Part 33

We have been busy in the ward all the morning. I'm off 2-5, and shall soon go out and take E.'s chocolate Easter eggs to the men in the hospice. The officers have any amount of cigarettes, chocs., novels, and newspapers.

A woman came and wept this morning with my billeter over their two sons, who are prisoners, not receiving the parcels of tabac and pain and gateaux that they send. They think we ought to starve the German prisoners to death!

This morning in the ward I suddenly found it full of Gold Hats and Red Tabs; three Generals and their A.D.C.'s visiting the sick officers.

Easter Monday.--It is a pouring wet day, and the mud is Flanderish. Never was there such mud anywhere else. A gunner-major has just been telling me you get a fine view of the German positions from the Cathedral tower here, and can see shells bursting like the pictures in 'The Sphere.' He said his guns had the job of peppering La Bassee the last time they shelled this place, and they gave it such a dusting that this place has been let severely alone since. He thinks they'll have another go at this when we begin to get hold of La Bassee, but the latter is a very strong position. It begins to be "unhealthy" to get into any of the villages about three miles from here, which are all heaps of bricks now.

I'm leaving my billet to-morrow, as they want us to be in one house. And our house is the Maire's Chateau, the palatial one, so we shall live in the lap of luxury as never before in this country! And have hot baths with eau-de-Cologne every night, or cold every morning. And the woman is going to faire our cuisine there for us, so we shan't have to wait hours in the cafe for our meals. There is only one waiter at the cafe, who is a beautiful, composed, wrapt, silent girl of 16, who will soon be dead of overwork. She is not merely pretty, but beautiful, with the manners of a princess!

I shall be glad to get away from my too kind billeters; every night I have to sit and causer before going to bed, and Ma-billeter watches me in and out of bed, and tells me my nightgown is tres pratique, and just like the officers Anglais have. But she calls me with a lovely cup of coffee in the morning. They've been so kind that I dread telling them I've got to go.

An officer was brought in during the night with a compound-fractured arm. He stuck a very painful dressing like a brick to-day, and said to me afterwards, "I've got three kids at home; they'll be awfully bucked over this!" He had said it was "nothing to write home about."

Another, who is chaffing everybody all day long, was awfully impressed because a man in his company--I mean platoon--who had half his leg blown off, said when they came to pick him up, "Never mind me--take so-and-so first"--"just like those chaps you read of in books, you know." It was decided that he meant Sir Philip Sidney.

Yesterday afternoon I had a lovely time taking round chocolate Easter eggs to our wounded in the French hospital. The sweetest, merriest Ma-Soeur took me round, and insisted on all the orderlies having one too. They adore her, and stand up and salute when she comes into the ward; and we had enough for the jeunes filles and the grannies in the women's ward of blessees. They were a huge success. Those men get very few treats. She also showed me the Maternity Ward.

Tuesday, April 6th, 10 P.M.--I am writing in bed in my lovely little room overlooking the garden, and facing some nice red roofs and both the old Towers of the town (one dating from le temps des Espagnols) in le Chateau, instead of in my attic in the narrow street where you heard the tramp of the men who viennent des tranches in the night. We had a lovely dinner, served by the fat and tres aimable Marie in a small, panelled dining-room, with old oak chairs and real silver spoons (the first I've met since August). So don't waste any pity for the hardships of War! And an officer with a temperature of 103 deg. explained that he'd been sleeping for sixteen days on damp sandbags "among the dead Germans."

Nothing coming in anywhere, but when it does begin we shall get them.

The A.D.M.S. is going to arrange for us to go up with one of his motor ambulances to one of the advance dressing stations where the first communication trench begins! It is at the corner of a road called "Harley Street," which he says is "too unhealthy," where I mayn't be taken. Won't it be thrilling to see it all?

Officers' "trench talk" is exactly like the men's, only in a different language.

It has been wet and windy again, so I did not explore when I was off this afternoon, but did my unpacking and settling in here. With so many moves I have got my belongings into a high state of mobilisation, and it doesn't take long.

Last night at the cafe, one of the despatch riders played Chopin, Tchaikowsky, and Elgar like a professional. It was jolly. The officers are awfully nice to do with on the whole.

Wednesday, April 7th. In bed, 10.30 P.M.--It has been a lovely day after last night's and yesterday's heavy rain. We are busy all day admitting and evacuating officers. The lung one had to be got ready in a hurry this morning, and Mr L. took him down specially to the train.

A very nice Brigade-Major came in, in the night, with a shell wound in the shoulder. This morning a great jagged piece was dug out, with only a local anaesthetic, and he stuck it like a brick, humming a tune when it became unbearable and gripping on to my hand.

I was off at 5 P.M., and went to dig out Marie Therese from my old billet, to come with me to Beuvry, the village about two and a half miles away that was shelled last week; it is about half-way to the trenches from here. It was a lovely sunsetty evening, and there was a huge stretch of view, but it was not clear enough to make anything out of the German line. She has a tante and a grandmere there, and has a "laisser-passer soigner une tante malade" which she has to show to the sentry at the bridge. I get through without. The tante is not at all malade--she is a cheery old lady who met us on the road. M.T. pointed me out all the shell holes. We met and passed an unending stream of khaki, the men marching back from their four days in the trenches, infant officers and all steadily trudging on with the same coating of mud from head to foot, packs and rifles carried anyhow, and the Trench Look, which can never be described, and which is grim to the last degree. Each lot had a tail of limping stragglers in ones and twos and threes. I talked to some of these, and they said they'd had a very "rough" night last night--pouring rain--water up to their knees, and standing to all night expecting an attack which didn't come off; but some mines had been exploded meant for their trench, but luckily they were ten yards out in their calculations, and they only got smothered instead of blown to bits. And they were sticking all this while we were snoring in our horrible, warm, soft beds only a few miles away. We went on past some of the famous brick stacks through the funny little village full of billets to the church, where le Salut was going on. We passed a dressing station of No.-- Field Ambulance. The grandmere had two sergeants billeted with her who seemed pleased to have a friendly chat. Some of the men I said good-night to were so surprised (not knowing our grey coat and hat), I heard them say to each other "English!" Marie Therese simply adores the Anglais--they are so gais, such bon courage, they laugh always and sing--and they have "beaucoup de fiancees francaises pour passer le temps!" She told me they had yesterday a boy of eighteen who was always triste, but bien poli, and he knows six languages and comes from the University of London. When he left for the trenches he said, "Je vais a la mort," but he has promised to come and see them on Saturday or Sunday, "s'il n'est pas mort, ou blesse," she said, as an afterthought. Her own young man is a la Guerre, and she is making her trousseau. They do beautiful embroidery on linen.

I was pretty tired when we got back at 8 o'clock, as it was a good five-mile walk, part of the way on fiendish cobble-stones, and we are on our feet all day at the Dressing Station. But I am very fit, and all the better for the excellent fresh food we have here. No more tins of anything, thank goodness!

Thursday, April 8th.--Talking of billets, a General and his Staff are coming to this Chateau to-morrow and we three have got to turn out, possibly to a house opposite on the same square, which is empty. We live in terror of unknown Powers-that-Be suddenly sending us down. The C.O. and every one here are very keen that we should be as comfortably billeted as possible. He said to-day, "Later on you may get an awful place to live in." Of course we are aiming at becoming quite indispensable! If you can once get your Medical Officers to depend on you for having everything they want at hand, and for making the patients happy and contented, and the orderlies in good order, they soon get to think they can't do without you.

There are two nice tea-shops where all the officers of the 1st and 2nd Divisions go and have tea.

On Saturday morning they sent three hundred shells into Cuinchy, in revenge for their trench blown up (see to-day's Communique from Sir J.F.).

Friday, April 9th, 10.30 P.M.--An empty house was found for us on the same square, left exactly as it was when the owners left when the place was shelled. It was filthy from top to toe, but we have found a girl called Gabrielle to be our servant, and she has made a good start in the cleaning to-day. There are three bedrooms--mine is a funny little one built out at the back, down three steps, with two windows overlooking a corner of the square and our road past the hospital.

It is my fourth billet here in a week, and Gabrielle and I have made it quite habitable by collecting things from other parts of the house. We are back in our own rugs and blankets again without sheets, and there is no water on yet, but we filled our hot-water bottles at the hospital, and are quite warm and cosy, and locked up--I shall have to let Gabrielle in at 6.30 to-morrow morning. She is going to shop and cook for us, with help from the kind Marie at the Chateau, who is aghast at our present more military mode of living. The Chateau is now swarming with Staff Officers, to whom Marie pays far less attention than she does to us!

When the wind is in the right direction you can hear the rifle firing as well as the guns--and they are often shelling aeroplanes on a fine day. We have two bad cases in to-night--one wounded in the lung, and one medical transferred from downstairs, where the slight medicals are.

A Captain of the ----, hit in the back this morning when he was crossing in the open to visit a post in his trench, has a little freckled Jock for his servant, who dashed out to bring him in when he fell. "Most gallant, you know," he said. They adore each other. Jock stands to attention, salutes, and says "Yes'm" when I gave him an order. Their friends troop in to see them as soon as they hear they're hit. So many seem to have been wounded before--nearly all, in fact.

Letters are coming in very irregularly, I don't quite know why.

Saturday, April 10th, 10.30 P.M.--It is difficult to settle down to sleep to-night: the sky is lit up with flashes and star-shells, and every now and then a big bang shakes the house, above the almost continuous thud, thudding, and the barking of the machine-guns and the crackling of rifle firing; they are bringing in more to-day, both here and at the Hospice, and we are tired enough to go to sleep as if we were at home; I shouldn't wonder if the Night Sister had a busy night.