A WARD IN THE SUGAR-SHED CLEARING STATION
"No," replied the prisoner, and all the racial antagonism of Saxon versus Prussian showed itself in his words, "Ve Saxons not want war—ve want peace—but they not ask us!"
October 31st. Who could believe, had they not seen for themselves, the manifold horrors of war? The vermin, against which there is no coping, vermin that in ordinary times one never saw. The men are alive with them, so are we, a fact which necessitates a tremendous "search" at every available opportunity. Even amputated limbs are found to be crawling.
The girl who was working single-handed in this barn until we arrived was walking along the quay yesterday when a feeble voice called her from a stretcher. It was her brother. He died in the night, but she is on duty all the same.
All day long the rush continues. The question "Shrapnel or bullet?" rings incessantly in our ears as each man comes up to get his dressing done.
One boy of nineteen had no fewer than six bullet wounds in one arm and two in each leg. It took two of us an hour to dress his wounds, and afterwards, as I washed his beardless face in response to a gentle request, I could scarce refrain from sending up a prayer of gratitude that my own brothers are dead and not mutilated like these boys.
Towards sunset I was called to the side of a youthful Saxon already rigid with tetanus.
Through his clenched teeth he could still groan to the orderly's command to lie still: "Ich kann nicht still liegen" ("I can't lie still").
At seven o'clock (after nearly twelve hours' work) we went home to dinner, and, it being our turn to take night shift, were back again at our posts, with clean aprons and a satisfied inner man, two hours later. The orderly officer called for any who had not yet had their second anti-typhoid injection, and I, being one of them, was injected on the spot.