Part 32

Good Friday and Easter, 1915--The Maire's Chateau--A walk to Beuvry--The new billet--The guns--A Taube--The Back of the Front--A soldier's funeral--German Machine-guns--Gas fumes--The Second Battle of Ypres.

Good Friday, April 2nd.--We got into Boulogne on Wednesday from Sotteville at 5 P.M., and as soon as the train pulled up a new Sister turned up "to replace Sister ----," so I prepared for the worst and fully expected to be sent to Havre or Etretat or Rouen, and began to tackle my six and a half months' accumulation of belongings. In the middle of this Miss ---- from the Matron-in-Chief arrived with my Movement Orders "to proceed forthwith to report to the O.C. of No.-- Field Ambulance for duty," so hell became heaven, and here I am at railhead waiting for a motor ambulance to take me and my baggage to No.-- F.A. wherever it is to be found.

The Railway Transport Officer at Boulogne let me come up as far as St Omer (or rather the next waiting place beyond), on No.-- A.T., and get sent on by the R.T.O. there. We waited there all yesterday, lovely sunny day, and in the evening the R.T.O. sent me on in a supply train which was going to the railhead for No.-- F.A. The officer in charge of it was very kind, and turned out of his carriage for me into his servant's, and apologised for not having cleared out every scrap of his belongings. The Mess of No.-- saw me off, with many farewell jokes and witticisms.

This supply train brings up one day's rations to the 1st Corps from Havre, and takes a week to do it there and back. This happens daily for one corps alone, so you can imagine the work of the A.S.C. at Havre. At railhead he is no longer responsible for his stuff when the lorries arrive and take up their positions end on with the trucks. They unload and check it, and it is done in four hours. That part of it is now going on.

When we got to railhead at 10.15 P.M. the R.T.O. said it was too late to communicate with the Field Ambulance, and so I slept peacefully in the officer's bunk with my own rugs and cushion. We had tea about 9 P.M. I had had dinner on No.--.

This morning the first thing I saw was No.-- A.T. slumbering in the sun on the opposite line, so I might just as well have come up in her, except that there was another Sister in my bed.

After a sketchy wash in the supply train, and a cup of early tea from the officer's servant, I packed up and went across to No.-- for breakfast; many jeers at my having got the sack so soon.

The R.T.O. has just been along to say that Major ---- of No.-- Clearing Hospital here will send me along in one of his motor ambulances.

11 A.M.--Had an interesting drive here in the M.A. through a village packed with men billeted in barns and empty houses--the usual aeroplane buzzing overhead, and a large motor ambulance convoy by the wayside.

We are in the town itself, and the building is labelled No.-- F.A. Dressing Station for Officers. The men are in a French Civil Hospital run very well by French nuns, and it has been decided to keep the French and English nurses quite separate, so the only difference between the two hospitals is that the one for the men has French Sisters, with R.A.M.C. orderlies and M.O.'s, and the other for officers has English Sisters, with R.A.M.C. orderlies and M.O.'s. There are forty-seven beds here (all officers). One Army Sister in charge, myself next, and two staff nurses--one on night duty. There are two floors; I shall have charge of the top floor.

We are billeted out, but I believe mess in the hospital.

All this belongs to the French Red Cross, and is lent to us.

The surgical outfit is much more primitive even than on the train, as F.A.'s may carry so little. The operating theatre is at the other hospital.

As far as I can see at present we don't have the worst cases here, except in a rush like Neuve Chapelle.

It will be funny to sleep in a comfortable French bed in an ordinary bedroom again. It will be rather like Le Mans over again, with a billet to live in, and officers to look after, but I shall miss the Jocks and the others.

Later.--Generals and "Red Hats" simply bristle around. A collection of them has just been in visiting the sick officers. We had a big Good Friday service at 11, and there is another at 6 P.M. The Bishop of London is coming round to-day.

Still Good Friday, 10 P.M.--Who said Active Service? I am writing this in a wonderful mahogany bed, with a red satin quilt, in a panelled room, with the sort of furniture drawing-rooms have on the stage, and electric light, and medallions and bronzes, and oil-paintings and old engravings, and blue china and mirrors all about. It is a huge house like a Chateau, on the Place, where Generals and officers are usually billeted. The fat and smiling caretaker says she's had two hundred since the war. She insisted on pouring eau-de-Cologne into my hot bath. It is really a lovely house, with polished floors and huge tapestry pictures up the staircase. And all this well within range of the German guns. After last night, in the A.S.C officer's kind but musty little chilly second-class carriage, it is somewhat of a change. And I hadn't had my clothes off for three days and two nights. This billet is only for one night; to-morrow I expect I shall be in some grubby little room near by. It has taken the Town Commandant, the O.C. of No.-- F.A., a French interpreter, and an R.H.A. officer and several N.C.O.'s and orderlies, to find me a billet--the town is already packed tight, and they have to continue the search to-morrow.

This afternoon I went all over the big French hospital where our men are. The French nuns were charming, and it was all very nice. The women's ward is full of women and girls blessees by shells, some with a leg off and fractured--all very cheerful.

One shell the other day killed thirty-one and wounded twenty-seven--all Indians.

I am not to start work till to-morrow, as the wards are very light; nearly all the officers up part of the day, so at 6 P.M. I went to the Bishop of London's mission service in the theatre. A staff officer on the steps told me to go to the left of the front row (where all the red hats and gold hats sit), but I funked that and sat modestly in the last row of officers. There were about a hundred officers there, and a huge solid pack of men; no other woman at all. The Bishop, looking very white and tired but very happy, took the service on the stage, where a Padre was thumping the hymns on the harmonium (which shuts up into a sort of matchbox). It was a voluntary service, and you know the nearer they are to the firing line the more they go to church. It was extraordinarily moving. The Padre read a sort of liturgy for the war taken from the Russians, far finer than any of ours; we had printed papers, and the response was "Lord, have mercy," or "Grant this, O Lord." It came each time like bass clockwork.

Troops are just marching by in the dark. Hundreds passed the hospital this afternoon. I must go to sleep.

The Bishop dashed in to see our sick officers here, and then motored off to dine with the Quartermaster-General. He's had great services with the cavalry and every other brigade.

Easter Eve, 10 P.M.--Have been on duty all day till 5 P.M. They are nearly all "evacuated" in a few days, so you are always getting a fresh lot in.

Another Army Sister turned up to-day in a motor from Poperinghe to take the place of the two who were originally here, who have now gone.

At six this morning big guns were doing their Morning Hate very close to us, but they have been quiet all day. Two days ago the village two and a half miles south-east of us was shelled.

I found my own new billet this morning before going on duty; it is in a very old little house over a shop in a street off the big Place. It is a sort of attic, and I am not dead sure whether it is clean on top and lively underneath, but time will show. The shop lady and her daughter Maria Therese are full of zeal and kindness to make me comfortable, but they stayed two hours watching me unpack and making themselves agreeable! And when I came in from dinner from the cafe, where we now have our meals (quite decent), she and papa and M.T. drew up a chair for me to causer in their parlour, to my horror.

At 8 P.M. the town suddenly goes out like a candle; all lights are put out and the street suddenly empty. After that, at intervals, only motorcyclists buzz through and regiments tramp past going back to billets. They sound more warlike than anything. Such a lot are going by now.

Easter Sunday, 3 P.M.--The service at 7 this morning in the theatre was rather wonderful. Rows of officers and packs of men.