Part 2 (2/2)
I had time to look round and examine the place as well as I could and also to put down my bundle of woollies that had become extremely heavy.
These trenches were built against a railway bank (the railway lines had long since been destroyed or torn up), and just beyond ran the famous Yser and the inundations which had helped to stem the German advance. I was touched on the shoulder at this point, and clambered down into the trench along a very slippery plank. The men looked very surprised to see us, and their little dug-outs were like large rabbit hutches. I crawled into one on my hands and knees as the door was very low. The two occupants had a small brazier burning. Straw was on the floor--the straw we had previously seen on the men's backs--and you should have seen their faces brighten at the sight of a new pair of socks. We pushed on, as it was getting late. I shall never forget that trench--it was the second line--the first line consisting of ”listening posts” somewhere in that watery waste beyond, where the men wore waders reaching well above their knees. We squelched along a narrow strip of plank with the trenches on one side and a sort of cesspool on the other--no wonder they got typhoid, and I prayed I mightn't slip.
We could walk upright further on without our heads showing, which was a comfort, as it is extremely tiring to walk for long in a stooping position. Through an observation hole in the parapet we looked right out across the inundations to where the famous ”Ferme Violette,” which had changed hands so often and was at present German, could plainly be seen.
Dark objects were pointed out to us sticking up in the water which the sergeant cheerfully observed, holding his nose the meanwhile, were _sales Boches_! We hurried on to a bigger dug-out and helped the doctor with several _blesses_ injured that afternoon, and later we helped to remove them back to the village and thence to a field hospital. Just then we began bombarding with the 75's. which we had seen earlier on.
The row was deafening--first a terrific bang, then a swizzing through the air with a sound like a sob, and then a plop at the other end where it had exploded--somewhere. At first, as with all newcomers in the firing line, we ducked our heads as the sh.e.l.ls went over, to a roar of delight from the men, but in time we gave that up. During this bombardment we went on distributing our woollies all along the line, and I thought my head would split at any moment, the noise was so great. I asked one of the officers, during a pause, why the Germans weren't replying, and he said we had just got the range of one of their positions by 'phone, and as these guns we were employing had just been brought up, the Boche would not waste any sh.e.l.ls until they thought they had our range.
Presently we came to the officer's dug-out, and, would you believe it, he had small windows with lace curtains! They were the size of pocket handkerchiefs; still the fact remains, they _were_ curtains. He showed us two bits of a sh.e.l.l that had burst above the day before and made the roof collapse, but since then the damage had been remedied by a stout beam. He was a merry little man with twinkling eyes and very proud of his little house.
Our things began to give out at this point and we were not at the end of the line by any means. It was heart breaking to hear one man say, ”Une paire de chaussettes, Mees, je vous en prie; il y a trois mois depuis que j'en ai eu.” (A pair of socks, miss, I beseech you, it's three months since I had any). I gave him my scarf, which was all I had left, and could only turn sorrowfully away. He put it on immediately, cheerfully accepting the subst.i.tute.
We were forced to make our adieux at this point, as there was no reason for us to continue along the line. We promised to bring more things the next night and start at the point where we had left off. I thought regretfully it would be some days before my turn came round again.
The same care had to be observed on the return journey, and we could only speak in the softest of whispers. The bombardment had now died away as suddenly as it had begun. The men turned from their posts to whisper ”_Bon soir, bonne chance_,” or else ”_Dieu vous benisse_.” The silence after that ear-splitting din was positively uncanny: it made one feel one wanted to shout or whistle, or do something wild; anything to break it. One almost wished the Germans would retaliate! That silent monster only such a little way from us seemed just waiting to spring. We crawled one by one out of the trenches on to the road, and began the perilous journey homewards with the _blesses_, knowing that at any moment the Germans might begin bombarding. As we were resting the Captain of the battery joined us, and in the semi-darkness I saw he was offering me a bunch of snowdrops! It certainly was an odd moment to receive a bouquet, but somehow at the time it did not seem to be particularly out of place, and I tucked them into the belt of my tunic and treasured them for days afterwards--snowdrops that had flowered regardless of war in the garden of some cottage long since destroyed.
Arrived once more at Headquarters we were pressed to a _pet.i.t verre_ of some very hot and raw liqueur, but nevertheless very warming, and very good. I felt I agreed with the Irish coachman who at his first taste declared ”The shtuff was made in Hiven but the Divil himself invinted the gla.s.ses!” We had got terribly cold in the trenches. After taking leave of our kind hosts we set off for the Hospital.
It was now about 1.30 a.m., and we were stopped no less than seventeen times on our way back. As it was my job to lean out and whisper into the sentry's ”pearly,” I got rather exasperated. By the time I'd pa.s.sed the seventeenth ”Gustave,” I felt I'd risk even a bayonet to be allowed to snooze without interruption. The _blesses_ were deposited in Hospital and the car, once rid of its wounded load, sped through the night back to Lamarck, and I wondered sleepily if my first visit to the trenches was a reality or only a dream.
CHAPTER VI
THE TYPHOID WARDS
When I first came to Hospital I had been put as V.A.D. in Ward I, on the surgical side, and at ten o'clock had heard ”shop” (which by the way was strictly debarred, but nevertheless formed the one and only topic of conversation), from nurses and sisters in the Typhoid Wards, but had never actually been there myself. As previously explained the three Typhoid Wards--rooms leading one out of the other on the ground floor--were in a separate building joined only by some outhouses to the main portion, thus forming three sides of the paved yard.
The east end of the Cathedral with its beautiful windows completed the square, and in the evenings it was very restful to hear the m.u.f.fled sounds of the old organ floating up through the darkness.
Sister Wicks asked me one day to go through these wards with her. It must be remembered that at this early period there were no regular typhoid hospitals; and in fact ours was the only hospital in the place that would take them in, the others having refused. Our beds were therefore always full, and the typhoid staff was looked on as the hardest worked in the Hospital, and always tried to make us feel that they were the only ones who did any real work!
It was difficult to imagine these hollow-cheeked men with glittering eyes and claw-like hands were the men who had stemmed the German rush at Liege. Some were delirious, others merely plucking at the sheets with their wasted fingers, and everywhere the sisters and nurses were hurrying to and fro to alleviate their sufferings as much as possible. I shall always see the man in bed sixteen to this day. He was extremely fair, with blue eyes and a light beard. I started when I first saw him, he looked so like some of the pictures of Christ one sees; and there was an unearthly light in his eyes. He was delirious and seemed very ill.
The sister told me he had come down with a splendid fighting record, and was one of the worst cases of pneumonic typhoid in the ward. My heart ached for him, and instinctively I s.h.i.+vered, for somehow he did not seem to belong to this world any longer. We pa.s.sed on to Ward III, where I was presented to ”Le Pet.i.t Sergent,” a little bit of a man, so cheery and bright, who had made a marvellous recovery, but was not yet well enough to be moved. Everywhere was that peculiar smell which seems inseparable from typhoid wards in spite, or perhaps because of, the many disinfectants. We left by the door at the end of Salle III and once in the sunlight again, I heaved a sigh of relief; for frankly I thought the three typhoid Salles the most depressing places on earth. They were dark, haunting, and altogether horrible. ”Well,” said Sergeant Wicks cheerfully, ”what do you think of the typhoid Wards? Splendid aren't they? You should have seen them at first.” As I made no reply, she rattled gaily on, ”Well, I hope you will find the work interesting when you come to us as a pro. to-morrow.” I gasped. ”Am I to leave the _blesses_, then?” was all I could feebly ask--”Why, yes, didn't they tell you?”--and she was off before I could say anything more.
When one goes to work in France one can't pick and choose, and the next morning saw me in the typhoid wards which soon I learnt to love, and which I found so interesting that I hardly left them from that time onwards, except for ”trench duty.”
I was in Salle I at first--the less serious cases--and life seemed one eternal rush of getting ”feeds” for the different patients, ”doing mouths,” and making ”Bengers.” All the boiling and heating was done in one big stove in Salle II. Each time I pa.s.sed No. 16 I tried not to look at him, but I always ended in doing so, and each time he seemed to be thinner and more ethereal looking. He literally went to skin and bone.
He must have been such a splendid man, I longed for him to get better, but one morning when I pa.s.sed, the bed was empty and a nurse was disinfecting the iron bedstead. For one moment I thought he had been moved. ”Where--What?” I asked, disjointedly of the nurse. ”Died in the night,” she said briefly. ”Don't look like that,” and she went on with her work. No. 16 had somehow got on my mind, I suppose because it was the first bad typhoid case I had seen, and from the first I had taken such an interest in him. One gets accustomed to these things in time, but I never forgot that first shock. In the afternoons the men's temperatures rose alarmingly, and most of the time was spent in ”blanket-bathing” which is about the most back-aching pastime there is; but how the patients loved to feel the cool sponges pa.s.sing over their feverish limbs. They were so grateful and, though often too ill to speak, would smile their thanks, and one felt it was worth all the backaches in the world.
It was such a virulent type of typhoid. Although we had been inoculated, we were obliged to gargle several times during the day, and even then we always had more or less of a ”typy” throat.
Our gallant sergeant, sister Wicks, who had organised and run the whole of the three Salles since November '14, suddenly developed para-typhoid, and with great difficulty was persuaded to go to bed. Fortunately she did not have it badly, and in her convalescent stage I was sent to look after her up at the ”shop window.” I was anxious to get her something really appetising for lunch, and presently heard one of the famous fish wives calling out in the street. I ran out and bargained with her, for of course she would have been vastly disappointed if I had given her the original price she asked. At last I returned triumphant with two nice looking little ”Merlans,” too small to cut their heads off, I decided. I had never coped with fish before, so after holding them for some time under the tap till they seemed clean enough, put them on to fry in b.u.t.ter. I duly took them in on a tray to Wicks, and I'm sure they looked very tasty. ”Have you cleaned them?” she asked suspiciously. ”Yes, of course I have,” I replied. She examined them. ”May I ask what you _did_?” she said. ”I held them under the tap,” I told her, ”there didn't seem anything more to be done,” I added lamely.
How she laughed--I thought she was never going to stop--and I stood there patiently waiting to hear the joke. She explained at length and said, ”No, take them away; you've made me feel ever so much better, but I'll have eggs instead, thank you.” I went off grumbling, ”How on earth was I to know anyway they kept their tummies behind their ears!”
That fish story went all over the hospital.
<script>