lance-corporal allan was killed on tuesday the 6th of june. for the rest of that day i was all “on edge.” i wondered sometimes how i could go on: even in billets i dreamed of rifle-grenades; and though i had only returned from leave a fortnight ago, i felt as tired out in body and mind as i did before i went. and this last horror did not add to my peace of mind. i very nearly quarrelled with captain wetherell, the battalion lewis-gun officer, over the position of a lewis gun. there had been a change of company front, and some readjustments had to be made. i believe i told him he had not got the remotest idea of our defence scheme, or something of the sort! my nerves were all jangled, and my brain would not rest a second. we were nearly all like that at times.
i decided therefore to go out again to-night with our wires. i had been out last night, and owen was going to-night, but i wanted to be doing something to occupy my thoughts. i knew i should not sleep. at a quarter to ten i sent word to 269 corporal dyson, the wiring-corporal, to take his men up at eleven instead of ten, as the moon had not quite set. at eleven o’clock owen and i were out in no man’s land putting out concertina wire between 80a and 81a bombing posts, which had recently been connected up by a deep narrow trench. there was what might be called a concertina craze on: innumerable coils of barbed wire were converted into concertinas by the simple process of winding them round and round seven upright stakes in the ground; every new lap of wire was fastened to the one below it at every other stake by a twist of plain wire; the result, when you came to the end of a coil and lifted the whole up off the stakes was a heavy ring of barbed wire that concertina’d out into ten-yard lengths. they were easily made up in the trench, quickly put up, and when put out in two parallel rows, about a yard apart, and joined together with plenty of barbed wire tangled in loosely, were as good an obstacle as could be made. we had some thirty of these to put out to-night.
when you are out wiring you forget all about being in no man’s land, unless the germans are sniping across. the work is one that absorbs all your interest, and your one concern is to get the job done quickly and well. i really cannot remember whether the enemy had been sniping or not (i use the word “sniping” to denote firing occasional shots across with fixed rifles sited by 270 day). i remember that i forgot all about captain wetherell and his lewis-gun positions, as soon as i was outside the bombing post at 80a. there were about fifteen yards between this post and the crater-edge, where i had a couple of “a” company bombers out as a covering party. but in this fifteen yards were several huge shell-holes, and we were concealing the wire in these as much as possible. it was fascinating work, and i felt we could not get on fast enough with it. after a time i went along to owen, whose party was working on my left. here corporal dyson and four men were doing well also. all this strip of land between the trench and the crater edge was an extraordinary tangle of shell-holes, old beams and planks, and scraps of old wire. every square yard of it had been churned and pounded to bits at different times by canisters and “sausages” and such-like. months ago there had been a trench along the crater edges; but new mines had altered these, and until we had dug the deep, narrow trench between 80a and 81a about a fortnight ago, there had been no trench there for at least five months. the result was a chaotic jumble, and this jumble we were converting into an obstacle by judiciously placed concertina wiring.
i repeat that i cannot remember if there had been much sniping across. i had just looked at my luminous watch, which reported ten past one, when i noticed that the sky in the east began to 271 show up a little paler than the german parapet across the crater. “dawn,” i thought, “already. there is no night at all, really. we must knock off in a quarter of an hour. the light will not be behind us, but half-past one will be time to stop.” i was lying out by the bombers, gazing into the black of the crater. it was a warm night, and jolly lying out like this, though a bit damp and muddy round the shell-holes. then i got up, told corporal evans to come in after fixing the coil he was putting up, and was walking towards 80a post, when “bang” i heard from across the crater, and i felt a big sting in my left elbow, and a jar that numbed my whole arm.
“ow,” i cried out involuntarily, and doubled the remaining few yards, and scrambled down into the trench.
corporal dyson was there.
“are you hit, sir?”
“yes. nothing much—here in the arm. get the wirers in. it’ll be light soon.”
then somehow i found my equipment and tunic off; there seemed a lot of men round me; and i tried to realise that i was really hit. my arm hung numb and stiff, with the after-taste of a sting in it. i felt this could not be a proper wound, as there was no real throbbing pain such as i expected. i was surprised when i saw a lot of blood in the half light. corporal dyson asked me if i had a field-dressing, and i said he would find one in the 272 bottom right-hand corner of my tunic. to my annoyance he did not seem to hear, and used one of the men’s. then owen appeared, with a serious peering face.
“are all the wirers in?” i asked.
“yes,” he answered. “how are you feeling?”
his serious tone amused me. i wanted to say, “good heavens, man, i’m as fit as anything. i shall be back to-morrow, i expect.” but i felt very tired and rather out of breath as i answered “oh! all right.”
by this time my arm was bandaged and i started walking back to maple redoubt, leaning on corporal dyson. i wanted to joke, but felt too tired. it seemed an interminable way down, especially along watling street.
i had only once looked into the dressing-station, although i must have passed it several hundred times. i was surprised at its size: there were two compartments. as i stepped down inside, i wondered if it were shell-proof. in the inner chamber i could hear the doctor’s quick low voice, telling a man to move the lamp: and it seemed to flash across me for the first time that there ought to be some kind of guarantee against dressing-stations being blown in like any ordinary dug-out. and yet i knew there was no possibility of any such guarantee.
“hullo, bill, old man,” said the little doctor, coming out quickly. “where’s this thing of yours? 273 in the arm, isn’t it? let’s have a look. oh yes, i see. (he examined the bandage, and the arm above it.) well, i won’t be long. you won’t mind waiting a few minutes, will you? i’ve got a bad case in here. hall, get him to sit down, and give him some bovril.”
and he was gone. no man could move or make men move quicker than the doctor.
i felt apologetic: i had chosen a bad time to come, just when the doctor was busy with this other man. i asked who the fellow was, and learned he was a private from “d” company. i was very grateful for the bovril. a good idea, this, i thought, having bovril ready for you.
i waited about ten minutes, sitting on a chair. i listened to the movements and low voices inside. “turn him over. here. no, those longer ones. good heavens, didn’t i tell you to get this changed yesterday? now. that’ll do,” and so on. i turned my head round in silence, observing acutely every detail in this antechamber, as one does in a dentist’s waiting-room. all the time in my arm i felt this numb wasp-sting; i wondered when the real pain would start; there was no motion in this still smart.
“now then, bill,” said the doctor. “so sorry to keep you. let’s have a look at it. oh, that’s nothing very bad.”
it smarted as he undid the bandage. i don’t know what he did. i never looked at it. 274
“what sort of a one is it?” i asked.
“i could just do with one like this myself,” said the doctor.
“is it a blighty one?”
“i’d give you a fiver for it any minute,” answered the doctor. “i’m not certain whether the bone’s broken or not, but i rather think it is touched. i can’t say, though. a bullet, did you say? are you sure?”
“very sure,” i laughed.
“well, it must be one of these explosive bullets, an ordinary bullet doesn’t make a wound like yours. that’s it. that’ll do.”
“i can’t make out why there’s not more pain,” said i.
“oh, that’ll come later. you see the shock paralyses you at first. here, take one of these.” and he gave me a morphia tabloid.
“cheero, bill,” he said, and i went out of the dug-out leaning on a stretcher-bearer. round my neck hung a label, the first of a long series. “gun-shot wound in left forearm” it contained. i found later “? fracture. 1.15 a.m., 7.6.16.”
outside lewis was waiting with my trench kit. he had appeared a quarter of an hour back at the door of the dressing-station, and had been told by the doctor so rapidly and forcibly that he ought to know that he would go with me to the clearing station, and that he had five minutes in which to get my kit together, that he had fairly sprinted 275 away. poor fellow! how should he know, seeing that he had been my servant over six months, and i had never got wounded before? but the doctor always made men double.
as i passed our dug-out, edwards, owen, paul, and nicholson were all standing outside.
“cheero,” i shouted. “good luck. the doctor says it’s nothing much. i’ll be back soon.”
“what about that lewis-gun position?” asked edwards.
“oh,” i said, “i want to keep that position on the left.” then i felt my decision waver. “still, if wetherell wants the other ... i don’t know.”
“all right. i’ll fix up with wetherell. good luck. hope you get to blighty.”
i wanted to say such a lot. i wanted to say that i was sure to be back in a week or so. i wanted to think hard, and decide about that lewis gun. i wanted to send a message to wetherell apologising for what i had said.... i wanted to talk to sergeant andrews, who was standing there too. but the stretcher-bearer was walking on, and i must go as he pleased.
“good-bye, sergeant andrews,” i shouted.
last of all i saw davies, standing solemn and dumb.
“good-bye, davies. off to blighty.”
i could not see if he answered. the relentless stretcher-bearer led me on. was i o.c. stretcher-bearers or was i not? why didn’t i stop him? 276 i had not decided about that lewis gun. at the corner of old kent road, i was told i might as well sit on the ration trolley and go down on that. and in the full light of dawn, about half-past two, i was rolled serenely down the hill to the citadel.
“don’t let go,” i said to the stretcher-bearer, who was holding the trolley back. i still thought of sending up a message about that lewis-gun position. why could not i make up my mind? i looked back and saw maple redoubt receding further and further in the distance.
“by jove,” i thought, “i may not see it again for weeks.” and suddenly i realised that whether i made up my mind about the lewis-gun position or not, would not make the slightest difference!
“where do i go to now?” said i.
“there’s an ambulance at the citadel,” said the stretcher-bearer. “you’re quite right. you’ll be in heilly in a little over an hour.”
heilly? why, this would be interesting, i thought. and i should just go, and have nothing to decide. i should be passive. i was going right out of the arena!
and the events of yesterday seemed a dream already.
wednesday
i lay in bed, at the clearing station at heilly. it was just after nine o’clock the same morning, and the orderlies were out of sight, but not out 277 of hearing, washing up the breakfast things. half the dark blue blinds were drawn, as the june sun was blazing outside. i could see the glare of it on the cobbles in the courtyard, as the door opened and a cool, tall nurse entered. i closed my eyes, and pretended to be asleep. i felt she might come and talk, and one thing i did not want to do, i did not want to talk.
my body was most extraordinarily comfortable. i moved my feet toes-up for the sheer joy of feeling the smooth sheets fall cool on my feet when i turned them sideways again. the pillow was comfortable; the whole bed was comfortable; even my arm, that was throbbing violently now, and felt boiling hot, was very comfortably rested on another pillow. i just wanted to lie, and lie: only my mind was working so fast and hard that it seemed to make the skin tight over my forehead. and all the time there was that buzz, buzzing. if i left off thinking, the buzzing took complete mastery of my brain. that was intolerable: so i had to keep on thinking.
at the citadel an r.a.m.c. doctor had given me tea and a second label. he had also given me an injection against tetanus. this he did in the chest. why didn’t he do it in my right arm, i had thought: i would have rather had it there. again, i had had to wait quite a quarter of an hour, while he attended to the “d” company private. i had learned from an orderly that this poor fellow was bound to lose 278 a leg, and again i had felt that i was in the way here, that i was a bother. i had then watched the poor fellow carried out on a stretcher, and the stretcher slid into the ambulance. there was a seat inside, into which i was helped. lewis had gone in front, very red-faced and awkward. and an r.a.m.c. orderly had got in behind with me. sitting, i had felt that he must think i was shamming! then i remembered the first ambulance i had seen, when i first walked from chocques to béthune in early october! was there really any connection between me then and me now?
then there had been a rather pleasant journey through unknown country, it seemed. after a few miles, we halted and changed into another ambulance. as i had stood in the sunshine a moment, i had tried to make out where we were. but i could not recognise anything, and felt very tired. there was a white chalk road, a grass bank, and a house close by: that is all i could remember. and then there was another long ride, in which my one paramount idea was to rest my arm (which was in a white sling) and prevent it shaking and jarring.
then at last we had reached a village and pulled up in a big sunlit courtyard. again as i walked into a big room i felt that people must think i was shamming. a matron had come in, and a doctor. did i mind sitting and waiting a minute or so? would i like some tea? i had refused tea. 279 then the doctor and an orderly came in, and the doctor asked some questions and took off my label. the orderly was taking off my boots, and the doctor had started helping! i had apologised profusely, for they were trench boots thick with mud. and then the doctor had asked me whether i could wait until about eleven before they looked at my arm: meanwhile it would be better, as i should be more rested after a few hours in bed. bed! i had never thought of going to bed for an arm at all! what a delicious idea! i felt so tired, too. i had not been to bed all night. then i had been helped into this delightful bed, and after scrawling a letter home to go away by the eight o’clock post (i was glad i had remembered that), i had been left in peace at about half-past four. and here i was! i had had a cup of tea for breakfast, but did not want to eat anything.
i wished i could go to sleep. yet it was not much good now, if they were going to look at my arm at eleven. i opened my eyes whenever i was sure there was no one near me. then i thought i might as well keep them open, otherwise they would think i had slept, and not know how tired out i felt. there was a man in the next bed with his head all bandaged; and round the bed in the corner was a screen. opposite was an r.a.m.c. doctor, as far as i could gather; he was talking to the nurse, and looked perfectly well. i thought perhaps he might be the sort who would talk late 280 when i wanted to sleep—he looked so well and lively; suppose he had a gramophone and wanted to play it this afternoon. i should really have to complain, if he did. yet perhaps they would understand, and make him give it up because of us who were not so well. on my right, up at the other end of the room (was it a “ward”? yes, i suppose it was) were several voices, but i could not turn over and look at their owners, with my arm like this. how it throbbed and pulsed! or was it aching? supposing i got pins and needles in it....
a khaki-clad padre came in. he just came over and asked me if i wanted anything, and did not worry me with talking. he had a very quiet voice and bald head. i liked both. i felt i ought to have wanted something: had i been discourteous?
the door opened, and the doctor entered, with another nurse and another doctor. somehow this last person electrified everyone and everything. who was he? his very walk was somehow different from the ordinary. my attention was riveted on him; somehow i felt that he knew i was there, and yet he did not look at me. they wheeled a little table up from the other end of the room, laden with glasses and bottles and glittering little silver forks and things. i could not see clearly. an orderly was reprimanded by the nurse for something, in a subdued voice. there was a hush and a tenseness in this man’s presence. yet he was 281 calmly looking at a newspaper, and sitting on an empty bed as he did so! apparently kitchener was reported drowned in the north sea: he spoke in a rich, almost drawling voice. he was immensely casual! and yet one did not mind. he walked over and washed his hands, and put on some yellowy-brown india-rubber gloves that scrooped and squelched in the basins. and then he turned round, and the other doctor (whom i had seen at four o’clock and who already seemed a sort of confidential friend of mine in the presence of this master-man) asked him, which case he wanted to see first. and as he jerked his hand casually to one of the beds, i was filled with a strange elation. this was a surgeon, i felt; and one in whom i had immense confidence. he would do the best for my arm: he would make no mistakes. i almost laughed for sheer joy!
he came at last to my bed and glanced at me. he never smiled. he asked me one or two questions. i said i was “? fracture,” that my arm was throbbing but felt numb more than anything.
“i suppose we may presume there is a fracture,” said he; “at any rate there is no point in looking at it here. i’ll look at it under an an?sthetic,” he said to me, not unkindly, but still without a smile. and a little later, as he went out, he half looked back at my bed.
“eleven o’clock,” he said to the nurse as he went out. 282
the tension relaxed. an orderly spoke in a bold ordinary voice. the spell was gone out with the man.
“who is that?” i asked the nurse.
“oh! that’s mr. bevan; he’s a very good surgeon indeed.”
“i know,” said i, “i can feel that.”
about an hour later, two orderlies whom i had not seen before came in with a stretcher, and laid it on the floor by the bed. the tall nurse asked me if i had any false teeth, and said i had better put socks on, as my feet might get cold. the orderly did this, and then they helped me on to the stretcher. my head went back, and i felt a strain on my neck. the next second my head was lifted and a pillow put under it. and they had moved me without altering the position of my arm. i was surprised and pleased at that. then a blanket was put over me, and one of the orderlies said “ready?”
“yes,” i said, but suddenly realised he was talking to the other orderly. i was lifted up, and carried across the room out into the courtyard. what a blazing sun! i closed my eyes.
“dump, dump, dump.” the stretcher seemed to bob along, with a regular rhythmic swaying. then they turned a corner, and i felt a slight nausea. i opened my eyes. the stretcher was put on a table. i felt very high up.
the matron-person appeared. she was older than the nurses, and had a chain with scissors 283 dangling on the end of it. she smiled, and asked what kind of a wound it was. then the orderlies looked at each other, at some signal that i could not see, and lifted me up and into the next room. they held the stretcher up level with the operating table, and helped me on to it. i did some good right elbow-work and got on easily. as i did so, i saw mr. bevan sitting on a chair in his white overall, his gloved hands quietly folded in his lap. he said and did nothing. again i felt immensely impressed by his competence, reserving every ounce of energy, waiting, until these less masterful beings had got everything ready.
they took off the blanket, and moved things behind. then they put the rubber cup over my mouth and nose.
“just breathe quite naturally,” said the doctor. i shut my eyes.
“just ordinary breaths. that is very good,” said the voice, quietly and reassuringly.
i felt a sort of sweet shudder all down my body. i wanted to laugh. then i let my body go a little. it was no good bracing myself.... i opened my right hand and shut it, just to show them i was not “off” yet ...
the process of “coming to” was unpleasant and uninteresting. i do not think i distinguished myself by any originality, so will not attempt to describe it. that was a long interminable day, 284 and my arm hurt a good deal. in the afternoon i was told that i should be pleased to hear that there was no bone broken. i was anything but pleased. i wanted the bone to be broken, as i wanted to go to “blighty.” this worried me all day. i wondered if i should get to england or not. then in the evening the sister (i found that the nurses should be called sisters) dressed the wound. that was distinctly unpleasant. it took hours and hours and hours before it began to get even twilight. i have never known so long a day. and then i could not sleep. they injected morphia at last, but i awoke after three or four hours feeling more tired than ever.
thursday
i can hardly disentangle these days; night and day ran into one another. i can remember little about thursday. i could not sleep however much i wanted to; and all the time my brain was working so hard, thinking. i worried about the company: they must be in the line now. would edwards remember this, and that? had i left him the map, or was it among those maps in my valise which lewis had gone to morlancourt to fetch?
and all the time there were rifle-grenades about; i daren’t let the buzzing come, because it was all rifle-grenades really; and always i kept seeing lance-corporal allan lying there. why could i not get rid of the picture of him? yet i was afraid 285 i might forget; and it was important that i should remember....
i remember the waiting to have my arm dressed. it was like waiting before the dentist takes up the drill again. i watched the man next to me out of the corner of my eye, and felt it intensely if he seemed to wince, or drew in his breath. and i remember in the morning mr. bevan dressed my wound. i looked the other way. for a week i thought the wound was above instead of just below the elbow. “this will hurt,” he said once.
some time in the day the man behind the screen died. i had heard him groaning all day; and there was the rhythmic sound of pumping—oxygen, i suppose.... i heard a lot of moving behind the screen, and at last it was taken away and i saw the corner for the first time and in it an empty bed with clean sheets.
the man next to me, with the bandaged head, kept talking deliriously to the orderly about his being on a submarine. once the orderly smiled at me as he answered the absurd questions.
there was one good incident i remember. after the surgeon had dressed my arm, i said, “is there any chance of this getting me to blighty?” and i thought he did not hear; he was looking the other way. but suddenly i heard that calm deliberate voice:
“yes, that is a blighty one. there is enough damage to those muscles to keep you in blighty 286 several months.” and this made all the rest bearable somehow.
friday
again the only sleep i could get was by morphia. in the morning they told me i should go by a hospital train leaving at three o’clock. i scrawled a note or two and gave them to lewis, and instructed him about my kit. i believe they made an inventory of it. i gave him some maps for edwards. and then he said good-bye. and i thought of him going back, and i going to england. and i felt ashamed of myself again. i wondered if the colonel was annoyed with me.
they gave me gas in the morning. it seemed such a bother going through all that again: it was not worth trying to get better. still i was glad, it was one dressing less! then in the afternoon i was carried on a stretcher to the train. i hardly saw anyone to say good-bye to. i thought of writing later.
it seemed an interminable journey. by some mistake i had been put in with the tommies. there was no difference in the structure or comfort of the officers’ or tommies’ quarters; but i knew they were taking me wrong. however, i was entirely passive, and did not mind what they did. the carriage had a corridor all the way down the centre, and on each side was a succession of berths in three tiers. on the top tier you must have felt 287 very high and close up to the roof; on the centre one you got a good view out of the windows; on the third and lowest tier (which was my lot) you felt that if there were an accident, you would not have far to roll; on the other hand, you were out of view of orderlies passing along the corridor.
a great thirst consumed me as i lay waiting. i could see two orderlies in the space by the door cutting up large pieces of bread and butter. this made my mouth still drier. then they brought in cans of hot tea, and gave it out in white enamel bowls. i longed for the sting of the tea on my dry palate, but the orderly was startled when i said, “i suppose this is all right; i am an officer.” he said he would tell them, and gave the bowl to the next man. the bowls were taken away and washed up, before a cup of tea was at last brought me. a corporal brought it; he poured it out of a little teapot; but i could not drink it out of a cup. my left arm lay like a log beside me, and i could not hold my right arm steady and raise my head. so the corporal went off for a feeding cup. i felt rather nervy and like a man with a grievance! and when i got the tea it was nearly cold.
i say it seemed an interminable journey, and my arm was so frightfully uncomfortable. i had it across my body, and felt i could not breathe for the weight of it. at last i felt i must get its position altered. i called “orderly” every time an orderly went past: sometimes they paused and 288 looked round; but they could not see me, and went on. sometimes they did not hear anything. i felt as self-conscious and irritated as a man who calls “waiter” and the waiter does not hear. at last one heard, and a sister came and fixed me up with a small pillow under the elbow. i immediately felt apologetic, and i wondered if she thought me fussy.
the train made a long, slow grind over the rails; and it kept stopping with a griding sound and a jolt. why did it go so slowly? at ten o’clock i begged and obtained another morphia dose, and got four hours’ sleep from it again.
saturday
i suppose it was about 7.0 a.m. when we arrived at étretat. i was taken and laid in the middle of rows and rows of tommies in a big sunny courtyard. i thought how well the bearers carried the stretchers: i did not at all feel that i was likely to be dropped or tilted off on to my arm. there were a lot of men in blue hospital dress on the steps of a big house. i wondered where i was: in havre probably. it was a queer sensation lying on my back gazing up at the sun; we were tightly packed in together, like cards laid in order, face upwards. how high everyone looked standing up. then they discovered one or two officers, and i said that i too was an officer. i felt that they rather dared me to repeat this statement. then a man looked 289 at my label, and said: “yes, he is an officer.” and i was taken up and carried off.
i found myself put to bed in a spacious room in which were only two beds. the house had only recently been finished, and was in use as a hospital. as soon as i was in bed, i felt a great relief again. no more motion for a time, i thought. there was a man in the other bed, threatened with consumption. we were talking, when a pretty v.a.d. nurse came in and asked what we wanted for breakfast. i felt quite hungry, and enjoyed tea and fish. i began to think that life was going to be good. i saw cecil todd, who had been slightly wounded a fortnight ago. i condoled with him on not getting to england. he asked me if i wanted to read. no, i did not feel like reading. i wrote a letter. then two v.a.d. nurses came and dressed my wound. they seemed surprised to find so big a one, and sent for the doctor to see it. they dressed it very well, and gave me no unnecessary pain.
in the afternoon, i was again moved to a motor ambulance, which took me to havre. it jolted and shook horribly. “this man does not know what it is like up here,” i thought. all the time i was straining my body to keep the left arm from touching the jolting stretcher. (the stretchers slide in the ambulance.) i was a top-berth passenger; i could touch the white roof with my right hand; and there was a stuffy smell of white paint. 290
at last it stopped, and after a wait i was carried amid a sea of heads, along a quay. i could smell sea and the stale oily smell of a steamer. then i was taken over the gangway with that firm, steady, nodding motion with which i was getting so familiar, along the deck, through doorways, and into a big room, all green and white. all round the edge were beds, into one of which i was helped. in the centre of the room were beds that somehow reminded me of cots. i dare say there was a low railing round the beds that gave me this impression. a scotch nurse looked after me. these nurses were all in grey and red; the others had been in blue. i wondered what was the difference. i asked the name of the ship and they said it was the asturias.
later on a steward brought a menu, and i chose my own dinner. apparently i could eat what i liked. the doctor looked at my wound, and said it could wait until morning before being dressed; he pleased me. i was more comfortable than i had been yet. the boat was not due out till about 1.0 a.m. at eleven o’clock i again asked for morphia, and so got sleep for another four hours or so.
sunday
“i represent messrs. cox and co. is there anything i can do for any of you gentlemen this morning?” 291
a short, squarely built man, with a black suit, a bowler hat, and a small brown bag, stepped briskly into the room. he gave me intense pleasure: as he talked to a scotch officer who wanted some ready cash, i felt that i was indeed back in england. it was a hot sunny day; and a bowler hat on such a day made me feel sure that this was really southampton, and not all a dream. sir, whoever you are, i thank you for your most appropriate appearance.
the hospital ship had been alongside nearly an hour, i believe. it was three o’clock in the afternoon. breakfast, the dressing of my wound again, lunch; all had followed in an uneventful succession. the throbbing of the engines as the boat steamed quietly along had been hardly noticeable at all. at last there was a bustle, and we were carried out of the room, out into the sunshine again, and along the quay to the train. here i was given a berth in the middle tier this time, for which i was very thankful. i felt so utterly tired; and the weight of my arm across my body was intolerable.
that seemed a long, long journey too; but i got tea without delay this time, and it was hot. at farnborough the train stopped and a few men were taken out. the rest came on to london.
“is there any special hospital in london you want to go to?” said a brisk r.a.m.c. official, when we reached waterloo.
“no,” i answered. 292
he wrote on a label, and put that round my neck also.
“lady carnarvon’s,” he said.
i lay for some time on the platform of waterloo station, gazing up at the vault in the roof. porters and stretcher-bearers stood about, and gazed down at one in silence. then i was moved into a motor ambulance, and a red cross lady took her seat in the back. my head was in the front, so that i could see nothing. just before the car went off, a policeman put his head in.
“any milk or anything?”
“would you like any milk or beef tea?” the lady said.
“milk, please.”
“he says he would like a little milk,” said the lady.
and then we drove off.
monday
it was somewhere about ten o’clock monday morning. the sister had just finished dressing my arm; the doctor had poked it about; now it lay cool and quiet along by my side. i had not slept that night again, except with morphia. i still felt extraordinarily tired, but was very comfortable. i watched the tall sister in blue with the white headdress that reminded me of a nun’s cap. she was so strong and quiet, and seemed to know that my hand always wanted support at the wrist when 293 she lifted my arm. i did not want to talk, just to lie.
suddenly i realised that my head was no longer buzzing. i knew that i should sleep to-night—at last! my body relaxed: the tension suddenly melted away.
“hurrah!” i thought, “i have not got to move, or think, or decide—and i can just lie for hours, for days.”
at last i was out of the grip of war.
