Seeking Wounded on Battle Front
By Philip Gibbs of The London Daily Chronicle.
FURNES, Belgium, Oct. 21.—The staff of the English hospital, to which a mobile column has been attached for field work, has arrived here with a convoy of ambulances and motor cars. This little party of doctors, nurses, stretcher-bearers, and chauffeurs, under the direction of Dr. Bevis and Dr. Munro, has done splendid work in Belgium, and many of them were in the siege of Antwerp.
Miss Macnaughton, the novelist, was one of those who went through this great test of courage, and Lady Dorothie Feilding, one of Lord Denbigh's daughters, won everybody's love by her gallantry and plucky devotion to duty in many perilous hours. She takes all risks with laughing courage. She has been under fire in many hot skirmishes, and has helped bring away the wounded from the fighting around Ghent when her own life might have paid the forfeit for defiance to bursting shells.
This morning a flying column of the hospital was preparing to set out in search of wounded men on the firing line under direction of Lieut. de Broqueville, son of the Belgian War Minister. The Lieutenant, very cool and debonair, was arranging the order of the day with Dr. Munro. Lady Dorothie Feilding and the two other women in field kit stood by their cars, waiting for the password. There were four stretcher-bearers, including Mr. Gleeson, an American, who has worked with this party around Ghent and Antwerp, proving himself to be a man of calm and quiet courage at a critical moment, always ready to take great risks in order to bring in a wounded man.
It was decided to take three ambulances and two motor cars. Lieut. de Broqueville anticipated a heavy day's work. He invited me to accompany the column in a car which I shared with Mr. Ashmead-Bartlett of The London Daily Telegraph, who also volunteered for the expedition.
We set out before noon, winding our way through the streets of Furnes. We were asked to get into Dixmude, where there were many wounded. It is about ten miles away from Furnes. As we went along the road, nearer to the sound of the great guns which for the last hour or two had been firing incessantly, we passed many women and children. They were on their way to some place further from the firing. Poor old grandmothers in black bonnets and skirts trudged along the lines of poplars with younger women, who clasped their babies tightly in one hand, while with the other they carried heavy bundles of household goods.
Along the road came German prisoners, marching rapidly between mounted guards. Many of them were wounded, and all of them had a wild, famished, terror-stricken look.
At a turn in the road the battle lay before us, and we were in the zone of fire. Away across the fields was a line of villages with the town of Dixmude a little to the right of us, perhaps a mile and a quarter away. From each little town smoke was rising in separate columns which met at the top in a great black pall. At every moment this blackness was brightened by puffs of electric blue, extraordinarily vivid, as shells burst in the air. From the mass of houses in each town came jets of flame, following explosions which sounded with terrific thudding shocks. On a line of about nine miles there was an incessant cannonade. The farthest villages were already on fire.
Quite close to us, only about half a mile across the fields to the left, there were Belgian batteries at work and rifle fire from many trenches. We were between two fires, and Belgian and German shells came screeching over our heads. The German shells were dropping quite close to us, plowing up the fields with great pits. We could hear them burst and scatter and could see them burrow.
Admiral Sir John Jellicoe
Commanding the British Fleets
(Photo from Rogers.)
Gen. Victor Dankl
The Austrian Commander in the Russian Campaign
(Photo from Bain News Service.)
In front of us on the road lay a dreadful barrier, which brought us to a halt. A German shell had fallen right on top of an ammunition convoy. Four horses had been blown to pieces and their carcasses lay strewn across the road. The ammunition wagon had been broken into fragments and smashed and burned to cinders by the explosion of its own shells. A Belgian soldier lay dead, cut in half by a great fragment of steel. Further along the road were two other dead horses in pools of blood. It was a horrible and sickening sight, from which one turned away shuddering with cold sweat, but we had to pass it after some of this dead flesh had been dragged away.
Further down the road we had left two of the cars in charge of Lady Dorothie Feilding and her two nurses. They were to wait there until we brought back some of the wounded. Two ambulances came on with our light car, commanded by Lieut. Broqueville and Dr. Munro. Mr. Gleeson asked me to help him as stretcher-bearer. Mr. Ashmead-Bartlett was to work with one of the other stretcher-bearers.
I was in one of the ambulances, and Mr. Gleeson sat behind me in the narrow space between the stretchers. Over his shoulder he talked in a quiet voice of the job that lay before us. I was glad of that quiet voice, so placid in its courage. We went forward at what seemed to me a crawl, though I think it was a fair pace, shells bursting around us now on all sides, while shrapnel bullets sprayed the earth about us. It appeared to me an odd thing that we were still alive. Then we came into Dixmude.
When I saw it for the first and last time it was a place of death and horror. The streets through which we passed were utterly deserted and wrecked from end to end, as though by an earthquake. Incessant explosions of shell fire crashed down upon the walls which still stood. Great gashes opened in the walls, which then toppled and fell. A roof came tumbling down with an appalling clatter. Like a house of cards blown by a puff of wind, a little shop suddenly collapsed into a mass of ruins. Here and there, further into the town, we saw living figures. They ran swiftly for a moment and then disappeared into dark caverns under toppling porticos. They were Belgian soldiers.
We were now in a side street leading into the Town Hall square. It seemed impossible to pass, owing to the wreckage strewn across the road. "Try to take it," said Dr. Munro, who was sitting beside the chauffeur. We took it, bumping over heaps of débris, and then swept around into the square. It was a spacious place, with the Town Hall at one side of it—or what was left of the Town Hall; there was only the splendid shell of it left, sufficient for us to see the skeleton of a noble building which had once been the pride of Flemish craftsmen. Even as we turned toward it parts of it were falling upon the ruins already on the ground. I saw a great pillar lean forward and then topple down. A mass of masonry crashed from the portico. Some stiff, dark forms lay among the fallen stones; they were dead soldiers. I hardly glanced at them, for we were in search of the living.
Our cars were brought to a halt outside the building, and we all climbed down. I lighted a cigarette, and I noticed two of the other men fumble for matches for the same purpose. We wanted something to steady our nerves. There was never a moment when shell fire was not bursting in that square. Shrapnel bullets whipped the stones. The Germans were making a target of the Town Hall and dropping their shells with dreadful exactitude on either side of it.
I glanced toward the flaming furnace to the right of the building. There was a wonderful glow at the heart of it, yet it did not give me any warmth. At that moment Dr. Munro and Lieut. de Broqueville mounted the steps of the Town Hall, followed by Mr. Ashmead-Bartlett and myself. Mr. Gleeson was already taking down a stretcher; he had a little smile about his lips.
A French officer and two men stood under the broken archway of the entrance, between the fallen pillars and masonry. A yard away from them lay a dead soldier, a handsome young man with clear-cut features turned upward to the gaping roof. A stream of blood was coagulating around his head, but did not touch the beauty of his face. Another dead man lay huddled up quite close, and his face was hidden.
"Are there any wounded here, Sir?" asked our young Lieutenant. The other officer spoke excitedly. He was a brave man, but he could not hide the terror in his soul, because he had been standing so long waiting for death, which stood beside him, but did not touch him. It appeared from his words that there were several wounded men among the dead down in the cellar, and that he would be obliged to us if we could rescue them.
We stood on some steps, looking down into that cellar. It was a dark hole, illumined dimly by a lantern, I think. I caught sight of a little heap of huddled bodies. Two soldiers, still unwounded, dragged three of them out and handed them up to us. The work of getting those three men into the first ambulance seemed to us interminable; it was really no more than fifteen or twenty minutes. During that time Dr. Munro, perfectly calm and quiet, was moving about the square, directing the work. Lieut. de Broqueville was making inquiries about other wounded in other houses. I lent a hand to one of the stretcher-bearers. What the others were doing I do not know, except that Mr. Gleeson's calm face made a clear-cut image on my brain.
I had lost consciousness of myself. Something outside myself, as it seemed, was saying that there was no way of escape; that it was monstrous to suppose that all these bursting shells would not smash the ambulance to bits and finish the agony of the wounded, and that death was very hideous. I remember thinking, also, how ridiculous it was for men to kill one another like this and to make such hells on earth.
Then Lieut. de Broqueville spoke a word of command; the first ambulance must now get back. I was with the first ambulance, in Mr. Gleeson's company. We had a full load of wounded men, and we were loitering. I put my head outside the cover and gave the word to the chauffeur. As I did so a shrapnel bullet came past my head, and, striking a piece of ironwork, flattened out and fell at my feet. I picked it up and put it in my pocket, though God alone knows why, for I was not in search of souvenirs.
So we started with the first ambulance through those frightful streets again and out into the road to the country. "Very hot!" said one of the men—I think it was the chauffeur. Somebody else asked if we should get through with luck. Nobody answered the question. The wounded men with us were very quiet; I thought they were dead. There was only an incessant cannonade and the crashing of buildings. The mitrailleuses were at work now, spitting out bullets. It was a worse sound than that of the shells; it seemed more deadly in its rattle. I started back behind the car and saw the other ambulance in our wake. I did not see the motor car.
Along the country roads the fields were still being plowed by shells which burst over our heads. We came to a halt again in a place where soldiers were crouched under cottage walls. There were few walls now, and inside some of the remaining cottages were many wounded men. Their comrades were giving them first aid and wiping the blood out of their eyes. We managed to take some of these on board. They were less quiet than the others we had, and groaned in a heartrending way.
A little later we made a painful discovery—Lieut. de Broqueville, our gallant young leader, was missing. By some horrible mischance he had not taken his place in either of the ambulances or the motor cars. None of us had the least idea what had happened to him; we had all imagined that he had scrambled up like the rest of us, after giving the order to get away.
There was only one thing to do—to get back in search of him. Even in the half hour since we had left the town Dixmude had burst into flames and was a great blazing torch. If de Broqueville were left in that hell he would not have a chance of life.
It was Mr. Gleeson and Mr. Ashmead-Bartlett who, with great gallantry, volunteered to go back and search for our leader. They took the light car and sped back toward the burning town. The ambulances went on with their cargo of wounded, and Lady Dorothie Feilding and I were left alone for a little time in one of the cars. We drove back along the road toward Dixmude, and rescued another wounded man left in a wayside cottage.
By this time there were five towns blazing in the darkness, and in spite of the awful suspense which we were now suffering we could not help staring at the fiendish splendor of that sight.
Dr. Munro joined us again, and after consultation we decided to get as near to Dixmude as we could, in case our friends had to come out without their car or had been wounded.
The German bombardment was now terrific. All the guns were concentrated upon Dixmude and the surrounding trenches. In the darkness under a stable wall I stood listening to the great crashes for an hour, when I had not expected such a lease of life. Inside the stable soldiers were sleeping in the straw, careless that at any moment a shell might burst through upon them. The hour seemed a night; then we saw the gleam of headlights, and an English voice called out.
Ashmead-Bartlett and Gleeson had come back. They had gone to the entrance to Dixmude, but could get no further, owing to the flames and shells. They, too, had waited for an hour, but had not found de Broqueville. It seemed certain that he was dead; and, very sorrowfully, as there was nothing to be done, we drove back to Furnes.
At the gate of the convent were some Belgian ambulances which had come from another part of the front with their wounded. I helped to carry one of them in, and strained my shoulders with the weight of the stretcher. Another wounded man put his arm around my neck, and then, with a dreadful cry, collapsed, so that I had to hold him in a strong grip. A third man, horribly smashed about the head, walked almost unaided into the operating room. Mr. Gleeson and I led him with just a touch on his arm. This morning he lies dead on a little pile of straw in a quiet corner of the courtyard.
I sat down to a supper, which I had not expected to eat. There was a strange excitement in my body, which trembled a little after the day's adventures. It seemed very strange to be sitting down to table with cheerful faces about me, but some of the faces were not cheerful. Those of us who knew of the disappearance of de Broqueville sat silently over our soup.
Then suddenly Lady Dorothie Feilding gave a little cry of joy, and Lieut. de Broqueville came walking briskly forward. It seemed a miracle; it was hardly less than that. For several hours after our departure from Dixmude he had remained in that inferno. He had missed us when he went down into the cellar to haul out another wounded man, forgetting that he had given us the order to start. There he had remained, with buildings crashing all around him until the German fire had died down a little. He succeeded in rescuing his wounded man, for whom he found room in a Belgian ambulance outside the town and walked back along the road to Furnes.
We clasped hands and were thankful for his escape. This morning he has gone again to what is left of Dixmude with a flying column. Dr. Munro and Mr. Gleeson, with Lady Dorothie Feilding and her friends, are in the party, although in Dixmude German infantry have taken possession of the outer ruins.
The courage of this English field ambulance under the Belgian Red Cross is one of those splendid things which shine through this devil's work of war.