Water, especially boiling water, is at a premium, as it all has to be fetched from outside where the veteran cook stokes hard all day in the driving rain, ladling us out a modicum into each bowl from his cauldrons.
"I never thought to see such sights," exclaimed a nurse of thirty years' experience as a new trainload came in. But we have no time to think of our own sensations.
Fingerless hands, lungs pierced, arms and legs pretty well gangrenous, others already threatening tetanus (against which they are now beginning to inoculate patients), mouths swollen beyond all recognition with bullet shots, fractured femurs, shattered jaws, sightless eyes, ugly scalp wounds; yet never a murmur, never a groan except in sleep. As the men come in they fall on their pallets and doze until roused for food.
A few are enraged to madness at the sight of a German.
"They fired on our Red Cross!" they cry. "Burnt every man alive! Why do we treat them so well?"
Quite a number of prisoners who had been taken near Lille were brought into the clearing station this morning. Being the only linguist present, I was installed as interpreter. They were in a horrible state of nerves, and asked when they were likely to be killed.
One of them was nastily peppered about the heart with shrapnel and asked: "When shall we be shot?" I explained whilst dressing his wounds that Britain is a civilised country, and, in contrast to the Huns, does not hit a man when he is down. Never shall I forget the look of relief on the man's face.
"They told us we'd be tortured if you got us!" he exclaimed.
Later on I was asked to send a card to his mother. It was difficult to know what to say, but "Your son, though a prisoner and wounded, is safe and being well cared for," seemed to meet the occasion. Suddenly without a word he seized the scissors from my belt. Recalling tales of vindictive prisoners, I stepped back. The precaution was unnecessary, for the little Hun was only cutting a button off his coat pocket.