One of the 3rd Hussars wrote: "The work out here is very stiff; in fact, the Shop Hours Act doesn't come anywhere near it. We go out early in the morning and about the following week we think of coming in for a sleep. You would be surprised if you were to see how cheerful all our troops are."
A soldier wrote to his wife: "After what I have gone through if I ever get home from the war I shall never grumble at meals or care where I sleep." Surely the thought of the hardships and wounds which our soldiers bore so bravely should cure our "nerves" and give us a little of their courage to bear.
Writing from an ambulance, Percy Higgins, of the Royal Medical Corps, said: "It is surprising to me that anybody should ever complain of ordinary aches and pains when you see men here with legs and parts of their bodies plastered up in plaster of paris, quietly reading and telling you they feel grand."
[CHAPTER XXI]
In a Military Hospital
When there is war a military hospital is a microcosm of its miseries, but the heroism of our soldiers greatly mitigates them. On the field of battle soldiers show the courage that dares, and when they are brought into hospital it is found that they have also the courage that bears.
"It's a treat," wrote a R.A.M.C. man, "to see the 'Tommies' when their wounds are being dressed. You may ask them twenty times if they are feeling pain, and they will say 'No,' or 'Only a trifle,' until at last they collapse."
The self-forgetfulness of some of the wounded is sublime. Writing of patients who had passed through No. 14 Clearing Hospital 5th Division, in France, Dr. Ludwig Tasker said: "We had one poor fellow whose tongue was actually on his neck, as the result of having had his left jaw blown off. Of course, he could not speak, and when, at a sign from him, I gave him a sheet of paper, all he wrote on it was that his captain was worthy of the Victoria Cross."