the College for
Young Ladies, one at the school “Jules Ferry,” and my surgical wards,
only for serious cases, at L’Hôpital Civil et Militaire. All three
buildings were soon full, and over seven thousand wounded men passed
through these buildings in less than three weeks.
Sir Anthony Bowlby, consulting surgeon to the Army, constantly visited
this hospital, and was always a welcome visitor; and his surgical opinion
was as welcome as his encouragement and cheeriness of manner.
The operating theatre was presided over by Sister Ferdinande, a trained
and capable nurse, with rigid antiseptic and aseptic principles. All I
had to do was to tell her that I was going to amputate a limb or do a
trephining operation, and ask her when she would be ready. At the agreed
time everything was certain to be prepared, and I just had to scrub up,
put on my sterilised apron, cap, and rubber gloves, and be ready for
my part of the _séance_. The Reverend Mother Superior was a trained
anæsthetist and administered chloroform to many of my cases during
the three weeks I was there. Some days I have had her administering
anæsthetics for seven hours. Seven hours’ continuous administration,
broken only by the taking out of one patient and the bringing in of
another, is a big test of endurance for a young man; yet this old lady
did it smilingly and well, and said it was “indeed nothing.”
There were two Irish nuns at this hospital; one spoke French well, one
was just learning, but both spoke “Irish,” which is good English. These
two nuns were put on nursing duty in my wards, and they were hugely
delighted to get amongst the British wounded and to hear their countrymen
talk. Tommy Atkins was delighted with the two Irish nuns, and told them
some wonderful stories about the fighting and about the Germans. One of
them asked me if I really thought that Private S—— of the Warwicks had
shot two hundred Germans one afternoon. I told the sister that I did not
know, but hoped he had. These two sisters were at work in the wards night
and day. They told me one day that they had never heard a soldier swear.
I was very glad to hear this, for it showed that Tommy was behaving
himself, and I did not tell the sister that Tommy on occasion was a very
past master in strange oaths. The sisters were very concerned about the
lice on our soldiers’ shirts and flannels; and really this was a terrible
source of anxiety to all medical officers at this time, for these cursed
parasites would make the lot of our wounded men unbearable at times. One
man with a fractured leg put up firmly in splints begged me to take the
splints off so that he could “scratch the leg.” I had really in the end
to take off the splint, bathe the skin in petrol, and dust sulphur on
the cotton wool, for lice had worked their way down into the warm wool
next the skin, and by their “promenading” about had set up the irritation
which the soldier begged to scratch. The sister once said to me that she
used to think that the British soldiers were the most cleanly of men,
but she found really that they were all covered with lice. I told the
wondering-eyed sister that it was a regrettable fact, but nevertheless
true, that the whole British Army at the front was lousy.
When our wounded arrived at the hospital they were speedily placed on
the straw mattresses, quickly undressed by the sisters and other helping
nuns, and covered with warm sheets and blankets and surrounded with hot
bottles. Basins of hot water and soap were brought round and then the men
were washed and cleaned. Their lice-infected shirts and underclothing
were sterilised by dry heat.
It was the finest example of _l’entente cordiale_ to see the French
nuns taking off the muddy boots and puttees, cutting off blood-stained
clothing, washing and cleaning the wounded, slipping on warm dry shirts,
and tucking the blankets and pillows comfortably. Others appeared
with hot soup, hot coffee, red wine, and hot gruel. These nuns were
magnificent.
I wrote to Lord Grey, late Governor-General of Canada, asking him to
bring to the notice of Her Majesty Queen Alexandra the splendid work
performed by these ladies. Lord Grey very kindly did so, and also sent
a copy of my letter to His Majesty the King, who replied through Lord
Stamfordham that he had read it with much interest. Queen Alexandra sent
the following letter to the Reverend Mother Superior of the Franciscan
Sisters at Bethune:
“I have learned from Dr. Martin of your noble and heroic
devotion for our brave and unfortunate wounded soldiers, and it
is with a heart full of gratitude that I ask you to accept my
most ardent and warmest thanks.
“I pray God that He will reward you for the angelic care that
you have bestowed on our unfortunate soldiers, and I will never
forget that it is to you, madame, and your sisters, that they
assuredly owe their life and their recovered health.
“ALEXANDRA.”
This letter was published in all the leading French and British papers,
including the _London Times_, _Tablet_, _Daily Mail_, _Figaro_, _Le
Journal_, _Le Temps_, in February 1915, and excited very considerable
interest and attention in France. The Abbé Bouchon d’Homme, the Aumonier
to the hospital, wrote me later to say that the Reverend Mother and the
Sisters were delighted beyond measure at Queen Alexandra’s gracious
message.
It may not be out of place now to describe briefly the nature of some of
the wounds met with during the fighting at La Bassée. The non-medical
mind is as interested in the wounds and sufferings of our men as are
the doctors, and it is to the intelligent interest of the layman we owe
so much of what has been done for our wounded and sick men. Compound
fractures and splintered bone, septic wounds, tetanus, brain injuries,
inoculations, etc., are words freely bandied about and understood by
any group of ladies met together round an afternoon tea-table. Mrs.
Smith-Jones will tell Mrs. Jones-Smith that her son is in hospital with
a septic compound fracture and that the wound is being fully drained,
and Mrs. J.-S. will reply that her sister’s husband, Captain X—— of the
R.F.A., is recovering from a penetrating wound of the lung, but has
still some pleural effusion. So no apology is further necessary when
referring to such a thing as gas gangrene.
Gas gangrene was one of the terrors of the doctors at this time. It was
a new and totally unexpected complication of the wounds, and at first
we did not know what to do in the face of this pressing danger. A man
would get, say, a flesh wound of the arm or leg, or perhaps a fractured
bone, and very soon the whole limb would become gangrenous and die.
Gangrene means death of the part. It may be death of a small part or of
a large part, and the worst feature of the form of gangrene met with at
Bethune was its tendency to rapid spread, resulting in the speedy death
of the limb and of the patient. We had many deaths from this terrible
gas gangrene, and performed many amputations to save lives. A good
surgeon hates to amputate a limb, and will gladly exert all his skill and
knowledge to save even a toe. It was heartrending to have to perform so
many amputations at Bethune, and yet these serious mutilating operations
had to be performed in order to save lives.
The gangrene was caused by a group of bacilli called anærobes, amongst
which may be many organisms. About ten different organisms have been
obtained from cases of gas gangrene, and these all belong to the same
family of anærobic bacilli. They are all spore-bearing, and grow in
the absence of air. These bacilli are found in the soil in France and
Belgium, and are always to be found in the soil of those countries which
have been closely cultivated for centuries past.
If a guinea-pig is inoculated with a sample of this earth shaken up in a
little water it will develop this gas gangrene and die. Imagine, then,
this picture. The soil of the trenches is full of these organisms, which,
if introduced into an open wound, grow and spread and cause the limb to
become gangrenous. As the organism spreads up the limb it produces a gas
of its own, and by pressing on the skin one can feel this gas cracking,
like tissue paper, under the fingers. The treatment is to inject the
parts with oxygen or peroxide of hydrogen, to make free incisions round
the wound, thoroughly cleanse the wound and keep it clean. The general
condition of the patients required great care, for they were all very,
very ill. When a man got wounded in the trenches some dirt was bound to
get into the wound, for the men’s hands and clothes were usually caked
with mud.
It is a natural movement to clap a hand on the wounded spot. If a man
is struck on the face or limbs, he will lay down his rifle or perhaps
drop it, and at once put his hand on the injured part to ascertain the
extent. It is a movement which is almost involuntary. I have seen hit men
do this often, and when they withdraw their hand they always look at it
to see if there is any blood, and the bravest man does not like to see
his own blood. The hands of the men in the trenches were infected with
the bacilli of this gas gangrene and of tetanus, and when these infected
fingers touched a recent wound, the wound itself became infected with
these highly dangerous organisms.
Pieces of khaki cloth, caked in mud, were often driven into the wounds
with the bullets and shrapnel, and on this cloth there were of course
millions of the deadly little beasts.
If the case reached us soon after the onset of gangrene a cure could
almost certainly be promised. If the case arrived late, when the limbs
were dead, amputation was the only “conservative treatment” that one
could adopt. Many of the cases sent to me were beyond any hope of
recovery and soon died. On one day I saw in one Clearing Hospital in the
town four cases dying from gas gangrene; in the other Clearing Hospital,
two cases _in articulo mortis_ from the same trouble; and in my own,
one other case. Seven cases dying on one day from gas gangrene! None of
these had been operated upon. This will give some idea of the formidable
character of this complication.
None but the very serious cases were sent to me. Many cases of gas
gangrene were evacuated early and sent to the Base Hospitals. Most of
my cases came from one or other of the Clearing Hospitals in this town.
Some arrived direct from the Field Ambulances. In every amputation for
gas gangrene performed at this hospital the limb was absolutely dead and
beyond the possibility of any treatment short of amputation. All the
patients were in an extremely grave state, and their general condition
was in every case very bad. I cannot picture any worse surgical subject
than these men with gas gangrene. Numbers of them were in too low a
state to admit of a general anæsthetic, and here the necessary operations
were performed under conduction anæsthesia.
Dr. F——, an eminent French surgeon in charge of the French wounded in
this town, saw many of my cases before, during, and after operation. I
had the privilege also of seeing his gangrene cases at this time. He
had amongst the French wounded the same experience as mine. Both of us
had German wounded to treat, and here also we met dead limbs from gas
gangrene. We were both of the opinion that the Germans at this place were
also up against a very virulent “culture” here, that of the anærobe. Some
wounded French refugees were brought into this hospital at this period,
and some of these had gas gangrene. The serious character of gas gangrene
at this time could only be recognised at the front. The serious cases
were retained here for operation. I am of the opinion that all cases of
gangrene should be treated at the front at the nearest Clearing Hospital,
and that no case should be sent to the Base till the gangrene had
disappeared, subject, of course, as always, to the military situation.
All the wounded admitted to this town—French, British, and German—came
from the same area of the battle front.
In many of the cases of gas gangrene bones were badly shattered and
pulverised, splinters of bone were lying in surrounding muscles, or had
been driven out through the skin. Important nerves were injured, torn,
or compressed in many of them. Important blood-vessels were frequently,
but not invariably, injured. In some, big vessels had been torn through;
in others, arteries and nerves were compressed by displaced fragments
of bone. The wounds were dirty in most cases. The skin was black and
lacerated, and muscles were extruded and covered with coagulated blood
clots.—Wound full of blood clots, and containing at times pieces of khaki
cloth, shrapnel fragments, nickel casing of bullets, gravel, and, in two
cases, bits of rock.—So runs the record in my notes. There were, however,
cases in which the bullet had drilled an apparently clean hole through
a joint, like the wrist or ankle, without much apparent destruction to
bone. In such cases one would not expect gas gangrene; yet it sometimes
occurred.
Gas gangrene is encouraged by tight bandaging, and many of the cases
had a bandage applied all too firmly. When a man is wounded in a trench
his mate frequently applies the first-aid dressing, and fixes it like a
tourniquet. This could perhaps be obviated by making the bandage of the
first field-dressing a little wider than at present. A narrow bandage
tends to become cord-like.
All the cases of gas gangrene had a very penetrating putrefactive
smell, which is quite characteristic. The area of advancing gangrene
is preceded by an œdematous zone, which fades in one direction to the
area of healthy skin and in the direction towards the wound to a dullish
injected area which crackles on palpation. Nearer the wound the skin
is purplish and dark. Around the edges of the usually jagged wound the
tissues were black or greenish-black. Extravasated blood undermined the
skin all round the wound. The wound itself was full of blood clots. The
limb distal to the wound was swollen, greenish-black, covered with green
blebs, cold, insensitive, and pulseless in the “dead” limbs. Frequently
toes and fingers were quite black. In other serious cases there might be
a little warmth or a slight pulse. If any case showed either of these
two favourable signs, an attempt was made to save the limb, and was in
many cases successful. The gangrene did not spread up a limb in an even
circle. For example, it might reach anteriorly to the lower third of the
thigh, and posteriorly be at or well above the fold of the buttock. This
was due to the extravasated blood lying more towards the dependent parts
and to gravity. In the upper arm the gangrene travelled rapidly up the
inner side along the course of the big blood-vessels. The invasion spread
upwards; very little crackling was felt below the site of the wound.
The circulation below seemed to be rapidly cut off, and that portion of
the limb underwent the changes associated with a complete circulatory
block. Wounds of the thigh with shattering of the femur, wounds of
the elbow-joint and of the metatarsus were very prone to develop this
gangrene. Some of the cases were admitted within thirty-six hours after
receipt of the wound, with well-marked gangrene.
In every case of amputation performed there was nothing else to be
done in order to save life. The limbs were dead. In many of these cases
important blood-vessels were torn, crushed, or compressed, and when the
vessels were injured the gangrene developed more quickly and spread more
rapidly. It is regrettable that one had to perform so many amputations
at this time, but it is a matter for congratulation that so many
lives were saved. One of the cases died suddenly twelve hours after a
disarticulation at the shoulder-joint. Another one died three days after
amputation at the hip-joint, from gangrene which progressed steadily on
to the lower abdomen. There were, in addition, five deaths from gangrene
following wounds of the extremities. These five were admitted in a dying
condition, and passed away two to four hours after admission. One could
do nothing for them surgically. Other cases died at the other Clearing
Hospitals in the town. It was a sad and mournful experience seeing these
fine young men die.
These cases of gas gangrene were all bad surgical subjects, for in
addition to the gangrene, loss of blood, privation, and exposure
subsequent to being wounded, their wounds were dangerous and mutilating,
and the transportation to the hospital was, sometimes, necessarily an
agonising ordeal. This will show that our Clearing Hospitals at the front
should be well and thoroughly equipped with all modern appliances for the
treatment of shock, and a staff fully alive to this clamant necessity. A
Clearing Hospital cannot to-day remain as an administrative unit only.
Another complication of our wounds at this time was tetanus (or the
so-called lock-jaw). When it was recognised that the bacillus of tetanus
was also found in the soil of France and Flanders, efficient measures
were at once adopted to combat its terrible effects. Accordingly
anti-tetanic serum was provided at all the Base Hospitals, Clearing
Hospitals, and Ambulances, and every man wounded in France or Flanders
to-day gets an injection of this serum within twenty-four hours of the
receipt of the wound. No deaths from tetanus have occurred since these
measures have been adopted.
Tetanus caused many deaths at the beginning of the war, not only amongst
our own soldiers, but also amongst the Belgians, French, and Germans.
When tetanus manifests itself, when the convulsions and muscular spasms
come on, it is a terrible malady to treat, and most of the cases die. At
this time the injection of anti-tetanic serum does not ensure a recovery,
but if this serum is given to every wounded man, then none will develop
tetanus, and that is why none of the wounded men are asked if they
will have the “lock-jaw injection.” At the front there is no time for
conscientious objectors.
Shrapnel wounds were always bad; the round bullets of lead always ripped
and tore the tissues about so terribly. The Mauser bullet did not cause
nearly so much damage, but it sometimes produced very lacerating wounds.
The Mauser bullet “turns over” when travelling through a limb, and this
turning means tearing of tissues on the path of the bullet, and often a
huge jagged wound like that produced by an explosive bullet.
It has been said that we are treating wounds of an eighteenth-century
character with twentieth-century technique. The eighteenth-century battle
wounds were inflicted at close range, and so are many of the wounds
inflicted to-day.
At Crecy and Agincourt both sides used arrows. The aviators of the Allies
and the enemy carry steel darts which they spin down on the foe below.
Bows have been used in the trenches to send inflammable arrows into
the opposing lines. The Roman soldier advanced to close combat behind
a shield held on his left arm, and shields have been used at certain
observation spots by the Germans and in the Russian trenches; our Allies
have at times used spades for a similar purpose.
Bombards were employed at Crecy, and bombards have come to their own
again in the trenches from Switzerland to the sea. Hand grenades were
employed in the Peninsular War, and are employed to-day in this War
of the Nations. Our men attack the enemy and the enemy attack us with
bayonets as in the days of the Crimea and the Peninsula, and our riflemen
pick off the enemy by long-distance fire, and also fire at close range
into solid masses of them. Even the armour of old days is represented
on modern fields of battle, for the French Cuirassier goes into action
with a brass cuirass and helmet; and a French infantry officer of my
acquaintance has worn a light shirt of chain-mail extending from his
neck to beyond his hips, all through this campaign, and he said that
it had saved his life on more than one occasion. In one _magasin_ in
Rouen shirts of beautifully made chain-mail can be purchased, and the
shopkeeper told me that he had sold hundreds to French soldiers.
The hardships of the Crimean trenches—cold, rheumatism, and
frostbite—have been repeated on the Yser. Gangrene was rampant amongst
the wounded of Wagram, Austerlitz, and Borodino, and amongst the French
and British wounded at Vittoria, Salamanca, Badajos, and other great
battles of the Peninsula, and it has startlingly reappeared on the Aisne
and in Flanders.
Historians of that day refer to it as hospital gangrene, or the gangrene
so common after any surgical operation or wound of that time. It may,
on the other hand, have been the same gas gangrene that has ominously
complicated so many of our wounds in France and Flanders. The bacillus
which produces this gangrene may belong, for all we know to the contrary,
to a very old family of bacilli, who would look upon pedigrees dating
to William the Conqueror with an aristocratic contempt when his own
stretched back to the beginning of time.
There is one feature of war as carried on to-day which is quite new,
and that is by poison gases and by poisoning wells and water supplies.
In West Africa the Germans have been proved indisputably and by their
own admissions to have poisoned wells and water supplies, and the whole
world stands amazed and aghast at the devilish and inhuman Germans who
set free poison gases to overwhelm and suffocate British, French, and
Belgian soldiers in the trenches. This diabolical and ghastly method
of murder is without parallel in history, and the bloodily-minded men
who conceived and carried out this sinister, ferocious thing will live
accursed all their days and be a name of scorn and loathing for ever.
Although the civil hospital at Bethune was such a grim place of crowded
wounded, it was yet the scene of much humour. We had wounded men
belonging to many different countries, and the nuns were very interested
in all the odd types. Off one of the large French wards there was a
small room holding eight beds, and a nun brought me in one day to see
the curious occupants ranged in beds alongside each other. There were a
Senegalese, an Algerian, a Zouave, an Alpine Chasseur, a Turco, a native
of Madagascar, a man of the Foreign legion, and a Frenchman. I think that
the nuns always kept this ward “International.” It was their little joke,
and visitors were always shown this ward. The patients themselves enjoyed
the _mélange_. The courtyard of the hospital was a great meeting-place
for our convalescent soldiers with the French convalescents, and they
used to sit about on benches surrounded by an admiring lot of French
women from the town. We also had a fair number of German wounded on our
hands, and one of them at this time was terribly ill, suffering from the
after-effects of gas gangrene of the foot following on a bullet wound of
the ankle joint. His foot was amputated, and he had a struggle for some
days to keep going, but eventually pulled through. The wounded German
soldiers were very tractable and easy to manage. They were obedient,
gave no trouble, and seemed grateful. I cannot say the same of the two
wounded German officers I had. Both were slight wounds, and ought not
really to have been sent to this hospital at all. They were truculent
and overbearing to the nuns and orderlies, and behaved like cads. The
German has no sense of humour. He takes himself very seriously, and that
amuses us. He thinks and says that we are fools, and that also amuses
us. A German once said that the English would always be fools, and that
the Germans would never be gentlemen. This is most obviously correct. We
asked a German sergeant-major who had been captured if the Hymn of Hate
was really popular in Germany. The sergeant-major in civil life was a
school teacher. He wore big spectacles and had a rough beard, and was
altogether a very serious-minded man. He assured us that the German hate
was a very real one, and he took the hymn very seriously. Lissauer, its
author, is said to be a serious man also, and has he not been awarded the
Cross of the Red Eagle by the All Highest himself? We laugh at the hymn,
and this makes the German mad. Certainly we must be fools to laugh at the
Hymn of Hate. The words inspire and enthral the Teuton, and the music
uplifts his sentimental soul to the Empyrean.
“We love as one, we hate as one.
We have one foe, and one alone—England.”
The German considers this to be a purely German hymn, breathing the
spirit of the Fatherland—unending hate. It is his song, and to sing it
does him good. You can then understand the expression of blank amazement
on the face of our captured schoolmaster—the sergeant-major with the
spectacles and beard—when he was told that the Hymn of Hate was sung with
gusto in the music halls of London and Paris, and was received by the
audience with shrieking sounds of applause.
The Hymn of Hate sung by an Englishman in an English music hall!
Donnerwetter! He could not understand. He had no sense of humour.
A Prussian officer was captured in November with about fifteen men, and
I saw him marched in shortly after the capture. He looked arrogant, and
one instinctively took a dislike to him, he was so obviously stamped
“bounder.”
His revolver was in its pouch on his belt. We had forgotten to take it,
and he had forgotten that it was there. Our prisoner spoke English very
well, and said that “he wished he had been shot. He was for ever and
ever disgraced at being made a prisoner. His regiment would not have him
again as an officer.” The impression we formed, who were standing round
listening, was that this whining bounder seemed to feel it a particular
disgrace to be a prisoner of the hated English. An English officer in
charge at this particular place here went up to our snarling Prussian
who wished “that he had been killed” and said: “I see we have omitted
to take over your revolver. It is still in your pouch and probably
loaded—sure to be. You say you are sorry you were not killed. Well, go
off five paces over there and blow your damned head off with your own
gun. I won’t interfere with you, and none of us will mourn for you.” The
Prussian shut up like an oyster. We all laughed, and the soldiers round
enjoyed it hugely. The eyes of the man blazed with fury, but he made no
movement towards that five paces off, and handed over his revolver to our
English officer, who refused to touch it, and called on a soldier to take
it.
The Prussian did not see the humour of the situation, and “there’s the
humour on’t” old Falstaff would have said.
[Illustration: TRENCHES IN FLANDERS.]
A few days after the sinking of the _Emden_ the news reached the British
and French in the trenches. The French were as delighted as we were. In
the Argonne an advanced French trench was separated by only the width
of a road from an advanced German trench. The officer in command of the
French trench wrote out the news of the _Emden_ fight on a piece of
paper and tied this paper round a stone, which he flung into the German
trench. It was received with guttural cries of annoyance. Shortly after
this time from the German trench came another stone with a piece of paper
inscribed, “Monsieur, go to Hell.” The French officer, ever polite and
determined to have the last word, sent back this note:
“DEAR BOSCHES,—I have been to many places. I have been invited
to visit many places in my time, but this is the first time
that I have been invited to visit the German headquarters.”
There is a society in London called the “Society for Lonely Soldiers.”
Its object is to be of some assistance to soldiers who have no relations
or friends and are quite alone in the world. A young lady of this society
sent a parcel of comforts to the British prison camp in Germany, and
addressed the parcel to “The loneliest British soldier in Germany.”
Some weeks afterwards a reply was received from the German officer in
command of the camp. “Madam, your gifts have been impartially distributed
amongst all the prisoners. We were unable to decide which was the
_loveliest_ British soldier in camp.” Imagine a spectacled old German
officer methodically scrutinising all the British prisoners to ascertain
which was the “loveliest” one!
Apropos of humour, read this incident reported by “Eye-witness” from the
front. “One wounded Prussian officer of a particularly offensive and
truculent type, which is not uncommon, expressed the greatest contempt
for our methods: ‘You do not fight. You murder!’ he said. ‘If it had
been straightforward, honest fighting we should have beaten you, but my
regiment never had a chance from the first. There was a shell every ten
yards. Nothing could live in such a fire.’”
This from one of the apostles of frightfulness!
Now read this concluding sentence in a letter from a German lady of high
social position to a Russian lady:
“We wish to carry in our hearts an undying hatred, and we utterly reject
all useless verbiage on ‘humanity.’
“To mothers and to German women this hate gives a sort of satisfaction
without which our hearts would not be able to support,” etc. etc.
Read this order of the day, dated 26th August 1914, from General Stenger,
Brigadier of the 88th Brigade, 14th Baden Army Corps. (This document
is quite authentic, and is at present in the hands of the French War
Office.) This is the translation: “The Brigade on setting out to-day will
make no prisoners; all prisoners will be killed. The wounded, with or
without arms, will be put to death. Prisoners, even in large organised
units, will be put to death. No living man must remain in our rear.”
More will be heard of this document at the end of the war. It is a prized
possession of the French just now.
Yet our wounded Prussian officer, as related above, objected to our
murderous artillery fire, and said that “we do not fight, we murder.” In
spite of the tragic side the incident has some humour.
Dr. Ludwig Ganghofer, a Bavarian Court journalist, recently described a
visit which he had paid to a German hospital in Lille. He there saw some
wounded British prisoners. Two caught his eye, and thus he writes:
“As I regarded these two sulky pups of the British lion, I had a feeling
as if every hair on my head stood on end. This unpleasant irritation only
ceased when I had turned my German back on the sons of civilised Albion,
and looked again at suffering human beings.”
“Suffering human beings” is good; our two unfortunate countrymen were
not human beings. They were pups of the British lion—young lions, in
fact. The German appellation for us is improving. Some weeks ago we were
“Swine dogs,” now we are “Young lions.” Ganghofer is the Bavarian Court
journalist. One wonders if that feudal power keeps a court jester.
CHAPTER XVI.
SOME MEDICAL ODDS AND ENDS.
FUNCTIONAL BLINDNESS.
At Bethune some of us met for the first time in this war cases of
functional temporary blindness, and many other cases were met with at
various points of the front.
The following example will give an idea of the condition. A young
officer, nineteen years of age, was standing by a haystack in the north
of France when a large Black Maria burst near him, rolled him over, and
plastered him with clay, but did not kill him. The _concussion_ had
thrown him down. He remained unconscious for half an hour, and when he
woke to consciousness he discovered he was “blind.” His mental state
then was terrible. He cried out, “Oh, why wasn’t I killed?” “Won’t some
one carry me out and put me on the parapet of a trench so that I may
be killed?” His grief was pathetic, and one can easily understand it.
A careful examination was made of the interior of the eyes with the
ophthalmoscope and nothing was found wrong. He was assured by the medical
officers that he would certainly recover after perhaps a week or two of
blindness. He was quiet and composed after this, but was a little bit
suspicious that we were only trying to cheer him up. One medical officer
then explained to him what sort of blindness it was: that it was due to
concussion of the nerve of sight, and the delicate structures at the
ball of the eye; that nothing was destroyed, and that a complete rest
would bring back his vision. Next day he was transferred by hospital
train to the Base _en route_ for England. This note, unknown to him, was
pinned on his coat: “Functional blindness. Any medical officer handling
this officer on Hospital Train, Base Hospital, or Hospital Ship, please
tell him that he will fully recover his sight.” Knowing the kind-hearted
nature of the medical profession, one can be sure that he was cheered up
all the way to England. I received a letter from this officer’s mother
some weeks after, saying that her son had completely recovered his
vision, and was as well as ever.
NERVE CONCUSSION
Nerve concussion is a pathological condition that has received more
attention in this war than at any previous time. A young Fusilier at
La Bassée was hit by a bullet through the fleshy part of the forearm.
The wound was a purely flesh one and no important nerve could have been
struck. He had paralysis of the wrist and hand, due to concussion of the
important nerves of the forearm. The bullet in its course did not strike
these nerves. He got completely better in eight weeks.
A Gordon Highlander was struck by a bullet in the right buttock. No
important nerve was struck, yet he had paralysis of the limb owing to
concussion of the sciatic nerve. He got better by rest in bed and massage
of the muscles. A soldier of the Wiltshire Regiment was rolled over
by the concussion of a bursting shell. He retained consciousness, but
could not get up or move his right arm. The right side of his body was
paralysed. He got better by rest. A Bedfordshire sergeant got a bullet
wound through the upper arm, and paralysis of certain muscles supplied by
nerves in the vicinity of the track of the bullet. It was thought that
the nerves were divided, and after the wound had healed the nerves were
exposed at an operation intending to join the severed ends. The nerves
were found to be uninjured, and the incision in the skin was closed up.
He made a complete recovery.
There is also the story of the soldier who suddenly recovered his voice
in the presence of King George. The story is going the rounds of the
hospitals, and it is said that His Majesty was extraordinarily interested
in the phenomenon. This soldier was taken prisoner by the Germans
during our retreat from Belgium. He was picked off the field in a dazed
condition and unable to speak. He was interned later in a prison camp in
Germany and was all this time quite unable to speak. When the exchange of
permanently disabled prisoners of war was recently made between England
and Germany, this man was sent back as permanently incapacitated on
account of being dumb. He was admitted to a hospital near London. One day
the King visited the hospital, and this man on getting up from his chair
as the King entered the ward, inadvertently touched a heating pipe which
was then very hot. He at once exclaimed “Damn,” and was able to speak
perfectly afterwards. The King was very much interested. Was this an
hysterical loss of voice or a concussion? It was a mental shock of some
kind, and the recovery was due to the other shock of touching a hot pipe.
I attended one young officer and three men who had been buried in the
earth when their trench was blown up. The officer and one man were
unconscious, and when the man recovered consciousness he was nervy and
excitable. He had a startled, terrified expression, and when in bed he
would peer round in a wild, anxious way, and then suddenly pull the
blankets well over his head and curl up underneath as if anxious to shut
out his surroundings, or what he thought were his surroundings. He seemed
really to be living through some terrifying experiences of the past few
days antecedent and up to the time when his trench was blown up and he
was engulfed in the mud and _débris_.
The officer recovered consciousness more slowly, and spoke in a curious
staccato speech; his nerves were completely gone, and he had fine tremors
of the lips and tongue and fingers. He told me that his memory had gone,
that he had only a hazy recollection of recent things, which seemed far
away and dim.
DEAF MUTISM.
Several cases of deaf mutism have occurred during the hard fighting
near Ypres and La Bassée, and these are certainly very curious. The men
so afflicted have written down that shells burst near them, that they
were thrown down, and remembered nothing more for a time. On coming to
again, they were deaf and dumb. These men also show other signs of nerve
shock; they are restless, troubled with sleeplessness, and have anxious
expressions. Generally all get completely well in a few weeks, but some
of the cases remain mute for a much longer time.
LICE.
The medical officer at the front to-day has other duties besides those of
attending to the sick and wounded. He is concerned with the prevention
of disease, with water supplies, sanitation of billeting areas and
camps, means to prevent frostbite, and so on. He has also to advise on
methods of treating and avoiding vermin. Lice are, without a doubt,
one of the terrors of war. These little beasts are not harmless. They
take a high place in the sphere of destructive agents. I would group
them in the class with shrapnel bombs and high explosives. Wherever
many men are gathered closely together, and hygienic laws, owing to
military needs, are in temporary abeyance, there will lice be found,
constituting themselves one of the terrors of war. Officers and men get
them, and once these pests gain entry to one’s wardrobe they entrench
themselves in their battalions and divisions, and require very drastic
efforts to dislodge. In the early fighting in Flanders and in Northern
France, on the Marne and Aisne, these beasts gave us great trouble. They
are most active at night when one gets warm in bed. It is not the bite
that counts, but, as the old French Countess once expressed it to a
Minister of State, it is “toujours le promenade.” The promenading causes
irritation and insomnia. Scratching produces excoriations of the skin,
and then a whole lot of sequent complications. Lice are factors in the
spread of typhus fever, and when typhus visits an army in the field it
carries death and desolation to thousands. To illustrate the point read
this extract from a letter written from an English hospital in Serbia:
“The great scourge of this country is typhus fever. It was introduced
by the Austrian prisoners at Christmas. Out of 2500 Austrian prisoners
at Uskub, 1000 had died of fever and 1200 were down with it. It is a
terrible disease, and is carried not by infection but by lice. One has to
take tremendous precautions to avoid these creatures.”
The majority of our wounded taken from the fighting line at La Bassée
to the hospital at Bethune were infested with lice. Lice invaded the
clothing of all who handled these poor fellows, and very drastic measures
had to be taken to combat the scourge.
The following story will illustrate the vitality of these nasty little
beasts. Our Field Ambulance once stopped at a small town in Northern
France and was billeted in a French convent. The good sisters allowed
us the use of the schoolrooms, the kitchen, and some of the bedrooms.
All the officers were anxious to get their shirts and linen washed. The
laundrywoman duly appeared and boiled all these articles, and the sisters
ironed them for us. On the afternoon of the ironing the Mother Superior
and two sisters came to us in a state of excitement, talking rapidly, and
evidently overcome with amazement. They explained that our shirts had
been boiled and then dried in the open air. When they began to iron the
necks of our shirts the lice sprang to life and were exceedingly active.
They assured us solemnly that scores sprang to active life under the
comfortable warmth of the hot iron. I do not doubt the story. The heat
had matured the chitinous envelope in which the young lice lay, and out
they came, joyous, active, and sportive on the nice warm surface. Hence
the amazement, the uplifted hands, and the consternation of the good
sisters. The riddle of their extermination has not yet been completely
solved, but measures are in active progress. It is an unsavoury subject,
but it is a very important one for troops in camp and in the field.
SHELL FUMES.
“Thou shalt not kill,
But do not strive
Officiously to keep alive.”
A great deal has been written on the effect of shell fumes in this war.
So much is hearsay and so little really authentic, that one cannot
dogmatise.
One naval surgeon said that men exposed to fumes of bursting shells
develop acute pneumonia, which proves fatal as a rule. This is supposed
to be due to the nitric peroxide produced by the explosion.
Artillery officers have told me that stories were going the round of the
batteries that the Germans fired certain shells at our aeroplanes which,
on bursting, set free certain gases which intoxicated the aviators.
A French gunner-major circumstantially related that a German trench
which had been heavily shelled with turpinite shells was found full of
dead Germans, standing or sitting in life-like attitudes and with faces
_quite black_. He said that the look-out man was lying in his natural
attitude holding field-glasses to his eyes. He was apparently alive, but
was really dead, stiff, and with black face and hands. These statements
have not been confirmed, but the stories of similar incidents are many.
There is no doubt that lyddite and melinite fumes can, when inhaled,
produce sudden poisonous changes. I have myself seen British soldiers and
German prisoners, after having been exposed to these fumes, come in with
deeply yellow jaundiced skin. One man, in fact, looked exactly like a man
suffering from acute jaundice.
It is also said that the fumes induce drowsiness. Turpinite shells were
employed at one stage of the war and are to be employed again. M. Turpin
has recently been at the front with a French battery. Certainly turpinite
does emit dangerous fumes. Many believe that it is some form of cyanogen
gas—allied to prussic acid.
* * * * *
The force of these high explosives is well illustrated by an occurrence
of 25th January. Previous to making an assault the Germans fired a mine
under our front trench near the railway east of Cuinchy. The explosion
hurled a piece of rail weighing 25 lbs. a distance of over a mile, into a
field close to where some of our men were working.
It is reported that on 1st February the detonation of one of our lyddite
shells in the enemy trenches on the embankment south of the canal, threw
a German soldier right across the railway and the canal amongst our men
on the north side of the latter.
At Fort Condé, on the Aisne, the air concussion of a bursting shell from
a French 75 mm. lifted a large four-wheeled country waggon bodily out of
a yard and planted it on the roof of a barn. The waggon was not injured.
A bursting shell is the very incarnation of violence. Lord Fisher said
that “The Essence of War is Violence. Moderation in War is Imbecility.
Hit first. Hit hard. Hit everywhere.” The big shells to-day do all this.
The fumes emitted by bursting charges of lyddite, melinite, or turpinite
must not be confused with the poison gases sent out over our men by the
Germans. The lyddite and melinite are put in the shells for a definite
object which is permitted by the Hague Convention, and by the opinion of
mankind generally. Their object is to burst the shell at the desired
time and distance, and plaster the enemy with the iron or shrapnel. They
are not intended to kill, and do not kill by poisonous fumes. The German
poison gas is intended to kill, and does produce intolerable agony and
lingering deaths, and for this the German stands accused before High
Heaven.
NEURASTHENIA OR “NERVES.”
Many officers and some men have been sent back from the front in France
and Flanders suffering from Nerves. These men are not “nervous” as the
public generally understand that term. They are brave and courageous men
who are anxious to do their duty. They are, moreover, men who have done
their duty in the face of a determined foe, have endured great hardships
and discomforts in the trenches and batteries, and have faced death in
all the many hellish shapes that it assumes to-day. I said “many officers
and some men” have been so afflicted, and it is true that the officer
is much more prone to get “nerves” than is the simple soldier. The life
of the officer is one of responsibility and worry, but the soldier’s
mental lot is simpler—he just does what he is told and has “not to reason
why.” The education and upbringing of the officer are different, as a
rule, from that of the soldier, and heredity has an influence on a man’s
nervous organisation. In civil life anyone can call to mind certain boys
and girls who are more “nervous” than others. I do not mean more afraid
of danger or more effeminate, but more likely to be exalted or depressed
by certain circumstances than their more stolid neighbours. What is true
of homes and of schools is equally true of nations. Unreal though it
sounds, there is no doubt that the Germans are more emotional than the
French, and German leaders know full well the emotional side of their
people. The German is easily exalted and can be easily depressed. The
Frenchman can be made furiously angry when he is affronted or insulted,
but he is not easily depressed, and he is too cautious to be easily
exalted. The German soldier and people must be strengthened and mentally
sustained by stories of German victories and prowess, but the Frenchman,
like the Englishman, is most formidable when he knows the worst there is
to know and is “up against things.”
It may be that our officers who develop neurasthenia at the front are
more emotional and imaginative than those who do not, but they are no
less courageous. An officer was sent to England for neurasthenia, and
felt ashamed to tell his friends that he was sent back as his “nerve
was gone.” He was not in the list of wounded, yet his brain and nervous
system had received a wound as much as the man with a bullet-hole through
his shoulder, and the treatment for these “mental wounds” is like that
for most other wounds, “time and rest,” but the mental wound also
requires quietness. The officer with the mental wound, the nerve shock,
the neurasthenia, cannot be treated successfully in the general wards
of a noisy hospital. He must be put in quiet and peaceful surroundings
and live in an atmosphere free from noise, bustle, and commotion. His
treatment must also be directed by physicians who are authorities on this
subject. A successful general practitioner or a renowned obstetrician are
not likely to achieve brilliant results in treating neurasthenia.
Fortunately the medical profession has already arranged special provision
for these nerve cases, and the results, I am sure, will be eminently good.
At Bethune one able artillery officer was brought into the Clearing
Hospital suffering from neurasthenia. He had been through the retreat,
the fighting on the Marne and Aisne, and at La Bassée, and had done
splendid service with his battery, and had been promoted. When I saw
him he was walking up and down a room like a caged animal. I wished him
good morning, and he pulled up suddenly in his stride, gazed at me with
widely open eyes, and replied in a hesitating staccato voice, “G-g-good
m-m-morning, doctor.” He had never stuttered before. Then away he went
up and down again. I got him to sit down on a box and told him to light
his pipe and talk about himself. He filled his pipe with difficulty,
stuffing the tobacco into the bowl with trembling and agitated fingers.
He broke several wooden matches in trying to light them. He had lost the
fine, practised discrimination necessary to rub a match on the side of
the box, and he “jabbed” his match hard on it. I lit a match and gave it
to him, as I was interested to see how he would light the pipe. He let
that match fall. I lit another, and with this he burned his finger. I
then held a lighted match over his pipe, and in a jerky way he managed
to light the tobacco; but he could not smoke properly, and the pipe soon
went out. In the same jerky way he told me that he was forty-four years
of age and had never been ill before. He was a good rifle shot, and had
killed big game in India. He was a fair billiard player, and had been
a temperate man all his life in all things. Talking in his spasmodic
fashion, he had to stop for a word, and he then waved his hand about and
frowned, as if angry with himself for having forgotten it. Up till a week
ago he had been in perfect health, although the “strain” of the war had
been tremendous; then one of his brother officers and a sergeant had been
killed close beside him, and his guns had to be moved to another position
under a heavy fire. He could not sleep that night, and the firing of the
guns, which previously had not troubled him in the least, now worried
him. Next day he could not eat. In a few days he was a physical and
mental wreck. He was sent to England, and I heard that he had made a
complete recovery.
One officer developed neurasthenia on the Aisne. His regiment had done
brilliantly, but had suffered severe losses. The officer said that he was
going to blow his brains out, so he was invalided into the hands of the
doctors and later made a good recovery. He was suffering from the effects
of strain and mental shock.
Another officer on the staff was standing close by his chief when a
shell fell near, killing his chief outright. The staff officer had to be
sent home for neurasthenia.
Our wounded often show signs of neurasthenia. I well remember at the
hospital at Bethune one man who had had to have his arm off at the
shoulder joint for a bad shrapnel wound. He was dangerously ill and
semi-conscious for several days. When he had fully roused to his
surroundings and the knowledge of his weakness he was like a little
child, crying and begging me to get him away from the sound of the
firing. He said that he would be happy if only he could get away to
some place where he would not hear the sound of the guns. On the day
the German aeroplane dropped a bomb near the hospital the windows of
the building shook and rattled with the concussion, and this poor
devil screamed aloud with terror and tried to get out of bed and crawl
away—anywhere from the sound of the firing.
The French nursing sisters told me that the wounded Frenchmen work
themselves into a terrible state of excitement in hospital when the
firing is very brisk. They beg and beg to be taken away to the south of
France, as far away as possible from the sound of conflict.
These were all brave men with injured nervous systems.
SMALL ARM AMMUNITION.
The Germans have charged the British, French, Russians, and Belgians with
using Dum-Dum bullets. The Austrians have made the same charge against
the Serbians and Montenegrins. The Triple Entente and its Allies have
accused the Germans and Austrians of firing Dum-Dum bullets—so there you
are.
The Dum-Dum bullet was first made at Dum-Dum, near Calcutta. It was
a Lee-Enfield bullet with an imperfect nickel sheath. This nickel or
cupro-nickel sheath in the Dum-Dum stops at the “shoulder” of the
bullet, and the point is therefore bare lead, a continuation of the
core of the bullet. Some modifications of the Dum-Dum exist. By rubbing
the point of a nickel-coated Lee-Enfield bullet on a rough stone the
cover is rubbed off, exposing the core of lead. A saw or file can make
incisions in the long axis of the bullet exposing the lead this way,
but leaving the tip covered with nickel. The destiny of a Dum-Dum is to
break up when it strikes a bone. If it strikes a bone at a high rate of
velocity it fragments and rips and tears the bone and surrounding soft
structures. It is supposed to have greater “stopping power” against an
infantry charge than an undeformed bullet. This supposition is incorrect.
Certainly a Dum-Dum in traversing a limb or the chest can cause terrible
and widespread destruction. In wounds inflicted by a Dum-Dum bits of
the lead core and casing are scattered in various directions. But,—and
this is important,—the same thing can be found in a wound inflicted by
an undeformed Lee-Metford, Lebel, or Mauser bullet. The only certain
proof of the employment of the Dum-Dums is to find them in the trenches
captured from the enemy, or in the cartridge belts of wounded or
prisoners. Again, a man may have a bullet wound with a small entrance
hole and a large, gaping, jagged exit. One unaccustomed to bullet wounds
would immediately say that such a wound was caused by an explosive
bullet. But it can be caused by the ordinary Lee-Metford, Lebel, and
Mauser bullets. I have seen these wounds frequently amongst Germans,
French, and British. The explanation is that the bullet on striking a
bone often carries along with it a fragment, large or small, and it
is this fragment of bone that tears out a passage to the exit wound.
The German bullet is easily extracted from the cartridge. It is almost
impossible to extract the Lee-Metford bullet without strong instruments.
The Germans have made use of this fact to extract the bullet from the
cartridge and put it back “upside down,” that is, with the nickel point
inside the metal cartridge case, and the base with its exposed lead
core outwards. Such a bullet on striking a bone expands and fragments,
and causes great damage. I am not repeating a rumour when I make this
statement. I have seen these cartridges with the inverted bullets in the
belts of German prisoners captured in the trenches. Other surgeons have
seen them also. The French say that it is a common practice amongst the
Germans, and so did our men at Ypres. One German prisoner on the Yser
when confronted with these bullets taken from his own belt, admitted
having used them. He said that his company officer told him that they
were useful to break down barbed-wire entanglements!
There is one interesting point about the German bullet, and that is its
property of spinning on its short axis when it strikes an object. The
centre of gravity of the German bullet is low down on its base, owing
to its long and tapering shoulder. It therefore turns over on reaching
its object. I had on the Aisne one man of the Norfolk Regiment admitted
with a tiny entrance wound between the great and second toes of the foot.
The bullet was found lodged in the large heel bone, and its base was
facing towards the entrance wound. It could not have entered the foot
in that position, because the entrance wound was too small. A bullet
spinning round when traversing a limb can cause considerably more damage
than one that pursues a direct course, and this fact is important in
brain injuries. The bullet penetrates the skull by a small punctured
opening, and then whirls round and round inside the brain. It may then
again strike the bone on the other side with its long axis and cause
considerable shattering and bleeding. This spinning action of the Mauser
was a thing that every surgeon had to remember when treating his wounded.
The Hague Convention of 1907 prohibits “the use of projectiles calculated
to cause unnecessary suffering.” The Hague Declarations of 1899 decide
to “abstain from the use of bullets which expand or flatten easily in
the human body,” such as bullets with a hard envelope which does not
entirely cover the core or is pierced with incisions. The St. Petersburg
Declaration of 1868 agrees to abolish the use of “any projectile of
a weight below 400 grams which is either explosive or charged with
fulminating or inflammable substances.”
The _British Medical Journal_ of 21st November 1914 reports as follows on
the subject of small arm ammunition:
The British service ammunition is known technically as Mark VII. ·303
S.A. Ammunition. The length of the bullet is 1·28 inches; weight, 174
grains; muzzle velocity, 2440 feet per second. The bullet is a pointed
one with an envelope of cupro-nickel which completely covers the core
except at the base. The ordinary German service ammunition is very
similar. Length of bullet, 1·105 inches; weight, 154 grains; muzzle
velocity, 2970 feet per second. This bullet is pointed, with a steel
envelope coated with cupro-nickel covering the cone except at the base.
Both bullets carry out the provisions of the Hague Convention.
There is clear evidence that Germany has not confined herself solely to
this unobjectionable ammunition. Her troops, both in Togoland and in
France, have been proved to have used bullets with a soft core and hard,
thin envelope not entirely covering the core, which type of bullet is
expanding and therefore expressly prohibited by the Hague Convention.
Such bullets, of no less than three types, were found on the bodies
of dead native soldiers serving with the German armed forces against
British troops in Togoland in August, and on the persons of German,
European, and native armed troops captured by us in that colony. All the
British wounded treated in the British hospitals during the operations
in Togoland were wounded by soft-nosed bullets of large calibre, and the
injuries which these projectiles inflicted, in marked contrast to those
treated by the British medical staff amongst the German wounded, were
extremely severe, bones being shattered and the tissue so extensively
damaged that amputation had to be performed. The use of these bullets was
the subject of a written protest by the general officer commanding the
British troops in Nigeria to the German acting governor of Togoland.
Again at Gundelu, in France, on 19th September 1914, soft-nosed bullets
were found on the dead bodies of German soldiers of the Landwehr, and
on the persons of soldiers of the Landwehr made prisoners of war by the
British troops. One of these bullets has reached the War Office. It is
undoubtedly expanding and directly prohibited by the Hague Convention.
I am sure that Germany will be terribly upset at this, for Germany, we
know, pays great respect to the articles of the Hague Convention!
CHAPTER XVII.
WE LEAVE BETHUNE.
One afternoon a German aeroplane dropped a bomb at the hospital gate, and
a second one on a house near the gate. They burst with a terrific crash,
shook the building and rattled the glass and startled us all. The same
voyaging Taube dropped another bomb in the square of the city, and an
old woman, a man, and a baby were struck. The old lady had to have her
leg amputated and died on the succeeding day; the man received a shell
wound in the back of the head and he died a few days afterwards; the
baby was injured in the stomach and also died next day. One of our Army
Service Corps men was struck by a piece of shell on the leg and received
a serious wound. A corporal of the Army Service ran upstairs to me in
the ward where I was busy dressing some cases and excitedly told me that
his back was broken and that he thought he would soon be paralysed. We
undressed him and found that a small piece of shell had made a slight
wound on the muscles of the back, but that he was otherwise all right.
He was reassured about the paralysis and the broken back. Two days
afterwards another German aeroplane—or it may have been the same beast
that had visited us before—flew over the city and dropped some more
bombs, killing some unfortunate people and injuring others.
On the following morning at three o’clock I was in one of the wards
admitting some wounded men just in from the trenches, when the
unmistakable burst of a Black Maria was heard close at hand. The shell
had burst not far from the hospital, and was followed by two more, one
near the railway station, and one near the college not far away. The
Germans had the range perfectly, and we expected a big bombardment. The
authorities decided that Bethune was no longer a safe place for our
Clearing Hospitals, and we were ordered to prepare for the evacuation
of our wounded as soon as possible. This was soon done, and all were
conveyed by ambulance motors to the hospital trains, with the exception
of seven men. These men were all dying from severe injuries to the brain,
and no good would be served by sending them down to the Base. So the
seven poor fellows were put in beds alongside each other in one ward, and
in three days they were dead, and buried in the now well-filled cemetery
at Bethune.
The two Clearing Hospitals in the city—British and Indian—were sent to
Chocques, near Lillers.
It was with a little heartache that I left Bethune and its good sisters.
We had passed through days and nights of racking work and worry, and we
had the satisfaction of feeling that we had all done our best. It is
mournful to leave a place associated with many stirring episodes and
with many warm friendships, for in times like those at Bethune firm
friendships were quickly made. In saying good-bye one seems to leave them
behind for ever—and that is always sad.
The nuns at this hospital were simply splendid all through, and I can
quite understand how the religious sisters have come to their own again
in France.
From the earliest times and up till about eight years ago all the nursing
in the French hospitals was done by sisters belonging to the various
religious orders. Then came one of the big political upheavals for which
France has been so noted in the past, and the nursing sisters gradually
disappeared from the hospitals owing to the hostility of the State to the
Church and all connected with it. The nursing sisters of these orders
were at the time of this change well-trained medical and surgical nurses.
As they were no longer able to exercise their professional skill, and no
more of the younger nuns were trained in nursing, it followed that on the
outbreak of war only the older nuns were capable of undertaking skilled
nursing in the many hospitals. The demand for nurses was a clamant one,
for from the very beginning of the war there were large casualties. It
was said that the nursing by the lay sisters who succeeded the religious
sisters was not of such a high order as in the old days owing to the
absence of the strict and rigid discipline, the very fibre of the life
of a sister in religion. I have heard this both from French surgeons and
from visiting British surgeons.
When the war broke out France was as ill prepared in her military
medical branch as we were, and she was suddenly confronted with the
problem of handling and treating many thousands of wounded.
M. Clemenceau, an ex-Premier of France and a Doctor of Medicine, is also
the editor of _L’Homme Enchaîné_. At the outbreak of war this journal
was known as _L’Homme Libre_, and Clemenceau so violently attacked the
medical disorganisation and lack of preparation that the paper was
promptly suppressed. It, however, emerged next day under its new title,
_The Man in Chains_, and under this title appears daily in Paris.
Clemenceau’s efforts, however, were continued, and France soon had
everything in good going order. It was at this critical phase that the
Franciscan sisters, and the sisters of other religious orders, quietly
took their places beside the wounded French soldiers. Just as quietly
they opened up their convents, churches, and buildings, warehouses,
châteaux, cottages, railway waiting-rooms, and turned them into hospitals
for the wounded and sick men. Working tirelessly night and day, knowing
no fatigue and shrinking from no task or danger, and glorying in their
mission, they performed marvels. The younger sisters were put to
subordinate nursing duties, and so rigorously trained by the elder ones
in the principles of nursing.
These juniors are now very competent nurses, for they learn quickly
amongst the ample material that war provides. The wounded French soldier
loves and idolises the nursing sister. He demands her presence, and
makes her his confidante. The nun is supremely happy to be back in her
old place, and pets and humours the wounded soldier, soothes his ardent
soul, and, by her skill, heals his wounds.
I do not think that any future government of France will ever dare to
oust the religious sisters from the hospitals. These quiet-voiced,
simple-robed women, carrying help and compassionate pity in the welter of
blood and slaughter, have come “to their own” again.
When writing of the religious orders one naturally thinks of the priests
of France, and one of the many interesting and instructive evolutions
taking place during this war is that of the changing relation of the
people and State towards the Catholic Church.
One has only to be a little time with the French troops in the field
to recognise and be impressed by their deep attachment to the Catholic
Church. I visited many churches in France and Belgium during the earlier
stages of the war, and at all hours, and have always found, sometimes
few, sometimes many, Belgian and French soldiers on their knees and
devoutly at prayer in the sacred buildings. Women, of course, were always
to be seen there, but that was not surprising. It was surprising to see
so many soldiers.
The French soldier takes his religion seriously in these days, and is
not ashamed, whenever the opportunity occurs, to enter a church and
pray. It was rare to see a khaki soldier praying in church; one often
saw them there on visits of curiosity gazing at the old windows and old
scroll-work of the churches. The British soldier will always attend a
church parade, and he will be most reverent during a service, and will
sing lustily and amen loudly; but a church parade is to him very often a
drill, and Tommy cheerfully attends a drill parade because it is his duty
to. In reading letters from British soldiers at the front and comparing
them with those of French soldiers one cannot help being struck by the
religious serious note pervading those of the latter, and its absence
in the former. It may be that we are less emotional than the French,
and as a nation are shy of writing of our inner selves. It was my duty
once to censor the letters written by wounded men in a Clearing Hospital
at the front. The letters were distinctly humorous at times; only two
discussed matters of faith. In one a soldier was writing to his mother,
and he said, “I pray every day as I promised you to. I pray standing up,
and always time my prayer for three o’clock in the afternoon, for that
is the time when the fellows over the way let off most of their big guns
and rifles at us.” This man was either a wag and teasing his mother,
or he really believed in the efficacy of surrounding himself with an
atmosphere of prayer when the enemy fire was hottest. The other fervent
letter was from a soldier who had received a slight shell wound of the
scalp. His was a letter written to a clergyman near London. This warrior
informed the clergyman that he prayed silently amongst his comrades, and
daily read a passage out of his Testament. The letter ended up by asking
the clergyman to send him some Woodbine cigarettes, as he, the writer,
hadn’t had a smoke for a fortnight and saw no chance of getting one. I
showed this letter to our field chaplain, who visited this Christian
soldier in the ward. The chaplain told me afterwards that the man was
absolutely destitute of any religious beliefs, and had never read a
Testament in his life; and furthermore—that he had three packets of
Woodbine cigarettes, and had also smoked a considerable number during the
past fortnight.
French officers have told me that before the war it was considered bad
form for a military officer to attend Mass, and that an officer who
attended Mass regularly need not expect promotion in the Army. Attending
Mass is not considered bad form to-day, and soldiers of all grades from
general to grenadier attend the services in the field. Was the religious
trait there all the time, and only held back by the conventional
strictness, or has the seriousness of the war compelled a little
self-analysis and a return to the faith of their fathers? My impression
is that the priests and the nursing sisters of the religious orders
have helped to stir up this present state amongst a people who have
always been, deep down, much attached to their Church and its religious
observances. Even the Reign of Terror could not stamp out the influence
of the Church in France, although it turned churches into meat marts and
blacksmiths’ forges, and plastered their walls with “Liberté, Egalité,
Fraternité.” The French priest has no official status in the State. He is
simply a citizen, and is liable, like all other citizens, to be mobilised
for military duty. Over 20,000 French priests and brothers of various
orders are serving with the French colours in this war. I have spoken to
French priests about this law that compels them to serve as soldiers.
They do not cavil at it, and, in fact, prefer to act the patriot’s part,
for the priest is every bit a good Frenchman. Be the priest a simple
soldier in the trenches, with battery, commissariat, ammunition, or
brancardiers, he is nevertheless still a priest, and is at all times
ready and eager to exercise his priestly duties. He has proved himself
time and time again to be a cool, intrepid, and reliable soldier, and he
has also proved himself in the hour of trial a comfort and spiritual help
to those about to die. One has heard of hundreds of instances in this
war when the priest, serving as soldier in the ranks, has conducted Mass
in some broken-down cottage or barn in the firing zone, buried his dead
comrades with the rites of the Church, and carried out the last offices
to the dying. One of the ablest of the French artillery officers, now in
charge of a battery, is a priest, and in times of peace is a well-known
Abbé and writer on theology. Another learned Abbé and a great preacher
was mobilised in July, and was badly wounded at Charleroi. When lying
stricken on the ground he heard a mortally wounded soldier calling him.
The Abbé painfully crawled to the dying soldier and administered the last
office, and while doing so was again wounded. He was later on conveyed by
hospital train to Paris. President Poincaré had heard the story, and met
the train on its arrival in Paris. He went into the carriage where lay
the badly wounded and apparently dying Abbé, and decorated him with the
Legion d’Honneur. I am glad to say that the Abbé, although now a cripple,
recovered from his wounds.
The Aumonier to the French Hospital at Bethune was a very fine priest. He
was not mobilised as a soldier owing to defective vision, but he acted as
priest and as a stretcher-bearer to the hospital. His lifelong friend,
another priest and lecturer on Natural History at the College at Bethune,
was fighting as a private in the Argonne. One day the Abbé told me that
he had received a letter from his friend describing his life in the
trenches, saying, “I live the life of a rabbit. I live in a hole in the
ground. At night I come out to feed.”
A few days after this the Abbé heard that his friend was killed—shot dead
through the head. When the Abbé told me of this I murmured the usual,
“Hard luck.”
“No,” said the Abbé, becoming very serious. “It is not what you call the
Hard Luck. It is the good luck. It is how a good priest would wish to
die.”
It has been asked many times during this war, “What is Christianity
doing after the past 1900 years?” and many have answered, “Crucified men
and women. Mutilated prisoners of war. Outraged women and slaughtered
children. Cities and towns in ashes. Misery, tears, and the moaning of
millions.” If this is the indictment, it is not against Christianity, but
against one people only, that of Lutheran Germany. But these hellish
deeds of “Christian” Germany have but served to bring more clearly and
brightly into view the Christian spirit of other peoples’ brotherliness,
help for the distressed, and that
“Kindness in another’s trouble,
Courage in your own.”
The Belgian and French soldiers fighting at first to defend their homes,
their women, and their children and old men, and fighting now for
vengeance to punish the bloody invaders, are examples of a good, healthy
Christianity.
The open, warm welcome of France and England to the Belgian refugees,
the colossal funds for the alleviation of distress, and helping of the
wounded and the sick, show that the “greatest of these,” Charity, is not
yet dead on the earth.
Our definition of “Christianity” depends upon the point of view. To me
the Turco and the Gurkha are very good Christians and the German nation
is infidel. Every General Order issued by the Kaiser ends not with an
appeal to the Almighty, but with an affirmation that God is fighting for
the German cause.
The Saxons and Bavarians will sack a town and inflict nameless horrors
on helpless civilians, shoot old men for sport, kill children, torture
women, commit sacrilege in the churches, smash altars and relics, destroy
historic and beautiful windows and treasures of art, bayonet priests,
violate shrieking nuns, and with hands smeared in blood they will at the
word of command praise their German God.
CHAPTER XVIII.
OVER THE BELGIAN FRONTIER.
Our Clearing Hospital remained at Chocques for four or five days, and
while here had a fair, but not a large, number of wounded. These were
quickly sent off by hospital trains, which pulled on to a siding not far
from us. The Indian Clearing Hospital was now also establishing itself
in the small town, and the Indian hospital assistants were a source of
great and wondering curiosity to the small boys and girls. Our Clearing
Hospital was now ordered to a place farther north, and as I had only
been temporarily attached to it during a time of great rush at Bethune,
my place was now with my own Field Ambulance at the front, and somewhere
near the Belgian frontier.
A motor-car going to Hazebrouck gave me a lift as far as there, and
another driver brought me to Bailleul. Here, after I had reported my
arrival, Surgeon-General Porter informed me of the exact location of my
ambulance.
Bailleul is a town of considerable importance in the north of France, and
has been the object of many visits from Taubes, a sure indication that
there must be a church or a hospital in Bailleul. The church and the
hospital were very close together, and the Taubes made many a gallant
attempt to get them both. One evening one of them got the hospital—a bomb
fell fair on the roof and into a ward full of wounded men, killing two
and wounding again a man already grievously wounded. The old church has
so far escaped. The square at Bailleul near the church was a busy place
in those days, as the town was a Divisional Headquarters and a corps
“poste commandement,” and where there are headquarters and “brass hats”
there also are many rank and file. It was here that, some weeks later, I
saw that fine battalion, the Liverpool Scottish, parade in the street and
march out to the trenches. They were standing on parade in the street for
about twenty minutes before moving off and the day was bitterly cold. The
bare knees of the men looked blue and the kilt did not impress us as a
good winter dress. Why Highlanders choose to expose their knees is quite
beyond me. The knee joint is a big and complex anatomical structure, and
is easily affected by sudden changes of temperature, so why cover up
every other joint in the body and leave this bare?
Greatly daring though the ladies are to-day in their draping
arrangements, they do not dare to walk about with bare knees. What
prevents them must certainly be their appreciation of the delicacy of
this joint—the delicate mechanism of an important articulation.
Twenty years hence, veterans of the Liverpool Scottish will tell their
children how they got rheumatism in their knee joints from the cold mud
of the Flanders trenches in the year of our Lord 1914.
I left Bailleul on a Red-Cross Wolseley car driven by a queer character
who used to be with us on the Aisne doing transport work. He was thought
to have been killed and duly buried, and I was therefore agreeably
surprised to see my odd friend again. He was a wonderfully cheery
pessimist. He usually had a long budget of most depressing news, of
disasters by flood and field, and great disappointments, but he envisaged
them all with a rosy hue and predicted a great to-morrow. He did not
like the war, for although it had not changed his occupation—that of a
chauffeur—it had seriously affected his emoluments. In the piping times
of peace he would take small parties on touring journeys in France,
Germany, and Switzerland—sometimes a honeymoon couple, sometimes an
American millionaire, and he did exceedingly well in tips.
We had a rough passage up from Bailleul and were twice bogged in the mud
beside the road, and had twice to be hauled out. The roads here, and
right over the frontier into southern Belgium, were very bad in these
days. Our men, when on the Aisne, said many hard words about the mud
there, but the Aisne was an asphalt path compared with Belgium.
However, we slowly squelched and skidded our way over the Belgian
frontier and reached Ouderdom, not very far from Ypres. For the last few
miles we had been following Napoleon’s maxim to his Marshals: “Marching
on the sound of the guns.” The heavy artillery, French, British, and
German, was making a deafening roar.
This really completed the journey from the Aisne to Flanders. We were at
our “farthest north,” and this journey impressed one with the length of
the huge battle-line, although it only embraced, after all, a part of
the great whole. From Switzerland to the Channel stretched a wavy line
of trenches, across plains, spanning canals, through and around swamps,
in front of great cities and small villages, traversing great forests
and over mountain passes and peaks. At one end submerged country flooded
by Alpine snow, sand dunes at the other; and in these trenches lined
with soldiers, and swept by artillery, stern fighting was going on over
practically every mile.
Our ambulance headquarters was about the most God-forsaken place that one
could possibly imagine. The first impression one received was a dirty
pond, full of fetid water and surrounded by heaped-up straw manure. The
Belgian, like the Frenchman, loves to have a manure heap at his front
door. Closely abutting on this putrefactive manure was the cottage
itself, with one front room, a small side-room or box off this front
room, a kitchen, a bedroom, and another box at the back. From the kitchen
a rickety stair led up to a windy loft full of corn and hops and bags of
potatoes.
Next the living quarters and part of the house came stalls for cattle,
and the _tout ensemble_ was unlovely and smelly. Twelve medical officers,
two chaplains, and a quartermaster lived in the tiny little front room,
or crowded round a table in it. When the table was in the room there
was barely space to pass between it and the wall. Six or seven officers
slept on the floor of this den at night, and in the morning had to rise
early, roll up their valises and pack them round the wall. The O.C. and a
chaplain slept in the box off our only room, and the rest of us slept in
the loft amidst the wheat and hops and the bitter cold draughts.
Our cooks lived, smoked, worked, and slept in the kitchen, and this
apartment Madame invaded during the day to do her domestic cooking.
Madame “with the terrible voice” gave our cooks a bad time, and
frequently chased them out and took their pots and pans off the fire,
utterly disorganising our meals.
Madame was not popular, and in my dreams I sometimes still hear her
raucous voice.
The Flemish farmer, the proud owner of this very dirty and uninviting
farm, had a family of three little children, and was besides the humble
husband of the lady whose voice was more terrifying than the screech of
bursting shrapnel.
Poor Madame, she did not look kindly on us, and we never even saw her
smile—except once, and that story comes later.
At 4 a.m. her strident, penetrating tones would fill the cottage and wake
us all to a world of cold and discomfort, of greasy bacon, muddy tea, and
sodden mousy bread.
She was watchful and suspicious of our men, who slept with the poultry
in the surrounding stables and out-houses, and openly accused them of
stealing her straw.
What they could do with the straw after having stolen it Madame did not
choose to say—perhaps she thought that they ate it!
We met many Flemish besides Madame and her family at this time, and
although we sympathised greatly with them, we could not bring ourselves
to like them. It was all so different with the French, whom we liked and
who liked us. The Flemings did not seem to care for us; they certainly
never made us any demonstrations of affection. Perhaps it was the
difference in tongue. They spoke French with an Irish-Dutch brogue, and
our accent was, of course, a pure Anglo-Parisian.
French officers told us here that they did not like the Flemings, and
that the Flemings were not cordial with them. Belgian officers, it is
well known, do not see eye to eye with the French officers, but pull
amazingly well with the British, to whom they are warm and communicative.
Tommy Atkins as a rule likes every one, but he neither understood nor
cared for the Flemings. This was quite noticeable. We found those round
Ouderdom, Ypres, and Dickebusch sullen, dour, and suspicious. We were not
welcomed, and their surly, heavy manner towards us was very apparent.
There was no responsiveness, no _gaieté de cœur_, no cheerfulness.
Historical traditions and the likes and hates of centuries die hard. The
Flemings and the English had often been friends in the past, but the
French and Flemings had always been on opposite sides of the fence, and
whenever the French came into the Flemish garden it was to fight, and not
to play.
We wondered if Madame of our cottage knew her Belgian history. We were
quite sure that she would have been more amiable and sweet had she known
that Flanders had been England’s ally in the Hundred Years’ War, and that
the bowmen of Mons were more than once ranged on England’s side; that
Baldwin II., Count of Flanders, a former ruler of the land where stood
Madame’s farm, was a son-in-law of Alfred the Great of England, and that
Baldwin V., also a Count of Flanders, was father-in-law to William the
Conqueror, and fitted out Flemish ships to convey Flemish men to Pevensey
to kill Harold’s Anglo-Saxons.
The Flemings have long memories about the French, and never forget the
“Battle of the Spurs” or the “Battle of Roosebeke,” for in these two
epoch-making battles the French were the enemy.
The manifesto issued by the King of the Belgians to his people at the
beginning of the war in August cited the Battle of the Spurs fought
at Courtrai. At this famous encounter, a band of Flemish artisans
and citizens, armed with billhooks, axes, and scythes, attacked with
the maddest fury a disciplined French army of steel-clad knights and
men-at-arms and utterly defeated it. This battle reference was hardly
quite happy when Joffre was hurrying his Army Corps over the frontier to
Namur.
At Roosebeke, in 1382, the French met another citizen army under
Philip van Artevelde, and slew him and twenty-five thousand men. It is
said that Flemish fathers and mothers handed down this bitter tale to
their children for three centuries, and in later years told of Cassel,
Ramillies, Oudenarde, Malplaquet, Jemappes, and Waterloo—all glaring
instances of French turbulence on peaceful Flanders land. So the Flemings
were distrustful always of the Gallic cock, and had apparently forgotten
about their connection with our Alfred the Great and our William of
Normandy.
During our occupation of this mean farmhouse, situated behind its Flemish
manure heap, the weather was bitingly cold. The rain of the first week
was succeeded by a heavy snow and frost, and as we had no fire of any
sort and were not able to take much physical exercise, we were all day
and night chilled to our very marrow.
November 1914 in Flanders will be remembered by many thousands of
Englishmen as a month of intense and bitter cold, when to the dangers and
ever-present death of the trenches were added the miseries and tortures
of frostbitten feet and legs, and a merciless cutting wind. This was the
period when men, stiffened and paralysed with cold, had to be pulled
out of the trenches and dragged or carried to the rear to bring back
a slowing circulation to the affected limbs. This was also the period
when men could not be spared from the firing line, when the Germans were
making those formidable rushes in strong columns, and leaving thousands
of dead to mark the place where the rush had been stayed and the column
crumpled up.
The little town of Dickebusch was on the road to our left, and through
it ran a highway to Ypres. Where the road turned to the right into Ypres
was an advanced station of a Field Ambulance, and, as one of the medical
officers of it was known to me, I walked along this highway one morning
in order to hear the latest news. He was always a very safe man to call
upon for news, for what he did not know authentically, he would invent.
The road to this advanced station lay behind several batteries of French
“seventy-fives,” the pride and glory of the French gunner. The road
was quite close to these guns, but they were so wonderfully concealed
with straw and branches of trees that an ordinary traveller would have
passed them by until their presence was indicated by their mighty roar.
The gunners were hard at it this morning, pouring an unending string of
bursting shells on the German positions, and the din was terrible.
Suddenly the Germans got the range of the road. One shell burst far in
front of me on the road, and one far behind about the same moment, and a
bolt for cover was the immediate sequence. I got into a dug-out behind
some French guns and then witnessed a wonderful display of artillery
practice. Shell after shell fell with marvellous precision up and down
the road, and one followed the other with a lightning speed. The road
was excavated with volcanic craters, of flying stones and earth clouds,
and mighty showers of _débris_ were sprayed tumultuously on every
side. A French officer pointed out where the next shell would land; and
he was always right—he knew the “general idea” possessing the mind of
the German gunner, and correctly surmised that after the road had been
systematically covered, the firing would cease. It was a big waste of
ammunition, for nothing was damaged except the road, and the French
gunners, as soon as the firing was over, ran to their pet “seventy-fives”
and opened furiously back in order to show that their bark was as good as
ever. The French batteries at this particular place did enormous damage
to the Germans in their attacks south of Ypres, and as they are no longer
at this roadside but somewhere farther on, no valuable information is
being given away in relating the fact.
The French gunners, both at this critical phase of the war and on the
Aisne, were wonderful fellows. Night and day, in rain, hail, sleet,
or snow, their great guns never stopped. In the blackest night and in
howling gales of sleety wind they could be heard near by and in the far
distance, for ever pounding into the enemy. This policy of continuous
fire is wonderfully heartening to the French troops in the trenches,
and the moral effect is tremendous. On the Aisne the French guns were
always busy, but the British, alas, were generally silent. I have heard
men on the Aisne pathetically say, “Why don’t our guns fire?” “Why don’t
they reply to the German fire?” and the questioning was not confined to
soldiers, for it was a common topic of conversation amongst officers.
On the Aisne we did not have enough artillery, and we had not enough
ammunition for the artillery we did have. It was the same at this period
at Ypres. England, the greatest engineering country of the world, the
richest and most prosperous Empire of this or any other time, made a very
poor showing on the Continent. Small as our army was, it was not equipped
perfectly. Our army in France may have been the “best shooting army,” but
if so it was with the rifle. In artillery we were entirely outclassed
by the Germans and put to eternal shame by the French. On the Aisne the
Germans had big 8-inch howitzers and we had nothing to meet them. Against
the guns that had battered the forts of Maubeuge and crumpled up Namur
what had we to offer? Nothing. The Germans had an unlimited supply of
machine-guns on the Aisne and the Yser, and we had a paltry few. We were
short of ammunition, but the Germans and the French had plenty.
When we required high explosive shells to beat down entrenchments and
trenches we had nothing but shrapnel, which was absolutely useless for
this purpose. Because shrapnel was effective in the South African War and
high explosives unnecessary there, it was concluded that the same set of
circumstances would be repeated in France and Belgium.
In September 1914 I saw the four 6-inch howitzer batteries arrive on the
Aisne from England, and the news of their arrival spread like wildfire
amongst our men, who thought that at last “mighty England was sending
mighty guns.” They were mighty guns right enough, but there was not
enough ammunition sent with them. As a nation we always muddle through,
but it is rather pitiful to think that muddles mean the death of many
brave men, and that our woeful lack of big guns and ammunition has meant
many British graves in France and Flanders.
A ride through Ypres at this time was an interesting and exciting
affair—interesting from the historic associations of the old Flemish
capital, and exciting from the German “Black Marias” falling about. The
old Cloth Hall was then still standing—only one corner and a door had
been battered about, but Ypres itself was very mournful and desolate.
A bombarded town, empty of all its people and with ruins all round
where once was industry, wealth, and moving crowds, presents a very sad
spectacle. I suppose Ypres, stormy as her history has been in the past,
had never been so empty before. At one time 200,000 people were said
to have lived in Ypres. That was in the days of her splendour as the
ancient capital of Flanders, when the wonderful Cloth Hall was built by
the cloth-workers of the thirteenth century, in that turbulent epoch when
citizens and workpeople were fighting down and curbing the old feudal
tyranny—for it was in Belgium that the common people established the
first free city north of the Alps.
On the ride through this famous old city to our positions beyond, the
terrible evidences of the German bombardment surrounded one in monumental
impressiveness. Dead horses were lying in coagulated pools of blood in
every street. Whole rows of old, closely-built Spanish and Flemish houses
and shops were crumbled and shattered. The _pavé_ was ripped, torn, and
covered with window glass shattered into millions of fine fragments;
roofs had disappeared from some houses, and walls blown out of others.
Tumbled masonry, smoking ashes, and excavated, torn-up roadways—all bore
witness to the terrible character of the first German bombardment.
In one tobacconist’s shop in the square, just opposite the Cloth Hall,
the large plate-glass window had been completely destroyed, but the shop
stood otherwise uninjured and intact. One could easily have taken boxes
of cigars and pipes by simply putting a hand through the window-frame in
passing, but although the temptation was there, not one cigar was touched
by a British soldier. Imagine the genial Saxon or the crucifying Bavarian
letting such a chance slip!
I got off my horse and led it through the street, as it clearly did not
like passing the dead horses on the roadway. After having tied it to a
street-post in front of a fair-sized hotel or _estaminet_, I walked into
the front bar-parlour, which was open to the street. The evidences of a
hasty exit were ludicrously patent. A half-emptied glass of beer and a
full one stood close together on the bar counter, and near them lay a
good pipe full of tobacco which had not been lighted. On a small table
in a corner of the café was a tray with two large empty clean glasses;
on the same table stood a bottle of red wine, and close beside it a
corkscrew, holding the impaled extracted cork. One light chair near this
table lay overturned on the floor; the other had been hastily drawn back,
as was shown by the tracks on the sawdust floor. I thought of Pompeii
when old Vesuvius belched ashes and molten lava and buried the gay Roman
pleasure-city as it stood. The Pompeian wine-bibbers and “mine host”
could not escape from that engulfing darkness and the fiery cinders, and
perforce died nobly standing by their bottles. But in that drinking-room
at Ypres there was no dying the death beside the beer and the good red
wine. No Sherlock Holmes was necessary to reconstruct the picture—the two
cronies drinking their morning ale at the bar, and the two comfortable
Yprian burghers waiting for the filling of their glasses from the bottle
just uncorked, the burly “mine host” in white apron and with bottle in
hand—all suddenly electrified by a sinister whistling overhead, and
then the mighty explosion, the roar of falling masonry, the smashing of
hundreds of window-panes, the concussion of air; then another earthquake
smash, and then another, till the house and street were rocking with the
shocks. This was no time to light a pipe, to drink amber beer and ruddy
wine. It was time to get out of Ypres. So down went the forgotten pipe
and bottle, back went the chairs, and out streamed our terrified quintet
to the tormented street, leaving the room and its contents as I saw it.
On approaching the bridge on the far side of the town I saw the only
remaining inhabitant. This was a middle-aged woman with a grey shawl over
her head and shoulders, and she was looking out of a window of a partly
shattered house. I felt sorry for her, she looked so very lonely in that
broken house.
That afternoon she was arrested by the Belgians as a spy. My compassion
had been utterly thrown away.
Near this same bridge on another occasion my arrival was providential. An
Army Service Corps driver was speeding his motor towards the city when
he was struck by enemy shrapnel. He had just sufficient strength to stop
his lorry before fainting from the shock and the rush of blood from a
grievous wound of the right thigh. Blood was pumping out of the wound,
and it appeared as if the femoral artery had been torn. Fortunately it
was not, and we were soon able to control the hæmorrhage, put the wounded
man on his lorry, and drive him back to one of the ambulance stations in
a cottage near the roadside.
The road from Ypres to our trenches was a busy but pathetic highway—busy
with marching men, waggons, gallopers, generals, and staff officers, and
pathetic from the many graves and small graveyards near the roadside
and the many full ambulance waggons rumbling along on the uneven, jolty
_pavé_.
The road was frequently visited with enemy shells, and no one travelled
along it unless on business. “Trespassers will be prosecuted” was an
unnecessary injunction on the Ypres roads.
The headquarter staff of the 15th Brigade beyond Ypres had a narrow
escape one morning. A big shell burst in the grounds of the château
occupied by the Brigadier and his staff. The staff, who were in the
building at the time, went out to look at the hole it had made. Whilst
looking at the pit, another shell landed on the château itself and burst
into the room just vacated by them. A soldier servant was killed and one
staff officer was wounded.
An advanced ambulance station, with wounded men and medical officers in
it, was struck fairly by another shell and badly holed, causing loss of
life. No place was safe from these long bowls of the enemy, and though
artillery practice of this sort may not be of much military importance,
it yet produces an air of uncertainty and caution and jumpiness.
The country surrounding Ypres and Ypres itself were very dismal. The old
elm trees on the roads, and the silent, deserted streets were shrouded in
a ghostly veil of melancholy.
On a subsequent visit to the site of the old Cloth Hall one saw little
more than ruins, for the famous building had in the interval been
correctly ranged by the enemy guns and duly shattered. Later on more
destruction took place, and visitors of the year 2015 will be shown some
stones and broken pillars, all that was left of a famous hall which had
stood for seven centuries and had been destroyed “one hundred years ago.”
When peace comes again to Belgium, Ypres and its roads, its Hill 60 and
its graves will be a place of holy pilgrimage to thousands of English,
French, and Germans, for here fell and are buried their bravest dead.
But the curious tripper and the Cook’s tourist had better keep away from
Ypres. Let the friends of the dead and the quiet country folk have the
land in their possession for a season.
The railway station at Vlamertinge, near Ypres, frequently had a very
fine armoured train in its sidings. The train was manned by Jack Tars
with naval guns, and the engine and car looked very attractive in a
wonderful coat of futurist colours—splashes of green and khaki and brown.
This _H.M.S Chameleon_ was a very good cruiser and very nippy in moving
across country. The sailors were very cheerful and seemed to like their
ship amazingly.
On the roads near our headquarters running from Renninghelst to
Vlamertinge, and hence along the main highway to Ypres, a large number
of Belgian soldiers were at work repairing the _pavé_ and widening the
road surface by laying prepared trunks of trees laid closely together
in the mud at the sides. They were fine sturdy men and full of life and
cheerfulness, a different type altogether from the countryfolk we met in
the farms. These were the men who had fought from Liége to the Yser, and
were still on Belgian soil. They were very bitter about the Germans. They
said that they asked for no quarter and would give none in the fighting.
These Belgians on the roads were men who had been temporarily sent back
to “recuperate,” and while at this work they enjoyed good food, warm
quarters, and sleep. At eleven o’clock every morning a very fine motor
kitchen would pass along the road. Each man had his canteen ready, the
cook ladled out to him a good helping of mashed potatoes, boiled mutton,
and thick gravy, and another cook handed him a big chunk of white bread.
It was all done very expeditiously and in good order. After getting his
share each man would sit on his rolled-up overcoat on the roadside and
spoon the mutton and potatoes into his mouth with the bread. Knives and
forks and spoons, after all, are really only luxuries.
The roads were in a frightful state during these November weeks. The
narrow _pavé_ was full of ruts, deep and dangerous, and skirted on either
side by a slope of boggy quagmire churned up by the wheels of hundreds of
heavy motor transports, and beyond this again on either side was a deep
ditch.
Any skidding motor would land in the ditch, and the righting of these
embedded cars was at times a titanic task, productive of much loss of
temper and bad language.
The narrow _pavé_ would not permit of two vehicles crossing abreast, and
when two met, neither wished to surrender the “crown of the causeway.”
It was a point of honour not to budge and to wear down the other side by
abusive epithets. Uncle Toby used to say that our army swore horribly
in Flanders, but the swearing in Toby’s day was not a patch on the rich
vocabulary and full-blooded oaths of our London taxi-drivers in Flanders
in 1914.
The London taxi-driver, always eloquent, reached his highest flights when
addressing the quivering blancmange-like mud of a Belgian road.
I have seen old French non-commissioned officers who probably did not
know a single word of what was said on these occasions, but who envisaged
the situation perfectly, stand by with approving and admiring faces while
the driver was embracing in his comprehensive abuse all things living
and dead, the heavens above, the earth beneath, and the waters under the
earth.
At Ouderdom we met Alphonse, soldier of France. Two medical officers were
one morning sipping some red wine in an _estaminet_ in the village when
in swaggered a very small French soldier.
He had a boy’s face and figure and voice, but bore the assured manner of
a man of the world. He was small even for a French boy. A carbine was
swung across his back, and his belt carried a bayonet and cartridges. He
wore the French blue overcoat with the ends tucked up in the approved
style and with the buttons polished and bright. His little legs were
encased in the familiar red trousers tucked into heavy boots several
sizes too large for him, and his _képi_ was placed on his small, closely
cropped head at a jaunty angle. Such was Alphonse, the complete soldier
of France, full private in a famous Parisian rifle battalion.
Alphonse swaggered into the café, ordered his glass of red wine with the
_sang-froid_ and assurance of a veteran grenadier, and tossed it off as
easily as a Falstaff.
“How old are you, Alphonse?” “But fourteen years, mon officier.” “Have
you killed many Germans?” “But yes, perhaps thirteen, perhaps fifteen;
who can tell when one is fighting every day? But certainly I kill
many Bosches.” “And with what did you kill them, Alphonse?” “Avec mon
carabine”—this with a smack of his hand on the barrel of the gun. A smart
soldierly salute, and our gallant killer of thirteen, perhaps fifteen,
peaceful, amiable German soldiers strode out of the café.
A corporal of Alphonse’s regiment told us that at the beginning of the
war Alphonse was a young devil of a gamin in Paris. In his leisure
moments he sold newspapers in the streets, and in his working hours he
was up to some devilry.
When this regiment marched out of Paris towards the frontier Alphonse
marched alongside it, a bright-eyed, hopeful, cheerful youth clad in
ragged clothes and down-at-heel boots. He was told to go home, but said
that he had no home and was going instead to kill Germans. So in the good
French way the regiment adopted Alphonse, gave him a uniform and a gun,
and a new pair of boots, and took him on the strength.
The little gamin turned out a very cunning soldier. He was a dead shot,
and the corporal assured us that he had accounted for a good many of the
enemy. At night Alphonse would crawl out of the trenches and scout well
into the enemy lines. Frequently he brought back valuable information of
preparations for a German surprise attack. He was so small and so cute
that he escaped observation.
In December Alphonse was presented to President Poincaré on one of
his many visits to the French front, and the President promised him
a commission and the Legion d’Honneur when he should reach the age
of twenty-one years. I have grave fears for the gallant, snub-nosed,
blue-eyed Alphonse, young in years but old in sin. He is already too
fond of the rich red wine of France, and scouting at night inside the
enemy lines is a duty full of peril. But Alphonse can teach a lesson
in patriotism that many a flower-socked, straw-hatted knut on a London
promenade would do well to learn.
The Flemings are very devout Catholics, perhaps the most Catholic
of all peoples to-day; so our ambulance was given the hall-mark of
respectability because we had with it a Monsignor. The presence of a
Catholic prelate with our ambulance, distinguished it in a notable degree
from all other ambulances, and we tried to live up to our presumed
reputation.
Whenever Monsignor appeared on the roads near Ouderdom the Belgian
soldiers would immediately stop work and, carrying their pickaxes and
shovels, crowd round him for a talk and the latest news. Monsignor was
a good linguist and a cheerful optimist, and never handed on any bad
news to the soldiers. One morning he was asked for news, and appealed
to me what to say. We told them that the Russians had another victory,
and that the German dead could be counted by thousands. This was very
palatable and thoroughly appreciated. We were not asked to give any
details of the victory, which was perhaps fortunate.
Monsignor would sometimes walk along this road with his hands behind
his back and with two or three cigarettes sticking out prominently from
between his fingers. The Belgian soldiers would then stalk after him,
with broad grins on their faces, and pull away a cigarette. Monsignor
never looked behind. That would not be playing the game at all, but his
eyes would twinkle, and I have no doubt whatever that he hugely enjoyed
the fun.
There were days when Monsignor had a wardrobe consisting of but one
shirt and one pair of trousers—the other articles of apparel had all
been given away. Then he would begin again to collect mufflers and socks
when supplies came in, and hand them out almost immediately to some poor
devils who had nothing. If our chaplain appeared any day to be more
cheerful than usual, one could make quite sure that he had just given
away his boots or his shirt or his towel to some poor French, Belgian, or
British Tommy. The only thing he kept a tight hold on was his toothbrush.
One day Monsignor appeared with a cardboard box in his hand and told us
that he was going to Renninghelst, a small town about two miles from
our headquarters. Lieutenant X—— and myself asked leave to accompany
him. We had to ask permission, for Monsignor was a senior chaplain and
a lieutenant-colonel in rank, although he never said anything about
that. We discovered it accidentally. Being a colonel interested him only
in a vague impersonal sort of way. He told us once that a soldier is
diffident and shy before a colonel, but is natural and communicative to
his minister or priest who is not flagged and starred.
[Illustration: MONSIGNOR DISTRIBUTING MEDALS TO BELGIAN SOLDIERS AT THE
ROADSIDE.]
On this lovely winter morning, when the whole countryside was white with
frozen snow, we had a sharp bracing walk to the curious old town, then
the headquarters of General B—— and his staff of a French Division.
The village streets were packed full of French and Belgian soldiery,
from Spahis to Alpine Chasseurs. We worked our way round the carts and
through the jostling men to a little shop opposite the church. Monsignor
was hailed joyfully by many of his old friends, who on this particular
morning were not working on the roads.
The mystery of the cardboard box was then unravelled, for after cutting
the string and throwing away the cover we saw that it was full of
small religious medals and scapularies. There was a big rush for the
medals, and we were all squeezed up together by the pressing soldiers,
hundreds of whom were holding their grimy paws out for the metal discs.
As Monsignor was hard at work I took a hand also and helped in the
distribution. At last all were gone. Hundreds more men had come up with
hands out, but had to leave unsatisfied. I asked Monsignor if the medals
lost any virtue by having been handed out by me, a Protestant. He assured
me that it was all right, as the Belgians and French must have thought I
was a good Catholic.
Every Field Ambulance has two chaplains attached to it. Ours had a Church
of England one and a Roman Catholic. Another ambulance would have perhaps
a Wesleyan and a Catholic, or a Presbyterian and an Anglican. These
chaplains were not designed for the spiritual needs of the ambulance
men, but as each ambulance kept in touch with a brigade consisting of
four battalions, the chaplain could also, by being with the ambulance
headquarters, keep in touch with the brigade, and could also meet the
wounded brought in from that brigade, administer the rites of the Church
to those requiring it, and bury the dead. The chaplains did not restrict
themselves to the men of their own faith, but helped and worked all
they knew for all. After all, an ambulance station full of wounded men
is not the place for religious exercises, and a wise chaplain helped in
making the men as comfortable as possible, bringing round soup, taking
off boots, distributing cigarettes and tobacco, writing letters and
“gossiping”—the wounded like some one to talk to them and to talk to,
and the chaplains could make a “cheery atmosphere” even in such a gloomy
place as a barn full of recently wounded men. Most of the chaplains had a
good sense of proportion. Some had not. One bleak, miserable day, I saw
a well-meaning but mournful chaplain go up to a lorry full of wounded
men packed close together on the straw, uncomfortable and shivering and
miserable. He handed to each of them a small religious tract exhorting
him to read it. The men took them with a polite “Thank you, sir,” but
their faces displayed no enthusiasm. This was not the time for tracts.
Shortly afterwards another chaplain, a man of the world, came up to
the lorry with a “Cheer up, boys. You’ll soon be in warm comfortable
quarters. Have you any smokes?” The men had none, and out came a dozen
packets of Woodbine cigarettes from the chaplain’s pockets and two boxes
of matches. The expression on the men’s faces altered at once. The
atmosphere had altered, the sense of proportion had been restored.
Men in hospital like to hear good news. I knew one chaplain who managed
never to go into a room full of wounded and sick men without bringing
some cheery report for everybody. He never actually fabricated news, but
he had a wonderful gift of exaggeration. If we were in the same position,
we had “held the line against incredible odds.” If the French had taken
an enemy trench, “they had driven a wedge into the German position and
produced consternation.” If Russian cavalry had made a reconnaissance
in the Masurian Lakes, “they were sweeping like locusts all over East
Prussia, and had set fire to the Kaiser’s favourite hunting-lodge.”
The men never inquired about details, general statements were quite good
enough.
This was better than telling men that the “war would be a terribly long
one; that we would have to make great sacrifices; but, please God, we
would win in the end.” I have heard a chaplain talk like this to wounded
men, and I knew that he “wasn’t delivering the right goods.”
Renninghelst is a large village, or rather a very small town. It is
situated close to the Franco-Belgian frontier, and at this period was
of importance as an ambulance centre for wounded French and Belgians
who were occupying the line of trenches in the front. The country all
round is real Flanders land—flat, low-lying, damp, and uninviting. The
renowned Mont de Cats can be seen from it, and round this _mont_ some
hard fighting was taking place. The old village has a queer Dutch-looking
church with a closely packed graveyard around it, planted thickly with
stone and iron crosses to the memory of ancient departed burghers, whose
Flemish-Dutch names are inscribed there to commemorate their ages and
their virtues. Eighty, eighty-five, and ninety seemed to be the usual age
of these old burghers for slipping off this mortal coil in this quiet
sleepy old place in Southern Belgium. There are many new graves now round
the Renninghelst countryside, and they are for men who have died young,
suddenly, and in the springtime of their days. The interior of this old
Flemish church is lofty, and has little in the way of adornment, for
there are no millionaires in its congregation to give great stained-glass
windows or carved pulpits.
On my first visit to the church it was full of French soldiers, some
sleeping and others lolling round on the straw that thickly covered the
stone floor. A big group were crowded round a charcoal brazier warming
themselves and watching the progress of a savoury stew. The French
soldiers are wonderful cooks, and the stew this day was to be a good one,
for the _pièce de résistance_ was a fine fat hare which had been caught
that morning near the front. The two cooks were exercising great care
to make the stew a success, and the air of the place was a cheerful,
expectant one.
Some days after this visit I was again at Renninghelst, and the church
was now a temporary hospital. The floor was still covered with straw,
but wounded men were lying close together on it. The charcoal brazier
was still there and giving out a welcome heat on this cold wintry day.
Ambulance waggons were in the street next the church full of wounded
soldiers, and more were coming up the road.
French army surgeons were busy amongst the red-breeched men in the
church, and three of them were engaged round an improvised operating
table near the altar, where a man deeply under chloroform was having his
jaw wired with silver wire for a bad fracture from a piece of shell.
The old white-haired, weary-looking priest of the parish was leaning over
a dying man and bending his head low to catch the last faint whispers.
Some women of the village were carrying round cups of hot broth to the
men propped along the wall, and others were hurrying in with blankets and
pillows.
One soldier I observed to be very blanched and tossing restlessly on his
straw. Restlessness is always an important sign in wounded men, and on
going up to this poor devil and turning down his rough blanket the cause
of the trouble was apparent. He was bleeding freely through a bandaged
wound of the leg. The dressings were soaked with blood, and as the French
surgeons were occupied I broke a professional rule and treated this
patient without asking his doctor’s permission. The bleeding was soon
controlled, and the threatened death from hæmorrhage averted.
As I was completing the last turns of the bandage a voice murmured
over my shoulder, “Vive l’entente cordiale.” The speaker was the chief
surgeon, just released from his work on the operating table. He thanked
me for helping, and said that he and his two assistants had been up
all night, and had been very busy. Most of the men had been wounded by
shrapnel. Shrapnel makes very bad wounds; it rips, tears, and lacerates
the tissues, and repair is often impossible in face of the anatomical
devastation. The French were having a great deal of trouble with their
wounds, as we were also. All the wounds became septic. There is very
little clean surgery in this war. The wounds rarely heal by first
intention, and a fractured, splintered bone meant months of rest and
painful dressings in hospital and a tardy convalescence.
The fighting all along this front had been extraordinarily severe. The
French hospitals and the French medical staff were taxed to the utmost.
Every available fighting man was in the trenches or waiting as supports.
The German hammer was making mighty swings on the Allied anvil, and
nowhere were the blows so heavy and so long sustained as on that famous
Ypres salient. It was bent and dented, but not broken. The character
of the fighting can be grasped from two incidents. One famous infantry
regiment left England at full strength. All of its original officers were
killed, wounded, or missing. Of the second lot of officers, all were
killed, wounded, or missing. Its third supply of officers were now grimly
up against the same chain of events.
One of the first British Divisions left England with 12,000 men and 400
officers. When it was withdrawn from the front to rest and refit, it
could only muster 2336 men and 44 officers!
A famous French regiment with a long roll of battle honours went into
action one frosty morning near Reims. It went forward a gleaming column
of more than a thousand bayonets. Two days afterwards forty-nine men,
led by an old bearded sergeant, marched back. These were all that were
left. The sergeant had a bloody bandage across his forehead—he had lost
an eye—but the French Brigadier-General embraced and kissed him on the
cheek. The French officers standing near stood rigidly at the salute, and
tears were running down their cheeks.
The losses on our side were heavy indeed, but on the German side I
am glad to know that they were colossal. The annihilation of German
battalions and brigades is an argument that the Germans fully understand,
and the only thing that will convince the German that the game is up is
heavy and continuous loss of fighting men and difficulty in filling their
ranks. This sounds very brutal, but we are living in a hard age.
I was much struck by the splendid way the women of this small Belgian
town rallied round to help the wounded. We found the same thing in
France; no trouble was too great, and all was done so cheerfully and
sympathetically. This is the “women’s day” in France. One cannot help
admiring their courage and ability in France’s hour of trial. Husbands,
sons, brothers, fathers—all are on the frontier, and the women carry on
the business of France. They make the most stupendous sacrifices and
exhibit a sublime patience. None are so joyful as the women when a French
victory is announced, and none so pitiful as they when the wounded, the
corollary to every victory, arrive at the towns and villages.
This war, which the German has carried on with an animal ferocity and
a degenerate lust unequalled in history, has demonstrated to the world
the unfaltering nobility of character of the French woman, and that her
fervent soul can rise serene and cool in the midst of the most appalling
troubles.
When our troops landed at Le Havre in August, it was noticed at once what
a big part the women were taking in the business life of the place. There
were women conductors on the trams, women in the tobacconist shops, women
in the cafés as attendants, in the streets selling newspapers, and in all
the big _magasins_.
In Rouen, women conducted coal and timber yards, vegetable and
produce businesses, bakeries, butcheries, fishmongeries, grocers’ and
ironmongers’ stores. Women drove carts and waggons, acted as tally clerks
on wharves, did everything, in fact—and did it all soberly, quietly, and
well. They were always tidy, smart, and cheerful, and did not stop work
at eleven o’clock for a glass of beer, or spend many quarters of hours
filling and lighting pipes of tobacco.
One woman I know—a rosy-cheeked, blue-eyed Norman dame—did the catering
for a large officers’ mess in one of the camps at Rouen. At 5 a.m. she
was at the mess tent with her pony-cart laden with wine, vegetables,
preserves, and fruit. I have passed her shop at nine o’clock at night and
have seen her then busily selling dried fish, pickles, and vinegar to her
customers. She told me that she was too busy to sleep. This was in 1915,
and she had been running the business with no other help than that of two
small daughters since July 1914.
Her husband was on the Argonne front, and she was keeping the flag flying
till his return. Incidentally, she was making money. Catering for an
officers’ mess is fairly lucrative.
On the march from the Marne to the Aisne, and on the Aisne itself, women
were to be seen doing ordinary farm work—building stacks, carting in the
wheat, driving waggon-loads of hay and peas, milking the cows, making
cider and butter, tilling the soil,—and tending the children into the
bargain.
The most amazing thing of all was to see women working in the fields
behind our batteries only a mile away.
At Venizel, on the Aisne bank, our Engineers were throwing a pontoon
bridge across the river under a heavy shrapnel fire. Shells were bursting
up and down the river’s bank and on the waters of the river, yet about a
quarter of a mile behind three women were busily engaged cutting turnips
for the cows.
On the march from the Aisne to La Bassée, our Field Ambulance bivouacked
at the Château of Longpont. The Comte and Comtesse de M—— were in
residence at the château, and we were told by the Comtesse that General
von Kluck, commanding the right wing of the invading army, had in August
stopped for a day and a night at the château with his _état-major_.
We asked how Von Kluck had behaved, and the Comtesse said that he had
been _très agréable_. When he arrived, she interviewed him and begged
him to respect the old château and its old abbey, the pictures and the
tapestries. The General promised that he would do so, and that he would
give orders that the villagers in the hamlet near the château gates were
not to be molested. It was the apple season, and the apple trees of
Longpont were laden with delicious fruit. Von Kluck “asked permission”
of the Comtesse for his soldiers to take some apples off the trees. This
the Comtesse graciously permitted, and the dusty German soldiery helped
themselves to the apples and did not break a branch off a single tree.
The Comtesse provided new eggs and butter and bread for the General’s
breakfast, and he invited her to honour the meal with her presence.
But the Comtesse sent a note that she would not break bread with her
country’s enemy. This was one of the few châteaux and one of the few
villages that the German Saligoth did not destroy or outrage before
leaving.
Some German Generals approved of outrages and atrocities, to wit,
Rupprecht of Bavaria. Some disapproved, and Von Kluck, it is said, was
one of these—but I “hae ma doots.”
This leads to one of the blackest pictures of this war—a picture grim
and loathsome. It is a subject which the women of France will discuss
freely and openly and with a concentrated bitterness that one can readily
understand. I have spoken to many educated French women on this subject,
and have heard many curious and amazing tales and incidents. The subject
is that of the women who have been ravished and outraged by the German
soldiery.
Many of these victims, married women and young girls, are to-day pregnant
to German fathers, and the burning question with the women of France is
how best to help their unfortunate sisters, and what is to be done for
the offspring.
In the French Chamber of Deputies the subject has been debated with
equal freedom and openness. Leading French newspapers too, such as the
_Figaro_, _Le Temps_, _Echo de Paris_, and others, have envisaged the
position in powerful and appealing articles.
One journal advocated that in the exceptional circumstances it was
perfectly justifiable to carry out abortion and interrupt the period of
gestation. Opinions were sought from leading French physicians and from
the Academy of Medicine. These unhesitatingly condemned such a course,
pointing out that the mission of the medical profession was to save
life; and also that the induction of premature labour was at all times a
dangerous and risky operation to the mother, and in certain circumstances
would be fatal.
The Catholic Church in France spoke strongly and certainly in the same
direction, and condemned as utterly wrong and sinful any measure that had
for its object the death of the unborn child.
The women of France, however, do not share these latter views.
Arrangements have now been completed for the reception of these pitiful
expectant mothers into certain maternity homes, where they will be
attended by skilled doctors and nurses at the State expense. After birth
the child is to be brought up by the State at some place undeclared. The
mother will not see the child at any time, and will know nothing of its
future.
The clergy all over Northern France are attending to this matter,
and everything will be done as secretly as possible in the unusual
circumstances.
No wonder that the French woman speaks of the German soldier as a loathly
thing.
CHAPTER XIX.
WE LEAVE BELGIUM.
At the end of November our ambulance was ordered to St. Jans Capelle. We
were not sorry to leave our house, with its evil pond and manure heap,
and the voice of Madame.
Madame, by the way, was very amiable when we told her that we were to
leave. She did not say that she was sorry, but she no longer screeched
at our cooks or railed at our men for eating her straw. Just as our
ambulance was about to move off, and Madame stood at the door with the
first approach to a frosty smile that we had ever seen on her face, a
French sergeant and ten men of a balloon section arrived. The sergeant
had a lump of chalk in his hand and scrawled on the door, “Ballon. 3 sous
Officiers. Hommes x.” He brusquely informed Madame that the quarters
just vacated by us were to be at once taken by his balloon section.
Madame raged and raved, but the sergeant was imperturbable, and suddenly
quietened Madame by saying that if she objected very much he would begin
to think that she was a German spy. The sergeant told us that as a matter
of fact they were not satisfied about Madame’s husband’s patriotism. We
knew that Madame and her sulky husband would now have a much worse time
than when we occupied the house, for at least we tried to give little
trouble, and lavishly paid for any vegetables, milk, or food that we got
from the farmer. The French insist on the “articles of war,” and when
they occupy a house they really do occupy it and make themselves very
much at home.
This mention of Madame’s husband being of doubtful honesty, reminded us
of a curious incident that occurred early in our stay at this place.
There was another farm close to the one we occupied, and this farm was
owned by a man who, we were told, was a cousin of “Monsieur our farmer.”
At this house a man was stopping who said that he was a refugee from
Ypres. He told us that he was a baker from Boston, United States of
America, and that he and his wife, who were Belgians, had been visiting
their native country when war broke out. He said that his wife and two
children were in Brussels when the Germans occupied the city, and that
he himself was stopping with a friend in Ypres when the Germans first
bombarded it; he then left Ypres and came to stop at this farmer’s house.
This man used to walk every day along a road which passed behind some
French batteries of 75 mm., but one day he did not come back. We asked
his farmer friend what had become of him, and he said that he had left
to go to America. We thought the circumstance odd at the time, and when
our sergeant told us about Madame’s husband being under suspicion we
asked him if he knew anything about this other man, the Boston baker. He
said that he did, for he had seen the fellow arrested and sent back to
be tried for spying. That perhaps explained why Madame did not like us,
and why her vituperation and objections were suddenly silenced when the
French balloon sergeant talked about German spies.
After leaving the inhospitable cottage-headquarters, our ambulance had a
long day’s trek over the Belgian frontier to St. Jans Capelle. This place
was close to Bailleul. We put our men into billets near at hand and got
quarters for ourselves in the Convent, where the sisters gave us a big
dormitory full of clean white beds with blankets and sheets. This was
indeed luxury after all our roughing times from the Marne till now. We
were always perfectly willing to undergo inconvenience and hardships, but
none of us ever missed an opportunity of availing himself of the luxuries
and amenities of civilisation whenever they presented themselves. We had
the fine front room of the Convent for a dining- and sitting-room, and,
greatest boon of all, a fire to sit round. The cold was intense at this
time, and the whole country was frozen hard in snow and ice. This was the
period when frostbite was so terrible to our men in the trenches, and
the Clearing Hospitals and Ambulance Stations were so busy treating the
frozen men.
It was found necessary to relieve frequently the freezing soldiers in
the advanced trenches, and every three days they were allowed out from
the terrible mud ditches, with death on the parapet and frostbite at the
bottom.
Braziers of burning charcoal were put into the trenches, but were
found to be ineffective and harmful to the feet. The people of England
did magnificent work in sending out gum boots, skin overcoats, and
protectives of all sort, but in spite of all that was done the frostbite
incapacitated many men. The recoveries were always slow, and could not
be effected at the front, so all these limping men were sent back to
England for rest and change. Many methods of treatment were tried for
the frostbite, but time alone seemed to be the chief curative factor. In
some cases the feet were swollen, and small bloody exudates could be seen
under the big toe and the outer side of the foot where the boot pressed.
Sometimes the skin was broken and ulcers formed at the site. In other
cases toes became completely gangrenous or dead. The feet were rubbed
and massaged with various oils and swathed in cotton wool, but wrapping
in wool aggravated the suffering, and the men felt much more relief when
the feet were left exposed. The worst time for the cold-feet men was
from one o’clock to three in the morning. They would often go off to
sleep peacefully, but would wake up at these hours suffering excruciating
pain in their feet and calves and up the spine. Nothing would relieve
this pain but hypodermic injections of morphia. One officer described
his state to me, and said that he had been standing in a trench in mud
over his boot-tops. At first his feet felt very cold, and he tried to
warm them by stamping, but this method of exercise was too sloppy. Then
sensation seemed to go and he felt quite comfortable, because although
his feet felt very heavy they did not feel cold, only dead. On the fifth
day he could hardly walk and had to be helped out of the trenches. He
was unable to walk to the ambulance, a short way back, and the feet were
found to be so swollen in hospital that the boots had to be cut off. Then
the worst time of all came on, for as the circulation gradually returned
he suffered diabolical pain in his feet and calves, and this pain was
always worst in the early mornings. Eight weeks after having been lifted
out of the trench he was still limping about with two sticks, and was
making a normal but very slow recovery.
[Illustration: GOING TOWARDS THE TRENCHES AT YPRES.]
[Illustration: FRENCH SOLDIERS GOING TO THE TRENCHES.]
This officer told me that one night the men in his trenches were ordered
out to make a bayonet attack, but half of them were in such a condition
that they could not crawl out of the trench. Fortunately the Germans were
pushed back by those who could, otherwise the poor devils left behind
would have been captured or killed.
The Indians round the Bethune district suffered very severely from the
frostbite, and these poor men deserved our greatest sympathy during this
period, trying and terrible enough to men reared in a fairly rigorous
climate like that of England or Scotland. The misery of the life to men
who had never lived out of tropical India was enough to wear down any but
the stoutest hearts. History will give due credit and praise to these
Indians, that they rose superior to their environment and soon proved
what sterling good soldiers they are. I visited at an Indian Clearing
Hospital the first lot of casualties from the M—— Division. This Clearing
Hospital took over the École Jules Ferry at Bethune, and occupied it
for a few weeks after our Clearing Hospital had vacated it. The doctors
belonged to the Indian Medical Service, and the native Indian doctors
belonging to the subordinate medical service acted under the white
doctors. Some temporary lieutenants of the Royal Army Medical Corps were
also on the staff.
The dusky warriors were arriving in scores, brought in on motor
ambulances, and very woeful they looked, covered with mud and bloody
bandages. They had not been long at the front, and their first experience
of modern war was a very desperate ordeal.
The night was dark and gloomy and a heavy rain was soaking the
countryside. The mud-splashed cars dashed into the dripping courtyard,
fitfully lit up by the sombre gleams of smoky lanterns tied to posts.
Round about were the dark-faced bearers ready to help out the wounded.
Those who could walk got out of the ambulances themselves and the
stretcher cases were taken out by the bearers. The scene on this night
impressed one with the far-reaching character of this war, for here were
men from the central plains of India, the far-off frontiers and the
slopes of the Himalayas, gathered together in a muddy, marshy region of
France, and wounded in trying to hold a line of ditches against the most
determined and scientific fighting men of Europe.
“Rulers alike and subject, splendid the roll-call rings,
Rajahs and Maharajahs, Kings and the sons of Kings,
From the land where the skies are molten
And the suns strike down and parch.
Out of the East they are marching,
Into the West they march.”
One swarthy Sikh with a fine beard was asked what he thought of the war.
“Sahib, it is a very good war. It is a man’s war. The old men, the women,
and the children are in the villages. The warriors are out fighting.
It is very good.” This optimist had got through with a slight wound of
the right hand, and perhaps that accounted for his cheery outlook. Most
of the wounded on that night looked as if they would have been better
pleased to be with “the old men, the women, and the children in the
villages.”
There is no doubt that the Indians are pleased to be fighting alongside
us in this “good war,” but they have a respect for the German because he
is a fierce fighter, and perhaps also because of his ruthlessness, an
attitude which appeals to the Oriental mind.
The Gurkha is a funny little man and a swashbuckler. His small sturdy
frame, his slanting, watchful eyes with the glint of the devil in them,
his bandolier, rifle, and deadly kukri, with its broad razor-edged blade,
make up a picture of force and fighting cunning.
Plaster this man with thick mud, put a bloody bandage round his head,
and place him in a dimly lit corner of a dripping court on a dark, rainy
night, then indeed he looks a breathing symbol of murder and imminent
destruction. When the Gurkha is out “on the job” at night, prowling far
from his trenches and within the enemy lines, with no weapon but his
broad, sharp knife and with a mind intent on slaying, he is a formidable
and fearsome adversary.
At first our Indian troops found it difficult to accustom themselves to
the novel form of war in wet, cold trenches, a bad climate, and with
every surrounding strange and inhospitable. The loss of their British
officers and native non-commissioned officers was at first very heavy,
and this discouraged the men, who look so much to their officers who
know their language and understand them. But these brave fellows soon
“found themselves,” and have since those dark October days proved again
and again that when the call comes they can be relied upon to fight with
as much determination as ever they have done in the past. An experienced
British officer of a native regiment told me that what the Indians missed
very much in France was opium. He said that the Indian had always been
accustomed to his opium in India, that he did not take much, but really
was the better for a little. He took it in small quantity as a soporific
stimulant, just as our grandfathers took snuff, and he assured me that
when the Indians had to meet the hellish conditions of modern war at the
front last winter a little opium to each man would have meant a great
deal. In this I cordially agree with him, for the medicinal and stimulant
effects of small doses of opium are undoubted.
The question of feeding our Indian soldiers was a difficult one, and
required very careful handling. An old Sikh was wounded near Bethune and
was taken to the British Clearing Hospital. He refused to take anything
but biscuits and water. Fortunately we were able to remove the old
ritualist to the native Clearing Hospital, otherwise we would have been
at an _impasse_.
Amongst both Hindoos and Mohammedans the caste prejudices and ritualistic
ceremonies must be remembered and observed in the providing and killing
of animals for consumption. The French also have native troops with
them and have the same difficulties to overcome, and this helps us
considerably in arranging a joint commissariat scheme. A Sikh soldier
will not eat a sheep killed in the Mohammedan method by cutting its
throat, and the Mohammedan soldier will not eat a sheep killed in the
Sikh method by a slashing stroke on the back of the neck. So there
you are. These things do not seem to be very important, but they are
important all the same. Ask the Jew who refuses the unclean pork, and the
good Churchman who refuses meat on Fridays.
The following story, which I heard at the front, illustrates the
accommodating nature of the Gurkha. When his regiments were embarking on
the transports at an Indian port, the point arose whether he would eat
frozen mutton. The British officers agreed to let the matter be solved by
the men. So they called up the Subadar, who, after a little wrinkling of
the eyebrow, said, “I think, Sahib, the regiment will be willing to eat
the iced sheep provided one of them is always present to see the animal
frozen to death.”
In Rouen there is an encampment for goats for the Indians, and we were
told that these goats were good mountain fellows from the Pyrenees. Four
Indians, under the charge of an old, venerable, long-bearded native, used
to drive them from their encampment to the Indian convalescent dépôt
about two miles outside the city.
The goats, in spite of the shouting and rushing about of the drivers,
would not keep their ranks and dress by the right in marching through
Normandy’s capital city. The delight of the French people, who always
turned up in crowds to see the goats march past, passed all bounds when
one would make a wild dash up a side street, hotly pursued by an irate
turbaned Indian. Another source of great joy was to see the goats march
slowly along the train line and hold up the train traffic.
The Indians were always of absorbing interest to the French, and crowds
of men and women would walk on a fine afternoon from the city to the
Indian dépôt camp for convalescents to see our brown-faced fighting men.
On one winter day in Rouen, just after a heavy fall of snow, a company of
French soldiers under a non-commissioned officer was marching past the
Indian encampment. The Indians lined up the fence alongside the road and
bombarded the French with a rapid fire of snowballs. The French looked
surprised, and, forgetting discipline but still keeping their ranks,
poured a heavy fusillade of snowballs on the men of India. The incident
is illustrative of the good feeling that exists between the French and
their Indian allies.
The Abbé Bouchon d’Homme of our hospital at Bethune told me with great
glee one morning that the Mayor of the town had had a “poser” put to
him by the Indians. One of these had just died from wounds, and he had
evidently been a fire-worshipper. The dead man’s comrades asked the
Mayor of Bethune to provide them with timber, as they wished to burn the
deceased in the cemetery of the city. The Mayor was staggered at the
request, and although he had, so the Abbé said, some curiosity to see the
ceremony of fire carried out, he had to “turn down” the proposition. So
the man was buried in the usual way.
GOOD-BYE TO THE FRONT.
The Army Headquarters, now that our line had been firmly established
and locked firmly on our right with the French and on our left with the
Belgians and French, decided to allow a short leave, at intervals, and
in rotation, to officers and as many men as possible. The leave was
specially designed for those who had been through the retreat, the Marne,
and the Aisne. New troops were arriving at the front and gradually taking
the place of the veterans temporarily retired to recuperate.
The 5th Division had been amongst the hard knocks from the beginning and
we got off early.
I left the front by a motor bus, which conveyed a group of seven officers
from Bailleul to Boulogne, and from thence we reached England by the
ferry steamer.
It felt uncanny to be away from the sound of the guns. Ever since August
our lives had been punctuated with incessant gun-fire; we had roused
each morning to the sound of heavy artillery, we had gone to sleep with
cannonades for a lullaby, and during the long day had listened to the
Devil’s Orchestra of lyddite, melinite, shrapnel, and rifle fire; and now
away from it all we seemed to live in a curiously still and silent world.
London was a very inviting place to return to. The hot bath, the
good bed, the morning newspaper at breakfast had never been so much
appreciated before. The rough knocking about and the strain had left
its effects on the health of many of us, and these four days’ rest and
recuperation, mental and physical, were a godsend.
At the end of the holiday I was appointed Surgical Specialist to a Base
Hospital in Rouen, and for a time my lines were cast in quieter waters.
But the allurement of the front—the call of the wild with its excitements
and uncertainties—lasted for some time longer. It is a curious fact,
but true, that the men at the front would like to get to the Base, and
when they get there they want to return to the front. “Those behind say
forward, and those in front say back.”
The memories of days spent at the front can never be quite forgotten.
Time may blunt the clearness of outline of some of the incidents in a
hazy mist, but there are others that will stand out clear and undimmed to
the last.
The surgeon sees the very seamy side of war. He comes close to the men
stricken down in the field, helpless and bleeding and in pain. He stands
by them in their dark hours in hospital and by their bedsides when they
die.
While the world is hearing the earthquake voice of Victory, he is perhaps
kneeling on the straw easing the path to death of a dying man, one of the
victors in the fight, or perhaps operating in a mean cottage, surrounded
by wounded men waiting their turn on the table.
The gallant charge, the brave defence, the storming of the enemy’s
position are heralded in dispatches and in song and story, but translated
into the notebook of the “Surgeon in Khaki” they represent many dead,
many wounded, much crippling and mutilation, tears, distress, and broken
hearts.
I have seen brave men die the death in battle—changed in a second of time
from forceful, vital, volcanic energy to still, inanimate rest. I have
seen mortally wounded men pass uncomplainingly and composedly to the
valley of the shadow, and I have seen faces become anxious and troubled
at the thought of those dear and loving ones left behind and of the
aching hearts and tears.
I have written letters of farewell from dying men and officers to wives
and sweethearts and children, and have felt the horror and misery of it
all. It is a sad and mournful sight to see brave young men die.
Yet, though the life of the “Surgeon in Khaki” is amidst this aftermath
of battle, he has the infinite satisfaction of knowing that he can, and
does, hold out a hand of help to the hurt and maimed soldier crawling out
of the welter of blood and destruction, and that he is doing the work of
the Compassionate and Pitying One.
“Affliction’s sons are brothers in distress,
A brother to relieve! How exquisite the Bliss.”
This war has brought out many faults in our national life, but it has
also brought out many shining virtues, and to the Faith and Hope of the
people in the prowess of the soldiers, we must add the Charity shown by
the people of this Empire to our sick and wounded. By subscriptions to
ambulance funds, Red Cross funds, and hospitals, and by doing all that
was humanly possible to help those hurt in battle, the people of to-day
have made a name that posterity will honour and strive in vain to equal.
They have also helped the Belgian and Serbian Red Cross movements and
have shown that
“Kindness in another’s trouble,
Courage in your own,”
which is always so admirable a trait.
Our fighting men are magnificent, and the hardihood and patient endurance
of our wounded are beyond all praise. I have seen our men in actual
fight, I have watched the French gunners at work and seen the French
infantry charge with the bayonet and throw back a German rush, and I
feel a complete confidence of the ultimate final success of the Allied
arms—for to such men is given the Victory.
THE END.
_Printed by_
MORRISON & GIBB LIMITED
_Edinburgh_
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