The British soldier

by E. J. Hardy

If patience is a form of courage, those men were very brave who went through the days and nights of marching that had to be done during the retreat after the battle of Mons. "We were told if we fell out it was at our own risk as we would be captured by the advancing Germans. My feet were bleeding, the blood coming through the laceholes of my boots." Even when they were marching men fell asleep. The Army Service Corps had, at times, to work twenty-two hours out of twenty-four to get food up to the men.

A Royal Medical Corps man who worked on hospital trains wrote: "Some of the wounds are terrible, but the patients are very plucky. I asked in one carriage how they were. The reply, though not a man could move, was, 'We're all right, chum, our wounds are going on fine.' A few had lain where they fell on wet ground for four days, as they could not be taken away because of artillery fire. A man whose nose had been hit said that it always had been too big. A chap who had been wounded twenty-five times, said to a chum when the train was starting, 'Buck up, Jack, I'll meet you in Berlin for Christmas dinner.'"

Soldiers who have got bad wounds often speak of them as "mere scratches." They are plucky and do not want to annoy other people. If indeed they groaned and whimpered they would be told by their comrades to "shut up" and "make less row." A friend of the writer who is a Chaplain to the Forces, speaking of the wounded after a battle, wrote: "But, oh, the patient endurance of these men. I would not have conceived it possible that they should have borne what they did bear so absolutely without complaint—nay, not only without complaint or murmuring, but with an unaffected gratefulness for not being worse, and for having escaped at all. They get their wounds dressed, take chloroform, give consent to have their limbs amputated just as if they were going to have their hair cut."

"Give them a cigarette and let them grip the operating table, and they will stick anything until they practically collapse," wrote Corporal Stewart, R.A.M.C., in a letter from the front referring to the British wounded.

A private of the Royal Munster Fusiliers did not mind a shrapnel wound in his left arm, but deeply repined that it had taken off a tattooed butterfly, which had long been his pride and joy. He consoled himself with the elaborate tattoos on the other arm—"But the loike of that butterfly I shall niver see agin," was his sad reflection.

"What gets over me," a soldier who had been shot in the foot remarked, "is how it ain't done more damage to my boot!"

And wounded soldiers are most grateful for any attention that is shown to them. An Irishman who was brought into a hospital a mere wreck, after being washed, shaved and put between sheets told his nurse that he could not "sleep for comfort," and then asked, "How can I thank you enough for what you have done for me? There's no use praying for you, for there is a place in Heaven reserved for the likes of you."

Of a nurse in a French hospital, which was a church, a British soldier wrote: "If ever anyone deserved a front seat in Heaven she did. God bless her! She has the prayers and all the love the remnants of the Fourth Division can give her."

How Ruskin would have appreciated the gratitude of a man of the Lancashire Fusiliers of whom a sergeant of the 5th Lancers wrote: "He had two ghastly wounds in his breast, and I thought he was booked through. He was quietly reading a little edition of Ruskin's 'Crown of Wild Olive,' and seemed to be enjoying it immensely. As I chatted with him for a few minutes he told me that this little book had been his companion all through, and that when he died he wanted it to be buried with him. His end came next day, and we buried the book with him."

War is not always exciting, but frequently monotonous, tedious and painful. All this is taken as in the day's work. "Sore feet are the great trouble, most of us being a bit lame. We also get sore hips from sleeping and lying so much on the ground.... But don't imagine there are funkers. The first time we were in action most of us were a bit trembly, but soon the nerves got in hand, and our officers hadn't much use for their 'Steady, boys.' What gets at you is not being able to come to close quarters and fight man to man. As a fact, we see very little of the enemy, but blaze away at the given range and trust to Providence. For that matter we see very little of our own fellows, and only know by the ambulance men passing through our lines what regiments are near us. For hours we stick on one spot, and see nothing but smoke, and something like a football crowd swaying half a mile off. Our grub department works well, as we have not moved very rapidly, but it sometimes happens that outlying companies, and even regiments, lose touch of their kitchens for a day or even more. There has been some trouble caused by one lot collaring the rations meant for another, but that is bound to happen, even on manœuvres. It is all in a lifetime. Keep smiling. That's the way to win the game."