A Journal of Impressions in Belgium Part 14

As the Flamand was brought into the village, the Ambulance had got its wounded in, and was ready to go. But he had to have his wound dressed.

He lay there on his stretcher in the middle of the village street, my beloved Flamand, stripped to the waist, with the great red pit of his wound yawning in his white flesh. I had to look on while the Commandant stuffed it with antiseptic gauze.

I had always supposed that the dressing of a wound was a cautious and delicate process. But it isn't. There is a certain casual audacity about it. The Commandant's hands worked rapidly as he rammed cyanide gauze into the red pit. It looked as if he were stuffing an old crate with straw. And it was all over in a moment. There seemed something indecent in the haste with which my Flamand was disposed of.

When the Commandant observed that my Flamand's wound looked much worse than it was, I felt hurt, as if this beloved person had been slighted; also as if there was some subtle disparagement to my "find."

I rather hoped that we were going to wait till the men I had left behind in the plantation had come up. But the car was fairly full, and Ursula Dearmer and Janet and Mrs. Lambert were told off to take it in to Z----, leave the wounded there and come back for the rest. I was to walk to Z---- and wait there for the returning car.

Nothing would have pleased me better, but the distance was farther than the Commandant realized, farther, perhaps, than was desirable in the circ.u.mstances, so I was ordered to get on the car and come back with it.

(Tom the chauffeur is perfectly right. There are too many of us.)

We got away long before the Germans turned the corner, if they ever did turn it. In Z----, which is half-way between Lokeren and Ghent, we came upon six or seven fine military ambulances, all huddled together as if they sought safety in companions.h.i.+p (why none of them had been sent up to our village I can't imagine). Ursula Dearmer, with admirable presence of mind, commandeered one of these and went back with it to the village, so that we could take our load of wounded into Ghent. We did this, and went back at once.

The return journey was a tame affair. Before we got to Z---- we met the Commandant and the Chaplain and two refugees, in Mr. Lambert's scouting-car, towed by a motor-wagon. It had broken down on the way from Lokeren. We took them on board and turned back to Ghent.

The wounded came on in Ursula Dearmer's military car.

Twenty-three wounded in all were taken from Lokeren or near it to-day.

Hundreds had to be left behind in the German lines.

We have heard that Antwerp is burning; that the Government is removed to Ostend; that all the English have left.

There are a great many British wounded, with nurses and Army doctors, in Ghent. Three or four British have been brought into the "Flandria."

One of them is a young British officer, Mr. ----. He is said to be mortally wounded.

Dr. Haynes and Dr. Bird have not gone. They and Dr. ---- have joined the surgical staff of the Hospital, and are working in the operating theatre all day. They have got enough to do now in all conscience.

All night there has been a sound of the firing of machine guns [?]. At first it was like the barking, of all the dogs in Belgium. I thought it _was_ the dogs of Belgium, till I discovered a deadly rhythm and precision in the barking.[21]

[_Friday, 9th._]

The Hospital is so full that beds have been put in the entrance hall, along the walls by the big ward and the secretarial bureau. In the recess by the ward there are three British soldiers.

There are some men standing about there whose heads and faces are covered with a thick white mask of cotton-wool like a diver's helmet.

There are three small holes in each white mask, for mouth and eyes. The effect is appalling.

These are the men whose faces have been burned by sh.e.l.l-fire at Antwerp.

The Commandant asked me to come with him through the wards and find all the British wounded who are well enough to be sent home. I am to take their names and dress them and get them ready to go by the morning train.

There are none in the upper wards. Mr. ---- cannot be moved. He is very ill. They do not think he will live.

There are three downstairs in the hall. One is well enough to look after himself (I have forgotten his name). One, Russell, is wounded in the knee. The third, Cameron, a big Highlander, is wounded in the head. He wears a high headdress of bandages wound round and round many times like an Indian turban, and secured by more bandages round his jaw and chin.

It is glued tight to one side of his head with clotted blood. Between the bandages his sharp, Highland face looks piteous.

I am to dress these two and have them ready by eleven. Dr. ---- of the British Field Hospital, who is to take them over, comes round to enter their names on his list.

They are to be dressed in civilian clothes supplied by the Hospital.

It all sounded very simple until you tried to get the clothes. First you had to see the President, who referred you to the Matron, who referred you to the clerk in charge of the clothing department. An _infirmier_ (one of the mysterious officials who hang about the hall wearing peaked caps; the problem of their existence was now solved for the first time)--an _infirmier_ was despatched to find the clerk. The clothing department must have been hidden in the remotest recesses of the Hospital, for it was ages before he came back to ask me all over again what clothes would be wanted. He was a little fat man with bright, curly hair, very eager, and very cheerful and very kind. He scuttled off again like a rabbit, and I had to call him back to measure Russell. And when he had measured Russell, with his gay and amiable alacrity, Russell and I had to wait until he came back with the clothes.

I had made up my mind very soon that it would be no use measuring Cameron for any clothes, or getting him ready for any train. He was moving his head from side to side and making queer moaning sounds of agitation and dismay. He had asked for a cigarette, which somebody had brought him. It dropped from his fingers. Somebody picked it up and lit it and stuck it in his mouth; it dropped again. Then I noticed something odd about his left arm; he was holding it up with his right hand and feeling it. It dropped, too, like a dead weight, on the counterpane.

Cameron watched its behaviour with anguish. He complained that his left arm was all numb and too heavy to hold up. Also he said he was afraid to be moved and taken away.

It struck me that Cameron's head must be smashed in on the right side and that some pressure on his brain was causing paralysis. It was quite clear that he couldn't be moved. So I sent for one of the Belgian doctors to come and look at him, and keep him in the Hospital.

The Belgian doctor found that Cameron's head _was_ smashed in on the right side, and that there was pressure on his brain, causing paralysis in his left arm.

He is to be kept in the Hospital and operated on this morning. They may save him if they can remove the pressure.

It seemed ages before the merry little _infirmier_ came back with Russell's clothes. And when he did come he brought socks that were too tight, and went back and brought socks that were too large, and a s.h.i.+rt that was too tight and trousers that were too long. Then he went back, eager as ever, and brought drawers that were too tight, and more trousers that were too short. He brought boots that were too large and boots that were too tight; and he had to be sent back again for slippers. Last of all he brought a s.h.i.+rt which made Russell smile and mutter something about being dressed in all the colours of the rainbow; and a black cutaway morning coat, and a variety of hats, all too small for Russell.

Then when you had made a selection, you began to try to get Russell into all these things that were too tight or too loose for him. The socks were the worst. The right-hand one had to be put on very carefully, by quarter inches at a time; the least tug on the sock would give Russell an excruciating pain in his wounded knee; and Russell was all for violence and haste; he was so afraid of being left behind.

Though he called me "Sister," I felt certain that Russell must know that I wasn't a trained nurse and that he was the first wounded man I had ever dressed in my life. However, I did get him dressed, somehow, with the help of the little _infirmier_, and a wonderful sight he was, in the costume of a Belgian civilian.

What tried him most were the hats. He refused a peaked cap which the _infirmier_ pressed on him, and compromised finally on a sort of checked cricket cap that just covered the extreme top of his head. We got him off in time, after all.

Then two _infirmiers_ came with a stretcher and carried Cameron upstairs to the operating theatre, and I went up and waited with him in the corridor till the surgeons were ready for him. He had grown drowsy and indifferent by now.

I have missed the Ambulance going out to Lokeren, and have had to stay behind.

Two ladies called to see Mr. ----. One of them was Miss Ashley-Smith, who had him in her ward at Antwerp. I took them over the Hospital to find his room, which is on the second story. His name--his names--in thick Gothic letters, were on a white card by the door.

He was asleep and the nurse could not let them see him.

Miss Ashley-Smith and her friend are staying in the Couvent de Saint Pierre, where the British Field Hospital has taken some of its wounded.

Towards one o'clock news came of heavy fighting. The battle is creeping nearer to us; it has stretched from Zele and Quatrecht to Melle, four and a half miles from Ghent. They are saying that the Germans may enter Ghent to-day, in an hour--half an hour! It will be very awkward for us and for our wounded if they do, as both our ambulance cars are out.

Later news of more fighting at Quatrecht.

[_Afternoon._]

The Commandant has come back. They were at Quatrecht, not Lokeren.

Mr. ---- is awake now. The Commandant has taken me to see him.

He is lying in one of the officers' wards, a small room, with bare walls and a blond light, looking south. There are two beds in this room, set side by side. In the one next the door there is a young French officer.

He is very young: a boy with sleek black hair and smooth rose-leaf skin, s.h.i.+ning and fresh as if he had never been near the smoke and dirt of battle. He is sitting up reading a French magazine. He is wounded in the leg. His crutches are propped up against the wall.

Stretched on his back in the further bed there is a very tall young Englishman. The sheet is drawn very tight over his chest; his face is flushed and he is breathing rapidly, in short jerks. At first you do not see that he, too, is not more than a boy, for he is so big and tall, and a little brown feathery beard has begun to curl about his jaw and chin.