A Surgeon in Belgium

by Henry Sessions Souttar

The bombardment was increasing in violence, and large numbers of incendiary shells were being used, whilst in addition the houses set on fire during the night were now beginning to blaze. As we drove back we passed several houses in flames, and the passage of the narrow streets we traversed was by no means free from risk. At last we turned into our own street, the Boulevard Leopold, and there we met a sight which our eyes could scarcely credit. Three motor-buses stood before our door and patients were being crowded into them. Those buses and our own lives we owe to the kindness of Major Gordon. Without them some at least must have remained behind. The three were already well filled, for our friends thought that we had certainly been killed and that they must act for themselves. We sent them off under the escort of one of our cars, as it seemed foolish to keep them waiting in a position of danger. On our own four we packed all our remaining patients and all the hospital equipment we could remove. One does not waste time when one packs under shell fire, and at the end of three-quarters of an hour there was not a patient and very little of value in the hospital. I took charge of the theatre as I knew where the things went, and I think the British working man would have been rather astonished to see how fast the big sterilizers fell apart and the operating-tables slid into their cases. The windows faced shellwards, and I must confess that once or twice when one of them seemed to be coming unpleasantly near I took the opportunity to remove my parcels outside. How the patients were got ready and carried out and into the buses in that time is beyond my comprehension. But somehow it was managed. I took a last look round and drove out the last nurse who was trying to rescue some last "hospital comfort" for a patient, and in the end I was myself driven out by two indignant dressers who caught me trying to save the instrument sterilizer. The buses were a wonderful sight. Inside were some sixty patients, our share of the whole hundred and thirteen, and on top about thirty of our staff, and the strangest collection of equipment imaginable. The largest steam sterilizer mounted guard in front, hoisted there by two sailormen of huge strength, who turned up from somewhere. Great bundles of blankets, crockery, and instruments were wedged in everywhere, with the luggage of the staff. At the door of each bus was seated a nurse, like a conductor, to give what little attention was possible to the patients. It was a marvellous sight, but no cheerier crowd of medical students ever left the doors of a hospital for a Cup-tie.

XIV The Night Journey

There was only one way out—by the bridge of boats across the Scheldt. It was a narrow plank road, and as vehicles had to go across in single file at some distance apart, the pressure can be imagined. For an hour and a half we stood in the densely packed Cathedral square watching the hands of the great clock go round and wondering when a shell would drop among us. We had seen enough of churches to know what an irresistible attraction they have for German artillery, and we knew that, whatever may be the state of affairs in Scotland, here at any rate the nearer the church the nearer was heaven. But no shells fell near, we only heard them whistling overhead.

The scene around us was extraordinary, and indeed these were the remains of the entire population of Antwerp. The whole city had emptied itself either by this road or by the road northwards into Holland. Crowds of people of every class—the poor in their working- clothes, the well-to-do in their Sunday best—all carrying in bundles all they could carry away of their property, and wedged in amongst them every kind of vehicle imaginable, from a luxurious limousine to coster's carts and wheelbarrows. In front of us lay the Scheldt, and pouring down towards it was on the left an endless stream of fugitives, crossing by the ferry-boats, and on the right an interminable train of artillery and troops, crossing by the only bridge. At last there was a movement forwards; we crept down the slope and on to the bridge, and slowly moved over to the other side. Perhaps we should not have felt quite so happy about it had we known that two men had just been caught on the point of blowing up the boats in the centre, and that very shortly after the Germans were to get the range and drop a shell on to the bridge. At five o'clock we were across the bridge and on the road to Ghent.

Of all the pitiful sights I have ever seen, that road was the most utterly pitiful. We moved on slowly through a dense throng of fugitives—men, women, and little children—all with bundles over their shoulders, in which was all that they possessed. A woman with three babies clinging to her skirts, a small boy wheeling his grandmother in a wheelbarrow, family after family, all moving away from the horror that lay behind to the misery that lay in front. We had heard of Louvain, and we had seen Termonde, and we understood. As darkness came down we lit our lamps, and there along the roadside sat rows of fugitives, resting before recommencing their long journey through the night. There was one row of little children which will live for ever in my memory, tiny mites sitting together on a bank by the roadside. We only saw them for an instant as our lights fell on them, and they disappeared in the darkness. Germany will have to pay for Louvain and Termonde. It is not with man that she will have to settle for that row of little children.

We had a few vacant seats when we left Antwerp, but they were soon filled by fugitives whom we picked up on the road. Strangely enough, we picked up two of our friends in Antwerp with their families. One was the doctor who had taken all our radiographs for us, and to whom we owed a great deal in many ways. He had left his beautiful house, with X-ray apparatus on which he had spent his fortune, incomparably superior to any other that I have ever seen, and here he was trudging along the road, with his wife, his two children, and their nurse. They were going to St. Nicholas, on their way to Holland, and were delighted to get a lift. Unfortunately, by some mistake, the nurse and children left the bus at Zwyndrecht, a few miles from Antwerp, the doctor came on to St. Nicholas, and his wife went right through with us to Ghent. It took him three days to find the children, and when we last heard from him he was in Holland, having lost everything he had in the world, and after two months he had not yet found his wife. And this is only an instance of what has happened all over Belgium.

We reached St. Nicholas about eight o'clock, having covered thirteen miles in three hours. It was quite dark, and as we had a long night before us we decided to stop and get some food for ourselves and our patients. There was not much to be had, but, considering the stream of fugitives, it was wonderful that there was anything. We hoped now to be able to push on faster, and to reach Ghent before midnight, for it is only a little over twenty miles by the direct road. To our dismay, we found that Lokeren, half-way to Ghent, was in the hands of the Germans, and that we must make a detour, taking us close to the Dutch border, and nearly doubling the distance. Without a guide, and in the dark, we could never have reached our destination; but we were fortunate enough to get a guide, and we set out on our long drive through the night. Twenty minutes later a German scouting party entered St. Nicholas. It was a narrow margin, but it was sufficient.

We were rather a downhearted party when we set out northwards towards the Dutch frontier, for we had been told that the three buses we had sent on in advance had gone straight on to Lokeren, and had undoubtedly fallen into the hands of the Germans, who had made certain of holding the road by destroying the bridge. We hoped that they might have discovered this in time, and turned back, but we could not wait to find out. We knew that the enemy were quite close. At first we used our lights, but a shrapnel whistling overhead warned us that we were seen, and for the remainder of the night we travelled in darkness. These were minor roads, with a narrow paved causeway in the centre, and loose sand on each side. Long avenues of trees kept us in inky darkness, and how the drivers succeeded in keeping on the causeway I really do not know. Every now and then one of the buses would get into the sand; then all the men would collect, dig the wheels clear, and by sheer brute force drag the bus back to safety. Twice it seemed absolutely hopeless. The wheels were in the loose sand within a foot of a deep ditch, and the least thing would have sent the bus flying over on to its side into the field beyond; and on both occasions, while we looked at one another in despair, a team of huge Flemish horses appeared from nowhere in the darkness and dragged us clear. Think of an inky night, the Germans close at hand, and every half-hour or so a desperate struggle to shoulder a heavily loaded London bus out of a ditch, and you may have some faint idea of the nightmare we passed through.

As we crept along the dark avenues, the sky behind us was lit by an ever-increasing glare. Away to the south-east, at no great distance, a village was blazing, but behind us was a vast column of flame and smoke towering up to heaven. It was in the direction of Antwerp, and at first we thought that the vandals had fired the town; but though the sky was lit by many blazing houses, that tall pillar came from the great oil-tanks, set on fire by the Belgians lest they should fall into German hands. A more awful and terrifying spectacle it is hard to conceive. The sky was lit up as if by the sunrise of the day of doom, and thirty miles away our road was lighted by the lurid glare. Our way led through woods, and amongst the trees we could hear the crack and see the flash of rifle-fire. More than once the whiz of a bullet urged us to hurry on.