May 2nd. This morning we attended Church Parade at the veterinary camp hard by. The chaplain, who had brought out a recently formed brass band, conducted the service in a large sand-pit from which most of the horses had been removed to the sides. A few tents were dotted about, a few sick animals still rolled in the sand as the men came on parade, whilst a narrow path winding up to the dark pine woods above made us feel for all the world like part of a Wild West Buffalo Bill show.
How the French peasants stared, open-mouthed, as the service proceeded, wondering at our madness as we stood there in the sand-pit, with a misty rain enveloping everything, singing at the top of our voices. Many of the men recognised nurses who had been at clearing stations, as we wended our way amongst the sick and wounded horses, the foals, the "prisoner" animals, and glanced at the well-equipped but insufficiently stocked dispensary.
The now famous Pré Catalan farm supplied us with tea, and I could not help recalling how just a year ago we had been lounging in a punt on the Ranelagh lake listening to a band—under somewhat different circumstances! No doubt, somewhere at home, people are still punting on the river, or enjoying a Sunday afternoon nap under the trees, or, being energetically inclined, a round of golf or game of tennis, in surroundings very similar to these. Only as we wandered home past the famous Hill 243, through woods blue with hyacinths, fragrant with wild orchids, primroses, kingcups, violets and every perfect flower one could desire or dream of, and every perfect woodland perfume one could experience, and every perfect colour the eye could imagine, the sound of guns booming heavily and not very far away greeted us ominously.
May 4th. In an erstwhile hotel facing the sea the Secunderabad General Hospital is situated. Not only are the wards often overcrowded, but rows and rows of beds in the spacious hall, neighbouring villas and auxiliary tents help to cope with the numbers. An all-pervading smell of "ghi," or melted butter, makes one think that Little Black Sambo and all the tigers must have been put in the melting-pot.
Odd black figures, with unfathomable eyes and strange turbans, move about their business stealthily, whilst in the little duty-room two kindly theatre sisters dispense tea to any visitors who call on an uneventful day between the fashionable hours of four and five.
Such is Hardelot. For, apart from the hospital, the Claims Commission, the one shop, hotel and post office, every building is shut up and barred.
A convoy of some fifty ambulances on the road tells its own tale. Sauntering into the one and only shop, I secured the last bottle of ink (which proved to be red), and betaking myself to the sand-dunes, set to work on my diary. Across the vast, untrodden expanse of sand the sun cast long shadows; little fishing boats, bathed in the glow, glided slowly homewards.
Hardelot is said to be an inspiring place. Was not the "Tale of Two Cities" penned here? Was not many an historical drama enacted, verse inspired, music created?
