Part 36

FESTUBERT, MAY 9 AND MAY 16

May 6, 1915, to May 26, 1915

"We have built a house that is not for Time's throwing; We have gained a peace unshaken by pain for ever. War knows no power. Safe shall be my going, Secretly armed against all death's endeavour. Safe though all safety's lost; safe where men fall; And if these poor limbs die, safest of all."

--RUPERT BROOKE.

With No.-- Field Ambulance (2).

FESTUBERT, MAY 9 AND MAY 16.

May 6, 1915, to May 26, 1915.

The noise of war--Preparation--Sunday, May 9--The barge--The officers' dressing station--Charge of the Black Watch, May 9--Festubert, May 16--The French Hospital--A bad night--Shelled out--Back at a Clearing Hospital--"For duty at a Base Hospital."

Thursday, May 6th, 3 A.M.--It was a very noisy day, and I didn't sleep after 2 P.M. There is a good lot of firing going on to-night.

A very muddy officer of 6 ft. 4 was brought in early yesterday morning with a broken leg, and it is a hard job to get him comfortable in these short beds.

Yesterday at 4 A.M. I couldn't resist invading the garden opposite which is the R.A. Headquarters. It is full of lovely trees and flowers and birds. I found a blackbird's nest with one egg in. From the upper windows of this place it makes a perfect picture, with the peculiarly beautiful tower of the Cathedral as a background.

Friday, May 7th, 1 A.M.--The noise is worse than anywhere in London, even the King's Road. The din that a column of horse-drawn, bolt-rattling waggons make over cobbles is literally deafening; you can't hear each other speak. And the big motor-lorries taking the "munitions of war" up are almost as bad. These processions alternate with marching troops, clattering horses, and French engines all day, and very often all night, and in the middle of it all there are the guns. Tonight the rifle firing is crackling.

Sir John French and Sir Douglas Haig have been up here to-day, and every one is telling every one else when the great Attack is going to begin.

There are three field ambulances up here, and only work for two ( --th and --th), so the --th is established in a huge school for 500 boys, where it runs a great laundry and bathing establishment. A thousand men a day come in for bath, disinfection, and clean clothes; 100 French women do the laundry work in huge tubs, and there are big disinfectors and drying and ironing rooms. The men of the F.A. do the sorting and all the work except the washing and ironing. And the beautifully-cared-for English cart-horses that belong to the F.A., and the waggons and the motor ambulances and the equipment, are all kept ready to move at a moment's notice.

Colonel ---- showed me all over it this evening. It is done at a cost to the Government of 7d. per man, washed and clothed.

My blackbird has laid another egg.

Friday, May 7th, 10 P.M.--A pitch-dark night, raining a little, and only one topic--the Attack to-morrow morning.

The first R.A.M.C. barge has come up, and is lying in the canal ready to take on the cases of wounds of lung and abdomen, to save the jolting of road and railway; it is to have two Sisters, but I haven't seen them yet: shall go in the morning: went round this morning to see, but the barge hadn't arrived.

There are a few sick officers downstairs who are finding it hard to stick in their beds, with their regiments in this job close by. There is a house close by which I saw this morning with a dirty little red flag with a black cross on it, where the C.-in-C. and thirty commanders of the 1st Army met yesterday.

The news to-day of Hill 60 and the gases is another spur to the grim resolve to break through here, that can be felt and seen and heard in every detail of every arm. "Grandmother" is lovingly talked about.

The town, the roads, and the canal banks this morning were so packed with men, waggons, horses, bales, and lorries, that you could barely pick your way between them.

Since writing this an aeroplane has been circling over us with a loud buzz. The sergeant called up to me to put the lights out. We saw her light. There is much speculation as to who and what she was; she was not big enough for our big "'Bus," as she is called, who belongs to this place. No one seems ever to have seen one here at night before.

We are making flannel masks for the C.O. for our men.

Our fat little Gabrielle makes the most priceless soup out of the ration beef (which none of us are any good at) and carrots. She mothers us each individually, and cleans the house and keeps her wee kitchen spotless.

4 A.M.--The 9.2's are just beginning to talk.

Here is a true story. One of our trenches at Givenchy was being pounded by German shells at the time of N. Ch. A man saw his brother killed on one side of him and another man on the other. He went on shooting over the parapet; then the parapet got knocked about, and still he wasn't hit. He seized his brother's body and the other man's and built them up into the parapet with sandbags, and went on shooting.

When the stress was over and he could leave off, he looked round and saw what he was leaning against. "Who did that?" he said. And they told him.

They get awfully sick at the big-print headlines in some of the papers--"The Hill 60 Thrill"!