Part 28

Monday, February 22nd.--We got a short walk yesterday evening after unloading at Rouen. There was a glorious sunset over the bridge, and the lights just lighting up, and Rouen looked its beautifulest. We slept at Sotteville, and this morning Sister and I walked down the line into Rouen and saw the Paymaster and the Cathedral, and did some shopping, and had a boiled egg and real butter and tea for lunch, and came back in the tram. Sister S. is in bed with influenza.

The lengthening days and better weather are making a real difference to the gloom of things, and though there is a universal undercurrent of feeling that enormous sacrifices will have to be made, it seems to be shaping for a step farther on, and an ultimate return to sanity and peace. It is such a vast upheaval when you are in the middle of it, that you sometimes actually wonder if every one has gone mad, or who has gone mad, that all should be grimly working, toiling, slaving, from the firing line to the base, for more Destruction, and for more highly-finished and uninterrupted Destruction, in order to get Peace. And the men who pay the cost in intimate personal and individual suffering and in death are not the men who made the war.

Wednesday, February 24th.--We have been all day in Boulogne, and move up at 8.15 this evening, which means loading up after breakfast and perhaps unloading to-morrow evening. It has given Sister S. another day to recover from her attack of influenza.

Have been busy one way and another all day, but went for a walk after tea and saw over the No.-- G.H. at the Casino--a splendid place, working like clockwork. Lots of bad cases, but they all look clean and beautifully cared for and rigged up.

Thursday, February 25th.--Moved up to the place with the moor during the night. Glorious, clear, sunny morning. Couldn't leave the train for a real walk, as there were no orders.

This time last year the last thing one intended to do was to go and travel about France for six months, with occasional excursions into Belgium!

'The Times' sometimes comes the next day now.

9 P.M.--The ways of French railways are impenetrable: in spite of orders for Bailleul before lunch, we are still here, and less than ever able to leave the train for a walk.

This is the fourth day with no patients on--the longest "off" spell since before Christmas. It shows there's not much doing or much medical leakage.

Friday, February 26th.--We loaded up this morning with a not very bad lot (mine all sitters except some enterics, a measles, and a diphtheria), and are on our way down again.

I am all ready packed to get off at B. if my leave is in Major M.'s office.

Saturday, February 27th, 9 P.M., Hotel at Boulogne.--All the efforts to get my seven days' leave have failed, as I thought they would.

Wednesday, March 3rd, Boulogne.--There is not a great deal to do or see here, especially on a wet day.

Friday, March 5th, 5 P.M.--On way down from Chocques--mixed lot of woundeds, medicals, Indians, and Canadians.

I have a lad of 24 with both eyes destroyed by a bullet, and there is a bad "trachy."

Nothing very much has been going on, but the German shells sometimes plop into the middle of a trench, and each one means a good many casualties.

10 P.M.--We've had a busy day, and are not home yet.

My boy with the dressings on his head has not the slightest idea that he's got no eyes, and who is going to tell him? The pain is bad, and he has to have a lot of morphia, with a cigarette in between.

We shall probably not unload to-night, and I am to be called at 2 A.M.

The infectious ward is full with British enterics, dips., and measles, and Indian mumpies.

Saturday, March 6th, Boulogne.--Instead of being called at 2 for duty, was called at 1 to go to bed, as they unloaded us at that hour.

Last night we pulled up at Hazebrouck alongside a troop train with men, guns, and horses just out from the Midlands.

Two lads in a truck with their horses asked me for cigarettes. Luckily, thanks to the Train Comforts Fund's last whack, I had some. One said solemnly that he had a "coosin" to avenge, and now his chance had come. They both had shining eyes, and not a rollicking but an eager excitement as they asked when the train would get "there," and looked as if they could already see the shells and weren't afraid.

Sunday, March 7th.--We are stuck in the jolly place close to G.H.Q., but can't leave the train as there are no orders. I've been having a French class, with the wall of the truck for a blackboard, and occasional bangs from a big gun somewhere.

Tail-end of Monday, March 8th.--On way down to Etretat, where No.-- G.H. is, which we shall reach to-morrow about tea-time. A load of woundeds this time; very busy all day till now (midnight), and haven't had time to hear many of their adventures. They seem to all come from a line of front where the Boches are persistently hammering to break through, and though they don't get any forrarder they cause a steady leakage. We heard guns all the while we were loading. A dressing-station five miles away had just been shelled, and a major, R.A.M.C., killed and two other R.A.M.C. officers wounded.

I have a man wounded in eight places, including a fractured elbow and a fractured skull, which has been trephined. What is left of him that hasn't stopped bullets is immensely proud of his bandages! He was one of nineteen who were in a barn when a shell came through the roof and burst inside, spitting shrapnel bullets all over them; all wounded and one killed. We have just put off an emergency case of gas gangrene, temp. 105, who came on as a sitter! They so often say after a bad dressing, "I'm a lot of trouble to ye, Sister."

Later.--Just time for a line before I do another round and then call my relief. It is an awfully cold night.

Tuesday, March 9th, 12 noon.--We are passing through glorious country of wooded hills and valleys, with a blue sky and shining sun, and all the patients are enjoying it. It is still very cold, and there is a little snow about. They call their goatskin coats "Teddy Bears." One very ill boy, wounded in the lungs, who was put off at Abbeville, was wailing, "Where's my Mary Box?" as his stretcher went out of the window. We found it, and he was happy.