The condition of the men was, if possible, worse than that of the officers. They had lain in queer wayside stations, waiting for trains, or on straw in stables and churches, hoping for transport. At Villeneuve, on the Paris railway circle, there was a goods shed with straw on the ground, in which officers lay at one end and men at the other. An R.A.M.C. doctor and a few men did what they could for them, and when the ambulances came out from Paris, the worst were picked out; but, for the rest, the weary waiting for a train continued. At Creil, forty miles from Paris, the accommodation was an open shed filled with straw. French and British lay huddled in groups, some covered by blankets, others by dirty sacks. A doctor of the French Army, very dapper in his red and blue plush cap, sorted them into trains, when any trains came. Several French soldiers stirred a mess of potage with a dirty stick. But of dressings or nursing there was no sign. Patiently and uncomplainingly these sufferers waited, often fifteen, twenty-four or more hours, while the rain poured down on the roof of their shed, and the wind swept drearily through the station.
At last, septic and wasted by fever, they were jolted by the ambulances over the ill-paved roads to Paris and hospital. Lieut. Lowe, whose only chance lay in getting into hospital without further delay, was brought down from Compiègne on a stretcher laid across an ordinary motor-car and held in position by an American doctor and a man with one hand. His thigh was badly fractured and very imperfectly supported; but with the help of morphia he endured the journey. From the first there was little hope of his recovery, but he lingered for some weeks, during which his sister was able to be with him, lavishing care and tenderness upon him to their mutual comfort.
The men were dirty and half-fed; many had not had a change of clothes or socks since they left England; but they were absolutely uncomplaining and began at once to appreciate their hospital surroundings. Women doctors were a novelty which served to enhance the importance and the grandeur of the gilded and marble halls in which they found themselves. ‘The doctors is ladies,’ they wrote in their letters home; and to the visitor who asked: ‘Is it really true that you have no men doctors here?’ the reply was: ‘And what will we be wanting men doctors for, sir?’
They found comfort in the presence of women and repose in the care lavished upon them, and with the philosophy of the soldier they let it rest there.
CHAPTER V
A VISIT TO BRAISNE, AND AN INSPECTION
Good supplies of clothing and hospital comforts found their way to ‘Claridge’s’ from the many work-parties which had been started in England. Socks and gloves came in sacks from Oban, Edinburgh and Aberdeen; pillow-cases and shirts from Annan; belts and bandages from Stoke; parcels were sent from Cardiff and Bristol; and hot-water bottles, bed socks and many other welcome gifts arrived from other places. The Corps had plenty of socks and shirts to send to the outlying stations through which troops passed, or to the places where collections of wounded were known to be lying. French soldiers, too, learned that there were socks to be had, and many of them came to the Hôtel to ask for a pair. They emphasised their need by drawing rubbed and bruised feet, bound in rags, from their army boots, lamenting that the smallness of their pay would not run to socks. With a nice pair, knitted by some one in Scotland, and a little box of ointment they went out beaming.
Two Paris friends, Mlle Block and Miss Grey, gave the hospital very real assistance by providing two ambulances and placing them at the disposal of the medical staff. They were both of them splendid drivers, and they did many a hard day’s work, and thought no pains too great, no journey too long, that gave some wounded man a chance of recovery.
When the R.A.M.C. officer at Braisne telephoned to ask for ‘shirts and anything else you can send,’ a car with all sorts of necessary articles was got ready. A bundle of shirts, a sack of socks, a case of invalid foods and a large bag of dressings were piled in. All the English papers which could be collected and a supply of Woodbines and some books were added, for distribution to the British troops who were always found on the roads or resting in the villages; and the whole was despatched in the care of the Chief Surgeon early one morning in September.
The country was beautiful in the autumn sunlight. It looked peaceful too, as her car followed the long straight roads. But there were shallow trenches by the roadside and barricades, with sentries at intervals, which spoke of war. English soldiers were met, who cheerfully relieved her of the papers and books, and appreciated the Woodbines and the matches; or asked for news from home, and gave her letters to post in Paris. At every village the permis and the contents of the car were examined, and when Paris was left behind, troops were seen moving in large numbers. Wherever the car stopped, villagers crowded round it, eager to tell ‘l’Anglaise’ how the ‘Uhlans’ had come so far: how they had fired the houses and emptied the cellars, and how they had been driven out, and how terrible war was. The smoke of the German guns firing on Soissons was visible as the driver turned off towards Braisne.
The little town, which looked destitute and untidy, lay in a hollow with bare hills all round it, and Dr. Garrett Anderson, as she drove down the main street, could tell by the stench in which buildings the wounded lay. She was met by the R.A.M.C. officer, who asked her to come to headquarters, and took her to a dilapidated little house in which the officers had their mess. She followed her guide through the house into a small backyard where three officers were sitting round a wooden table eating bread and cheese. The colonel said he had not much time, but he would like her to sit down and talk to him while he ate. And a wooden stool was found for her. The air of the place was close and fetid, the flies buzzed over the food, and the men looked careworn and lined. The squalor and discomfort were oppressive, and she was glad when the meal was finished and she could go out into the street with the R.A.M.C. officer, who stayed closely by her. The car was unloaded, and when he saw what she had brought his voice shook as he thanked her. He was young, and the strain of his present life and the contact with so much suffering which he had little power to allay was becoming almost more than he could bear. It was obvious that he felt it a great relief to turn to the doctor from Claridge’s for sympathy and comfort.