Part 22

January 7, 1915, to February 6, 1915.

The Petit Vitesse siding--Uncomplainingness of Tommy--Painting the train--A painful convoy--The "Yewlan's" watch--"Officer dressed in bandages"--Sotteville--Versailles--The Palais Trianon--A walk at Rouen--The German view, and the English view--'Punch'--"When you return Conqueror"--K.'s new Army.

Thursday, January 7th.--We moved out of Boulogne about 4 A.M., and reached Merville (with many long waits) at 2 P.M. Loaded up there, and filled up at Hazebrouck on way back. Many cases of influenza with high temperatures, also rheumatisms and bad feet, very few wounded. When they got the khaki hankies they said, "Khaki? that's extra!"

9.30 P.M.--We have 318 on board this time, including four enterics, four diphtherias, and eighteen convalescent scarlets (who caught it from their billet). A quiet-looking little man has a very fine new German officer's helmet and sword. "He gave it to me," he said. "I had shot him through the lung. I did the wound up as best I could and tried to save him, but he died. He was coming for me with his sword." Seems funny to first shoot a man and then try to mop it up. The Germans don't; they finish you off.

An officer on the train told me how another officer and twenty-five men were told off to go and take a new trench which had been dug in the night. Instead of the few they expected they found it packed with Germans, all asleep. "It's not a pretty story," he said, "but you can't go first and tell them you're coming when you are outnumbered three to one." They had to bayonet every one of those sleeping Germans, and killed every one without losing a man.

All my half of the train had khaki hankies and sweets; they simply loved them. They are all, except the infectious cases, just out of the trenches, and such things make them absurdly happy; you would hardly believe it. I am keeping the writing-cases and bull's-eyes for the next lot. There were just enough mufflers to muffle the chilly necks of those who hadn't already got them.

The wet has outwetted itself all day--it must be a record flood everywhere. We shall not unload to-night, so I had better think about turning in, as I have the third watch at 4 A.M.

I found some lovely eau-de-Cologne and shampoo powders from R. among the mufflers, and a pet aluminium candlestick from G. Such things give a Sister on an A.T. absurd pleasure; you'd hardly believe it.

Friday, January 8th.--Still pouring. We unloaded by 9 A.M., got our mail in. My wardmaster was so drunk to-night that the Q.M.S. had to send for the O.C. And he had just got his corporal's stripe. He was a particular ally of mine and was in South Africa.

We are in that foulest of all homes for lost trains to-day, the Petit Vitesse siding out of B. station, with the filth of all the ages around, about, and below us. You have to shut your window to keep out the smell of burning garbage and other horrors.

It is nearly three months since I sat in a chair, except at meals, and that is only a flap-down seat, or saw a fire, except the pails of coke the Tommies have on the lines.

I expect we shall be off again to-night somewhere.

Saturday, January 9th.--Did you see the H.A.C.'s story of the frozen Tommy who asked them to warm his hands, and then seeing they were on their way to his trench hastily explained that he was all right--only a bit numb. One thing one notices about them is that they have an enormous tolerance for each other and never seem to want to quarrel. They take infinite pains in the night not to wake each other in moving over the heaps of legs and arms sprawled everywhere, and will keep in cramped positions for hours rather than risk touching some one else's painful feet or hand. If you want to improve matters they say, "I shall be all right, Sister, it might jog his foot." They never let you miss any one out in giving things round, and always call your attention to any one they think needs it, but not to themselves. It is very funny how they won't fuss about themselves, and in consequence you often find things out too late. Last journey a man with asthma and bronchitis was, unfortunately as it turned out, given a top bunk, as he was considered too bad to be a sitting-up case. At 6 A.M. I found him looking very tired and miserable sitting on the edge; "I can't lie down," he said, "with this cough." When I put him in a sitting-up corner below, he said, "I could a'slep' all night like this!" It had never occurred to him to ask to be changed. They get so used to discomfort that they "stay put" and never utter. We had missed his distress (in the 318 we had on board), and they were sleeping on the floors of the corridors, so the middle bunks were very difficult to get at. Any of them would have changed with him. This happens several times on every journey, but you can't get them to fuss. The Germans and the Sikhs begin to clamour for something directly they are on the train, and keep it up till they go off.

Another typical instance (though not a pretty one) of Tommy's reluctance to complain occurred on the last journey. I came on one compartment full, busily engaged in collecting J.J.'s off one man in the middle, with a candle to see by. His blanket, I found, was swarming, and it was ours, not his, one of a lot taken on at Rouen as "disinfected"! (For one ghastly moment I thought it might be the compartment where I'd spent a good half-hour doing up their feet, but it wasn't.) I had the blanket hurled out of the window, and they then slept. But they weren't going to complain about it.

There was one jovial old boy of 60 with rows of ribbons. He had three sons in the Army, and when they went "he wasn't going to be left behind," so he re-enlisted.

Sunday, January 10th.--Woke up at Bailleul, sun shining for once, and everything--floods and all--looking lovely all the way down. Loaded up early and got down to B. by 4 P.M. to hear that we are to go on to Rouen--another all-night touch. We have put off the fourteen worst cases at B., and are now on our way to R. This is the first time we have shipped Canadians, P.P.C.L.I., the only regiment as yet in the fighting line. They are oldish men who have nearly all seen service before, many in South Africa.

Lots more wounded this time. Some S.L.I. got badly caught in a wood; they've just come from India.

When I took the Devonshire toffee round, a little doubtful whether the H.A.C.'s would not be too grand for it, one of them started up, "Oh, by George, not really!"

We have a boy on board with no wound and no disease, but quite mad, poor boy; he has to have a special orderly on him.

Monday morning, January 11th, Rouen.--The approach to Rouen at six o'clock on a pitch-dark, wet, and starlight morning, with the lights twinkling on the hills and on the river, and in the old wet streets, is a beautiful sight.

My mad boy has been very quiet all night.

Tuesday, January 12th.--At S. all day. By some mistake it hasn't rained all day, so we took the opportunity to get on with painting the train. We worked all the morning and afternoon and got a lot done, and it looks very smart: huge red crosses on white squares in the middle of each coach, and the number of the ward in figures a foot long at each end: this on both sides of the coaches. We have done not quite half the coaches, and are praying that it won't rain before it dries; if it does, the result is pitiable. The orderlies have been shining up the brass rails and paraffining the outside of the train, and have also played and won a football match against No. 1 A.T.

Wednesday, January 13th.--Woke at Abbeville; now on the way to Boulogne, where I hope we shall have time to get mails.

5 P.M.--We went through Boulogne without stopping, and got no mails in consequence; nor could we pick up P., who has been on ninety-six hours' leave. We have been on the move practically without stopping since 11 P.M. last night, and are just getting to Bethune, the place we went to two days after Christmas, where we were quite near the guns, and went over the Cl. H. which had been shelled. Expect to take wounded up here. The country is wetter than ever--it looks one vast swamp. Of course the rain has spoilt our lovely paint!

Thursday, January 14th.--We picked up a load in the dark and wet, with some very badly wounded, who kept us busy from 6 P.M. to 4 A.M. without stopping. Some were caked with mud exactly to their necks! One told me he got hit trying to dig out three of his section who were half buried by an exploded coal-box. When he got hit, they were left, and eventually got finished by our own guns. Another lot of eleven were buried likewise, and are there still, but were all killed instantaneously. One man with part of his stomach blown away and his right thigh smashed was trying to get a corporal of his regiment in, but the corporal died when he got there, and he got it as well. He was smiling and thanking all night, and saying how comfortable he was. Another we had to put off at St Omer, on the off chance of saving his life. He was made happy by two tangerine oranges.

Many of the sitting-ups have no voice, and they cough all night. We unloaded this morning, got a sleep this afternoon, and are now, 5 P.M., on our way up again. The Clearing Hospitals are overflowing as of old, and like the Field Ambulances have more than they can cope with. We have to re-dress the septic things with H{2}O{2}, which keeps them going till they can be specially treated at the base. Some of the enterics are very bad: train journeys are not ideal treatment for enteric haemorrhage, but it has to be done. Two of my orderlies are very good with them, and take great care of their mouths, and know how to feed them. It is a great anxiety when a great hulking G.D.O. (General Duty Orderly, not a Nursing Orderly) has to take his turn on night duty with the badly wounded.

It is time the sun shone somewhere--but it will surely, later on.

Friday, January 15th.--We got to Bailleul too late last night for loading, and went thankfully to bed instead. Now, 3.30 P.M., nearly back at B., but expect to be sent on to Rouen: most sick this time, and bad feet, not exactly frost-bite, but swollen and discoloured from the wet. One of my enterics is a Field Ambulance boy, with a temp. of 105, and he only "went sick" yesterday. How awful he must have felt on duty. He says his body feels "four sizes too big for him."