menu_book Chapter 5

V. Diary of a Nursing Sister on the Western Front, 1914-1915. on the Western Front 1914-1915 by Anonymous. Chapter 5. On Number Ambulance Train 3. British and Indians. November 18, 1914 to December 17, 1914. Because of you we will be glad and gay. Remembering you we will be brave and strong, and hail the advent of each dangerous day, and meet the great adventure with a song.

From a poem on J.G. The Boulogne Siding, Saint-Omer, Indian soldiers, His Majesty King George, Lancashire men on the war, Hasbrook, Béleuil, French engine drivers, sheepskin coats a village in northeast france headquarters wednesday november 18th 2 p.m at last reached beautiful rouen through saint-juste beauvais and up to sergou and down to rouen from

sergou through rouen to havre is supposed to be the most beautiful train journey in france which is saying a good deal. Put off some more bad cases here. A boy sergeant, aged twenty-four, may save his eye and general blood poisoning if he gets irrigated quickly. You can watch them going wrong with two days and two nights on the train, and it seems such hard luck. And then if you don't write urgent or immediate on their bandages in blue pencil, they get overlooked

in the rush into hospital when they are landed so funny to be going back to old havre that hot torrid nightmare of waiting for orders in august but thank heaven we don't stop there but back to the guns again five p m we are getting on for havre at last this long journey from belgium down to havre has been a strange mixture glorious country with the flame and blue haze of late autumn on hills towns and valleys bare beech woods with hot red carpets glorious british army lying broken in the train sleep or the chance of it three hours one night and four the next with all the hours between except meals hard work putting the british army together again haven't taken off my puttees since sunday seems funny four hundred people of whom four are women and about sixty are sound all whirling through france by special train why because of the swelled head of the all-highest we had a boy with no wound suffering from shock from shell-bursts when he came round if you asked him his name he would look fixedly at you and say yes

if you asked him something else with great effort he said mother eight p m got to havre wednesday eighteenth november six p m sotteville near rouen this afternoon's up journey between havre and rouen has been a stripe of pure bliss with no war about it at all a brilliant dazzling day which our island couldn't do if it tried in november rugs coat and cushion on your bed and the most heavenly view unrolling itself before you without lifting your head to see it ending up with the lights of rouen twinkling in the smoke of the factory chimneys under a flaring red sunset we are to stop here for repairs to the train chauffage electric light water supply and gas all to be done then we shall be a very smart train the electric light and the heating will be the greatest help a chapel and a bath-room i should like added at havre last night the train ran into the gare maritime where we left in the asturias for st nazaire early in september which is immediately under the great place that no general hospital bagged for their hospital in august

i ran up and saw it all it is absolutely first-class there were our people off the train in lovely beds in huge wards with six rows of beds clean sheets electric light hot food and all the medical officers sisters and nursing orderlies in white overalls hard at work on them orderlies removing their boots and clothing where we hadn't done it we leave as much on as we can now because of the cold sisters washing them and settling them in and with the m o doing their dressings all as busy as bees only stopping to say to us aren't they brave they said we'd brought them an awfully bad lot and we said we shed all the worst on the way they don't realize that by the time they get to the base these men are beyond complaining each stage is a little less infernal to them than the one they've left and instead of complaining they tell you how lovely it is it made one realize the grimness of our stage in it

the emergencies the makeshifts and the little four can do for nearly four hundred in a train with their greatest output we each had eighty lying-down cases this journey we got to bed at eleven and didn't wake till nearly nine to the sound of the number G. H. Bugle. Come to the cookhouse door, boys. Thursday, November 19th. Spent the day in a wilderness of railway lines at Sautville. Sharp frost. Walk up and down the lines all morning, horizon bounded by fog. This afternoon, raw, wet, snowing, slush outside. If it is so deadly cold on this unheated train, what do they do in the trenches with practically the same equipment they

came out with in August. Can't last like that. Makes you feel a pig to have a big coat and hot meals and dry feet. I've made a fine footmuff with a brown blanket. It is twelve thicknesses sewn together. Have still got only summer underclothing. My winter things have been sent on from Avre, but the parcel has not yet reached me. Hope the footmuff will ward off chillblains. Got a daily mail of yesterday. We heard of the smash-up of the Prussian guard from the people

who did it, and had some of the P.G. on our train. Ypres is said to be full of German wounded, who will very likely come to us. Friday, November 20th, 10 a.m., Boulogne, Deep Snow. Boulogne, Saturday, November 21st. In the siding all day yesterday and today. Train to be cut down from 650 tons to 450, so we are reconstructing and putting off wagons. It will reduce our number of patients, but we shall be able to do more for a smaller number,

and the train will travel better, and not waste time blocking up the stations and being left in sidings in consequence. The cold this week has been absolutely awful. The last train brought almost entirely cases of rheumatism. their only hope at the front must be hot meals and i expect the army service corps sees that they get them somehow a troop train of a very rough type of glasgow men reinforcing the highlanders was alongside of us early yesterday morning each truck had a roaring fire of coke in a pail they were in roaring spirits it was icy cold my winter things arrived from havre yesterday so i am better equipped against the cold

also this morning an engine gave us an hour or two's chauffage just at getting up time which was a help sunday november twenty second left boulogne early this morning and got to merville about midday loaded up and got back to boulogne in the night many wounded germans and a good lot of our sick knocked over by the cold i don't know how any of them stick it five bombs were dropped the day before where we were to-day and an old man was killed things are being badly given away by spies even of other nationalities some men were sleeping in a cellar at ypres to avoid the bombardment with some refugees in the night they missed two of them they were found on the roof signalling to the germans with flashlights in the morning they paid the penalty the frost has not broken and it is still bitterly cold tuesday november twenty fourth was up all sunday night unloaded early at boulogne had a bath on a ship and went to bed stayed in siding all day wednesday november twenty fifth left boulogne about nine-thirty last night at dinner our charming debonair french garcon was very drunk and spilt the soup all over me there was a great scene in french

the fat fatherly corporal who has a face and expression exactly like the florentine people in girlon d'yo's nativities and who has the manners of a french aristocrat on his way to the guillotine tried to control him but it ended in a sort of fight and poor charles got the sack in the end and has been sent back to paris to join his regiment he was awfully good to us sisters used to make us coffee in the night and fill our hot bottles and give us hot bricks for our feet at meals just going on now to a place we've not been before called choc the french have to-day given us an engine with the red cross on it and an extra man to attend to the chauffage so we have been quite warm and lovely we ply him at the stations with cigarettes and chocolate and he now falls over himself in his anxiety to please us the officers of the two divisions which are having a rest have got one hundred hours leave in turns we all now spend hours mapping out how much we could get at home in one hundred hours from boulogne wednesday november twenty fifth arrived at eleven p m last night at a godforsaken little place about eight miles from the firing line

found a very depressed major taking a most gloomy view of life and the war in charge of indians pitch dark night and they were a mile away from the station so we went to bed at twelve and loaded up at seven thirty this morning all indians mostly badly wounded they are such pathetic babies just as inarticulate to us and crying as if it was a creche i've done a great trade in hindustani picked up at a desperate pace from a hindu officer to-day if you write it down you can soon learn it and i've got all the necessary medical jargon now you read it off and then spout it without looking at your notebook the awkward part is when they answer something you haven't got the germans are using sort of steam plows for cutting trenches the frost has broken thank goodness the hindoo officer said the cold was more than they bargained for but they were very very glad to fight for england he thought the germans were putting up a very good show there have been a great many particularly ghastly wounds from hand grenades in the trenches we have made a very good journey down and expect to unload this evening as we are just getting into boulogne at six thirty p m thursday november twenty sixth

we did a record yesterday loaded up with the indians full load bad cases quite a heavy day back to boulogne and unloaded by nine p m and off again at eleven thirty p m no waiting in the siding this time three hospital ships were waiting this side to cross by daylight they can't cross now by night because of enemy torpedoes so all the hospitals were full again and the trains were taking their loads on to rouen and havre we should have had to if they hadn't been indians we loaded up to-day at baylul where we have been before headquarters of third and fourth divisions we had some time to wait there before loading up so went into the town and saw the cathedral beautiful old tower hideously restored inside but very big and well kept the town was very interesting sentries up the streets every hundred yards or so the usual square packed with transport and the usual jostle of tommies and staff officers and motor cars and lorries we saw general french go through

the surgeon general had been there yesterday and five sisters are to be sent up to each of the two clearing hospitals there they should have an exciting time a bomb was dropped straight on to the hospital two days ago killed one wounded man blew both hands off one orderly and wounded another the airman was caught and said he was very sorry he dropped it on the hospital he meant it for headquarters we have a lot of cases of frost-bite on the train one is as bad as in scott's expedition may have to have his foot amputated i'd never seen it before they are nearly all slight medical cases very few wounded which makes a very light load from the point of view of work but we shall have them on the train all night one of us is doing all the train half the night and another all the train the other half the other two go to bed all night i am one of these as i have got a bit of a throat and have been sent to bed early we've never had a light enough load for one to do the whole train before the men say things are very quiet at the front just now is it the weather or the russian advance great amusement to-day major p got left behind at hasabrook talking to the rail transport officer

but scored off us by catching us up at st omer on an engine which he collared saturday november twenty eighth sunny and much milder we came up in the night last night to st omer and have not taken any sick on yet there seems to be only medical cases about just now which is a blessed relief to think of they are inevitable in the winter here or at home the major has gone up to popering with one carriage to fetch six badly wounded officers and four men who were left there the other day when the french took the place over i was just getting cigarettes for an upcoming train of field kitchens and guns out of your parcel when it began to move the men on each truck stood ready and caught the packets as eagerly as if they'd been diamonds as i threw them in for my train it was a great game only two went on the ground the surprise i suppose is in the round tin we are keeping it for a lean day

six p m we are just coming to chouk for indians again not far from armentier so i am looking up my hindostani conversation again on friday the day between these two journeys sister n and i got a motor ambulance from the t o and whirled off to wimmera in it it is a lovely place on the sea about three miles off now with every hotel casino and school taken up by r a m c base hospitals it was a lovely blue morning and i went right out to the last rock on the sands and watched the breakers while sister n attended to some business it was glorious after the everlasting railway carriage atmosphere then we found a very nice old church in the town it is too wet to load up with the indians to-night so we have the night in bed and take them down to-morrow

a sergeant of the tenth hussars told me he was in a house with some supposed belgian refugees he noticed that when a little bell near the ceiling rang one of them always dashed upstairs he put a man upstairs to trace this bell and intercept the belgian it was connected with the little trap-door of a pigeon house when a pigeon came in with a message this door rang the bell and they went up and got the message they didn't reckon on having british in the house they were shot next morning it takes me a month to read a sevenpenny out here sunday advent november twenty ninth on the way down from shok we have got indians british and eight germans this time one big handsome dignified mussulman wouldn't eat his biscuit because he was in the same compartment as a hindu and the hindu wouldn't eat his because the mussulman had handed it to him the babu i called in to interpret was very angry with both and called the mussulman a fool man and explained to us that he was telling them that in england

don't care mussulman don't care hindu only in hindustan and that if the captain sahib said eat it was hukum and they'd got to my sympathies were with the beautiful polite sad-looking mussulman who wouldn't budge an inch and only salaamed when the babu went for him monday november thirtieth boulogne yesterday a wounded tommy on the train told me the jack johnsons have all gone to-day's french communique says the enemy's heavy artillery is little in evidence there is a less strained feeling about everywhere a most blessed lull we were late getting our load off the train last night and some were very bad one of my six with pneumonia did not live to reach boulogne another pneumonia was very miserable and kept saying hindustan gurum england they all think they are in england the gurkhas are supposed by the orderlies to be japanese they are exactly like japs only brown instead of yellow the orderlies make great friends with them all one hindu was singing bonny dundee to them in a little gentle voice very much out of tune

their great disadvantage is that they are alive with jack johnson's not the gun's they take off all their underclothes and throw them out of the window and we have to keep supplying them with pajamas and shirts they sit and stand about naked scratching for dear life it is fatal for the train because all the cushioned seats are now infected and so are we i love them dearly but it is a big price to pay tuesday december first we are to-day in a beautiful high embankment at wimere three miles from boulogne right on the sea and have been dry docked there till three p m when we have just started for while endless trains of men and guns have gone up past us His Majesty King George was in the restaurant car of one of them. We have been out all the morning, down to the grey and rolling sea, and have been celebrating

December 1st by sitting on the embankment reading back numbers of the Times, and one of the colour sergeants and I have been painting enormous red crosses on the train. Punch comes regularly now, and is devoured by our mess. We are very like the Apostles and share everything from cakes and spheres to remedies for Jack Johnson's. Bread and butter doesn't happen, alas.

6.30 p.m. We've just caught up H.M. King George's train at St. Omer, but he is evidently out dining with Sir John French. We are just alongside. He has red and blue curtains lining the bridges to keep his royal khaki shoulders from getting smutty. his chef has a gray beard he is with poincare wednesday december second we got to choc very late last night and are loading up this morning but only a few here we shall stop at lille and take more on

we went for our usual exploring walk through seas of mud there are more big motor lorries here than i've seen anywhere we wandered past a place where indians were busy killing and skinning goats a horrible sight to one of these chateaux where the staff officers have their headquarters it was a lovely house in a very clean park there was a children's swing under the trees and we had some fine swings later officers have been on the train on both places begging for newspapers and books we save up our punches and daily mails and times for them and give them any seven pennies we have to spare they say at least forty people read each book and they finish up in the trenches h m king george was up here yesterday afternoon in a motor and gave three victoria crosses we have only taken on eighty-three at the two places there is so little doing anywhere no guns have been heard for several days and there is not much sickness an officer asked for some mufflers for his field ambulance men so i gave him the rest of the children's the sailors on the armored train had the first half he came back with some pairs for us

they are so awfully grateful for the things we give them that they are like to bring us something in exchange seven men off a passing truck fell over each other getting writing cases and chocolate to-day they almost eat the riding cases with their joy nine p m we filled up at st omer from the three hospitals there a great many cases of frost-bite were put on they crawl on hands and knees poor dears some left in hospital are very severe and have had to be amputated below the knee some of the toes drop off i have one carriage of twenty-four indians a sikh refused to sit in the same seat with a stout little major of the gurkhas i showed him a picture of bobs and he said at once robert sahib they love the daily mirrors with pictures of indians the sikhs are rather whiny patients and very hard to please but the little gurkhas are absolute stoics and the bengal lancers who are mohammedans are splendid thursday december third we kept our load on all night as we got in very late i went to bed ten twenty a m and then took all the train unloaded directly after breakfast

some men from lancashire were rather interesting on the war they thought it would do europe so much good in the long run and the french might try and get their own back when they get into germany but the british is too tender-hearted to do them things they arranged that belgium should have berlin they all get very pitiful over the belgian homes and desolation it seems to upset them much more than their own horrors in the trenches a good deal of the fighting they talk about as if it was an exciting sort of football match full of sells and tricks and chances they roar with laughter at some of their escapes there was no hospital ship in which spells a bath or no bath to me but i tramped round the town till i found a hotel which kindly supplied a fine bath for one seventy five and i found another and nicer english church and a roman catholic one grand mail when i came in from home friday december fourth had a busy day loading at three places just going to turn in as i have to be up at two a m we shall have the patients on all night it is a fearful night pouring and blowing

we have taken a tall white-haired padre up with us this time he wanted a trip to the front we happened to go to a place we hadn't been to before in a coal-mining district while we loaded he marched off to explore and was very pleased at finding a well-shelled village and an unexploded shell stuck in a tree it specially seemed to please him to find a church he has enjoyed talking to the crowds of men on the train on the way down he lives and messes with us we opened the herod's cake to-day it is a beauty the men were awfully pleased with the bull's-eyes said they hadn't tasted a sweet for four months one of the color sergeants has just dug me out to see some terrific flashes away over the channel which he thinks is a naval battle i think it is lightning it was the gale is terrific must be giving the ships a-doing saturday december fifth seven a m we had a long stop on an embankment in the night and at last the chef de gare from the next station came along the line and found both the french guards rolled up asleep and the engine-driver therefore hung up

then he ran out of coal and couldn't pull the train up the hill so we had another four hours wait while another engine was sent for got into boulogne at six a m bitterly cold and wet and no chauffage sunday december sixth a brilliant frosty day on way up to baileuil we unloaded early at boulogne yesterday and waited at a good place half-way between boulogne and calais a high down not far from the sea with a splendid air some of the others went for a walk as we had no engine on but i had been up since two a m and have hatched another bad cold and so retired for a sleep till tea-time just got to hasabruck ten men and three women were killed and twenty wounded here this morning by a bomb they are very keen on getting a good bag here especially on the station and for other reasons as it is an important junction four p m we have been up to bailleul and there were no patients for us so we are to go back to the above bomb place to collect theirs bailleul was packed with pale war-worn dirty but cheerful french troops and training for their front

they have been all through everything and say they want to go on and get it finished they carry fearful loads including an extra pair of boots a whole collection of frying-pans and things and blankets picks etc all on their backs the british officers on the station came and grabbed our yesterday's daily mails and asked for soap so what you sent came in handy they went into the town to buy grapes for us in return this place is famous for grapes huge monster purple ones but the train went out before they came back we had got some earlier though nine p m we are nearly back at boulogne and haven't taken up any sick or wounded anywhere one of the trains has taken indians from boulogne down to marseilles several days journey monday december seventh pouring wet day still standing by nothing doing anywhere it is a blessed relief to know that and the rest does no one any harm had a grand mail to-day there is a heart-breaking account of my beautiful ypres on page eight of december first times there was a cavalry officer looking round the cathedral with me that day the guns were banging

i often wonder where the belgian woman is who showed me the way and wanted my south africa ribbons as a souvenir she showed me a huge old painting on the wall of the cathedral of ypres in an earlier war i all but got left in boulogne to-day we are dry docked about five miles out not far from embleteuse it was bad luck not seeing the king we caught him up at st omer and saw his train and from there he motored in front of us to all our places where we went they said the king was here yesterday and gave feces we haven't seen the damned good boy either tuesday december eighth got up to baileaule by eleven a m and had a good walk on the line waiting to load up glorious morning aeroplanes buzzing overhead like bees and dropping colored signals about only filled up my half of the train both wounded and sick including some very bad an officer in the trenches sent a man on a horse to get some papers from us luckily i had a batch of the times spectator and punches we have come down very quickly and hope to unload to-night nine thirty

wednesday december ninth in sighting at boulogne all day pouring wet thursday december tenth left for bailleul at eight a m heard at st omer of the sinking of three german cruisers arrived at two p m loaded up in the rain wounded and sick full load they were men wounded last night very muddy and trenchy said the train was like heaven it was lovely fun taking the sweets round they are such an unexpected treat the sitting-ups make many jokes and say they serve round arter sweets than this in the firing line more explosive like one showed us a fearsome piece of shell which killed his chum next to him last night there is a good deal of dysentery about and acute rheumatism the clearing hospitals are getting rather rushed again and the men say we shall have a lot coming down in the next few days a hundred men of one regiment got separated from their supports and came up against some german machine guns in a wood with tragic results we are shelling from ypres but there is no answering shelling going on just now though the taubes are busy

we are wondering what the next railhead will be and when some charming honorable artillery companies are on the train this time and a typically plucky lot of tommies one of the best of their many best features is their unfailing friendliness with each other they never let you miss a man out with sweets or anything if he happens to be asleep or absent friday december eleventh they wouldn't unload us at eleven p m at boulogne last night but sent us on to the duchess of westminster's hospital at a little place about twenty miles south of boulogne and we didn't unload till this morning it was my turn for a whole night in bed not that this means we are having many nights up but that when the load doesn't require two sisters at night two go to bed and the other two divide the night after unloading we had a poke round the little fishing village and of course the church a company of canadian red cross people unloaded us the hospital has not been open very long

it was all sand-dunes and fir-trees on the way very attractive and cement factories mail in again nine p m we came back to boulogne to fill up with stores after lunch and haven't been sent out again yet but we often go to bed here and wake up and ask our soldier servants batmen who bring us jugs of hot water in the morning where we are i like the motion of the train in bed now and you get used to the noise saturday december twelfth the french engine drivers are so erratic that if you're long enough on the line it's only a question of time when you get your smash up ours came last night when they were joining us up to go out again they put an engine on to each end of one half of the train not the one our car is in and then did a tug-of-war that wasn't a success so they did the concertina touch and put three coaches out of action including the kitchen so we're stuck here now boulogne till heaven knows when fortunately no casualties

Sunday, December 13th. We've been hung up since Friday night by the three damaged trucks, and took the opportunity of getting some good walks yesterday, and actually going to church at the English church this morning. Sister B has been ordered to join the hospital. She mobilized to-day, and we had to pack her off this morning. The staffs of the trains, which have all been shortened, have been put down from four to three. Very glad I wasn't taken off.

we saw a line of graves with wooden crosses in a field against the sky line last journey we have seen a lot of the skin coats that the men are getting now sheepskin with any sort of fur or skin sleeves just the skin sewn together you may see a gray or white coat with brown or black fur or astrakhan sleeves some wear the fur inside and some outside they simply love them reduced to pacing the platform in the dark and rain to get warm it is three hundred sixty eight paces so i've done it six times to well cover a mile but it is not an exciting walk funny thing it seems in this war that for many departments you are either thoroughly overworked or entirely hung up which is much worse in things like the pay department or the post office or the provisioning for the a s c it seldom gets off the overworked line but in this and in the fighting line it varies very much the number of victims of the taube attack on hasabrook on monday is larger than was at first supposed

five bombs were thrown and nine british soldiers and five civilians were killed while twenty-five persons were injured times december ninth we were at h on that day monday december fourteenth got off at last at three thirty a m loaded up three hundred at merville a place we've only been to once before near the coal mines guns were banging only four miles off had a good many bad cases medical and surgical this time kept one busy to the journey's end we are unloaded to-night so they will soon be well seen to instead of going down to rouen or havre which two other trains just in have got to do we have a good many gordons on one was hugging his bagpipes and we had him up after dinner to play which he did beautifully with a rapt expression we are going up again to-night three trains wanted immediately been expecting that tuesday december fifteenth we were unloaded last night at nine thirty and reported ready to go up again at eleven p m but they didn't move us till five a m

went to same place as yesterday and cleared the clearing hospitals again some badly wounded with wounds exposed and splints padded with straw as in the ypres days the black watch have got some cherub faced boys of seventeen out now the mud and floods are appalling the scotch regiments have lost their shoes and spats and weighed barefoot in the waterlogged trenches this is a true fact i am afraid not a few of many regiments have got rheumatism some acute that they will never lose the ploughed fields and roads are all more or less under water and each day it rains more we have got a red cross doctor on the train who is in the next village to the one we loaded from this morning it has been taken and retaken by both sides and had a population of about two thousand the only living things he saw in it to-day besides a khaki supply column passing through were one cat and some goldfish in one villa a big brass bedstead was hanging through the drawing-room ceiling by its legs the clothes hanging in the cupboards were slashed up and nothing left anywhere

he says at least ten well-to-do men of fifty are doing motor ambulance work with their own rolls-royces up there and cleaning their cars themselves at six a m i happened to ask a man who is a stretcher-bearer belonging to the rifle brigade how he got hit oh i was carrying a dead man he said modestly my officer told me not to move him till dark because of the sniping but his face was blown off by an explosive bullet and i didn't think it would do the chaps who had to stand round him all day any good so i put him on my back and they copped me in the leg i was glad he wasn't a wounded man because i had to drop him he told me some french ladies were killed in their horse and cart on the road near their trenches the other day they would go and try to get some of their household treasures two were killed two and a man and the horse wounded he helped to take them to the r a m c dressing station wednesday december sixteenth we are on our way up again to-day and by a different and much jollier way to st omer going south of boulogne and across country instead of up by calais we came back this way with patience from ypres once

it is longer but the country is like hampshire downs instead of the everlasting flat swamps the other way of course it is raining six p m for once we waited long enough at st omer to go out and explore the beautiful ruined abbey near the station we went up the town very clean compared with the towns farther up swarming with gray touring cars and staff officers headquarters of every arm labelled on different houses and a huge church the same date as the abbey with some good carving and glass in it we kept an eye open for sir john french and the prince of wales but didn't meet them saw the english military church where lord roberts began his funeral service for once it wasn't raining thursday december seventeenth left st o at eleven p m last night and woke up this morning at belle-aulves saw two aeroplanes being fired at black smoke balls bursting in the air

heard that hartlepool and scarborough have been shelled just the bare fact in last night's globe r will have an exciting time we're longing to get back for to-day's daily mail there has been a lot of fighting in our advance south-east of ypres since sunday the gordons made a great bayonet charge but lost heavily in officers and men in half an hour we have some on the train the french also lost heavily and lie unburied in hundreds but the men say the germans were still more badly punished they tell us that in the base hospitals they never get a clean wound even the emergency amputations and trefenings and operations done in the clearing hospitals are septic and no one who knew the conditions would wonder at it we shall all forget what aseptic work is by the time we get home the anti tetanus serum injection that every wounded man gets with his first dressing has done a great deal to keep the tetanus under and the spreading gangrene is less fatal than it was it is treated with incisions and injections of h two o two or when necessary amputation in case of limbs you suspect it by the grey colour of the face and by another sense before you look at the dressing

at bayleul a man at the station greeted me and it was my old theatre orderly at number seven pretoria we were very pleased to see each other i fitted him out with a pack of cards postcards acid drops and a nice gray pair of socks a wounded officer told us he was giving out the mail in his trench the night before last and nearly every man had either a letter or a parcel just as he finished a shell came and killed his sergeant and corporal if they hadn't had their heads out of the trench at that moment for the mail neither of them would have been hit the officer could hardly get through the story for the tears in his eyes chapter five