Part 20

With superhuman self-control I have not opened my mail to-night so as to have it to-morrow morning.

Xmas Day, 11 A.M.--On way up again to Bethune, where we have not been before (about ten miles beyond where we were yesterday), a place I've always hoped to see. Sharp white frost, fog becoming denser as we get nearer Belgium. A howling mob of reinforcements stormed the train for smokes. We threw out every cigarette, pipe, pair of socks, mits, hankies, pencils we had left; it was like feeding chickens, but of course we hadn't nearly enough.

Every one on the train has had a card from the King and Queen in a special envelope with the Royal Arms in red on it. And this is the message (in writing hand)--

"With our best wishes for Christmas, 1914.

May God protect you and bring you home safe.

MARY R. GEORGE R.I."

That is something to keep, isn't it?

An officer has just told us that those men haven't had a cigarette since they left S'hampton, hard luck. I wish we'd had enough for them. It is the smokes and the rum ration that has helped the British Army to stick it more than anything, after the conviction that they've each one got that the Germans have got to be "done in" in the end. A Sergt. of the C.G. told me a cheering thing yesterday. He said he had a draft of young soldiers of only four months' service in this week's business. "Talk of old soldiers," he said, "you'd have thought these had had years of it. When they were ordered to advance there was no stopping them."

After all we are not going to Bethune but to Merville again.

This is a very slow journey up, with long indefinite stops; we all got bad headaches by lunch time from the intense cold and a short night following a heavy day. At lunch we had hot bricks for our feet, and hot food inside, which improved matters, and I think by the time we get the patients on there will be chauffage.

The orderlies are to have their Xmas dinner to-morrow, but I believe ours is to be to-night, if the patients are settled up in time.

Do not think from these details that we are at all miserable; we say "For King and Country" at intervals, and have many jokes over it all, and there is the never-failing game of going over what we'll all do and avoid doing After the War.

7 P.M.--Loaded up at Merville and now on the way back; not many badly wounded but a great many minor medicals, crocked up, nothing much to be done for them. We may have to fill up at Hazebrouck, which will interrupt the very festive Xmas dinner the French Staff are getting ready for us. It takes a man, French or British, to take decorating really seriously. The orderlies have done wonders with theirs. Aeroplanes done in cotton-wool on brown blankets is one feature.

This lot of patients had Xmas dinner in their Clearing Hospitals to-day, and the King's Xmas card, and they will get Princess Mary's present. Here they finished up D.'s Xmas cards and had oranges and bananas, and hot chicken broth directly they got in.

12 Midnight.--Still on the road. We had a very festive Xmas dinner, going to the wards which were in charge of nursing orderlies between the courses. Soup, turkey, peas, mince pie, plum pudding, chocolate, champagne, absinthe, and coffee. Absinthe is delicious, like squills. We had many toasts in French and English. The King, the President, Absent Friends, Soldiers and Sailors, and I had the Blesses and the Malades. We got up and clinked glasses with the French Staff at every toast, and finally the little chef came in and sang to us in a very sweet musical tenor. Our great anxiety is to get as many orderlies and N.C.O.'s as possible through the day without being run in for drunk, but it is an uphill job; I don't know where they get it.

We are wondering what the chances are of getting to bed to-night.

4 A.M.--Very late getting in to B.; not unloading till morning. Just going to turn in now till breakfast time. End of Xmas Day.

Saturday, December 26th.--Saw my lambs off the train before breakfast. One man in the Warwicks had twelve years' service, a wife and two children, but "when Kitchener wanted more men" he re-joined. This week he got an explosive bullet through his arm, smashing it up to rags above the elbow. He told me he got a man "to tie the torn muscles up," and then started to crawl out, dragging his arm behind him. After some hours he came upon one of his own officers wounded, who said, "Good God, sonny, you'll be bleeding to death if we don't get you out of this; catch hold of me and the Chaplain." "So 'e cuddled me, and I cuddled the Chaplain, and we got as far as the doctor."

At the Clearing H. his arm was taken off through the shoulder-joint, but I'm afraid it is too late. He is now a pallid wreck, dying of gangrene. But he would discuss the War, and when it would end, and ask when he'd be strong enough to sit up and write to that officer, and apologised for wanting drinks so often. He is one of the most top-class gallant gentlemen it's ever been my jolly good luck to meet. And there are hundreds of them.

We had Princess Mary's nice brass box this morning. The V.A.D. here brought a present to every man on the train this morning, and to the orderlies. They had 25,000 to distribute, cigarette-cases, writing-cases, books, pouches, &c. The men were frightfully pleased, it was so unexpected. The processions of hobbling, doubled-up, silent, muddy, sitting-up cases who pour out of the trains want something to cheer them up, as well as the lying-downs. It is hard to believe they are the fighting men, now they've handed their rifles and bandoliers in. (It is snowing fast.) We have to go and drink the men's health at their spread at 1 o'clock. Then I hope a spell of sleep.

We have chauffage on to-day to thaw the froidage; the pipes are frozen.

6 P.M.--We all processed to the Orderlies' Mess truck and the O.C. made a speech, and the Q.M.S. dished out drinks for us to toast with, and we had the King and all of ourselves with great enthusiasm. Mr T. had to propose "The Sisters," and after a few trembling, solemn words about "we all know the good work they do," he suddenly giggled hopelessly, and it ended in a healthy splodge all round. Orders just come to be at St Omer by 10 P.M. If that means loading-up further on about 1 A.M. I think we shall all die! Too noisy here to sleep this afternoon. And the men are just now so merry with Tipperary, and dressing up, that they will surely drop the patients off the stretchers, but we'll hope for the best.

Sunday, December 27th.--Had a grand night last night. Woke up at Bethune. Went out after breakfast and saw over No.-- Cl. H., which has only been there 48 hours, in a huge Girls' College, partly smashed by big shell holes, an awful mess, but the whole parts are being turned into a splendid hospital. Several houses shelled, and big guns shaking the train this morning.

The M.O.'s went to the Orderlies' Concert last night, when we went to bed. It was excellent, and nobody was drunk! We are taking on a full load of lying-downs straight from three Field Ambulances, so we shall be very busy; not arrived yet.

6 P.M.--Nearing Boulogne.

I have one little badly wounded Gurkha (who keeps ejaculating "Gerrman"), and all the rest British, some very badly frost-bitten. The trenches are in a frightful state. One man said, "There's almost as many men drowned as killed: when they're wounded they fall into the water." Of three officers (one of whom is on the train and tells the story) in a deep-water trench for two days, one was drowned, the other had to have his clothes cut off him (stuck fast to the mud) and be pulled out naked, and the other is invalided with rheumatism.

Two men were telling me how they caught a sniper established in a tree, with a thousand rounds of ammunition and provisions. He asked for mercy, but he didn't get it, they said. He had just shot two stretcher-bearers.

Monday, December 28th.--This trip to Rouen will give us a longer journey up, and therefore some more time. And we shall get another bath.