 Introduction to The Backwash of War, The Human Wreckage of the Battlefield, as witnessed by an American hospital nurse. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org, recording by David Wales. The Backwash of War, The Human Wreckage of the Battlefield, as witnessed by an American hospital nurse by Ellen N. Lamott. Introduction. This war has been described as months of boredom punctuated by moments of intense fright. The writer of these sketches has experienced many months of boredom in a French military field hospital, situated 10 kilometers behind the lines in Belgium. During these months the lines have not moved, either forward or backward, but have remained deadlocked in one position. Undoubtedly, up and down the long-reaching kilometers of front, there has been action and moments of intense fright have produced glorious deeds of valor, courage, devotion, and nobility. But when there is little or no action, there is a stagnant place, and in a stagnant place there is much ugliness. Much ugliness is turned up in the wake of mighty moving forces. We are witnessing a phase in the evolution of humanity, a phase called war, and the slow, onward progress stirs up the slime in the shallows, and this is The Backwash of War. It is very ugly. There are many little lives foaming up in The Backwash. They are loosened by the sweeping current and float to the surface, detached from their environment, and one glimpses them, weak, hideous, repellent. After the war they will consolidate again into the condition called peace. After this war there will be many other wars, and in the intervals there will be peace, so it will alternate for many generations. By examining the things cast up in The Backwash we can gauge the progress of humanity. When clean little lives, when clean little souls boil up in The Backwash, they will consolidate after the final war into a peace that shall endure. But not till then. And then lodged somewhere under his skull, so they bundled him into an ambulance and carried him, cursing and screaming, to the nearest Field Hospital. The journey was made in double quick time over rough Belgian roads. To save his life he must reach the hospital without delay, and if he was bounced to death jolting along at breakneck speed it did not matter. That was understood. He was a deserter, and discipline must be maintained. Since he had failed in the job his life must be saved, and he must be nursed back to health until he was well enough to be stood up against a wall and shot. This is war. Things like this also happen in peacetime, but not so obviously. At the hospital he behaved abominably. The ambulance men declared that he had tried to throw himself out of the back of the ambulance, that he had yelled and hurled himself about, and spat blood all over the floor and blankets. In short he was very disagreeable. Upon the operating table he was no more reasonable. He shouted and screamed and threw himself from side to side, and it took a dozen leather straps and four or five orderlies to hold him in position so that the surgeon could examine him. During this commotion his left eye rolled about loosely upon his cheek, and from his bleeding mouth he shot great clots of stagnant blood, caring not where they fell. One fell upon the immaculate white uniform of the directoress, and stained her from breast to choose. It was disgusting. They told him it was la directrice, and that he must be careful. For an instant he stopped his raving and regarded her fixedly with his remaining eye, then took aim afresh, and again covered her with his cowered blood. Truly it was disgusting. To the metathamayor it was incomprehensible, and he said so. To attempt to kill himself when in these days it was so easy to die with honor upon the battlefield was something he could not understand. So the metathamayor stood patiently aside. His arms crossed, his supple fingers pulling the long black hairs on his bare arms, waiting. He had long to wait, for it was difficult to get the man under the anesthetic. Many cans of ether were used, which went to prove that the patient was a drinking man. Whether he had acquired the habit of hard drink before or since the war could not be ascertained. The war had lasted a year now, and in that time many habits may be formed. As the metathamayor stood there, patiently fingering the hairs on his hairy arms, he calculated the amount of ether that was expended. Five cans of ether at so many francs a can. However, the ether was a donation from America, so it did not matter. Even so it was wasteful. At last they said he was ready. He was quiet. During his struggles they had broken out two big teeth with the mouth gag, and that added a little more blood to the blood already choking him. Then the metathamayor did a very skillful operation. He trefined the skull, extracted the bullet that had lodged beneath it, and bound back in place that erratic eye, after which the man was sent over to the ward, while the surgeon returned hungrily to his dinner long overdue. In the ward the man was a bad patient. He insisted upon tearing off his bandages, although they told him that this meant bleeding to death. His mind seemed fixed on death. He seemed to want to die and was thoroughly unreasonable, although quite conscious. All of which meant that he required constant watching and was a perfect nuisance. He was so different from the other patients who wanted to live. It was a joy to nurse them. This was the sale of the grand blessé, those most seriously wounded. By expert surgery, by expert nursing, some of these were to be returned to their homes again, reformer, mutilated for life, a burden to themselves and to society. Others were to be nursed back to health to a point at which they could again shoulder eighty pounds of marching kit and be torn to pieces again on the firing line. It was a pleasure to nurse such as these. It called forth all one skill, all one's humanity. But to nurse back to health a man who was to be court-martialed and shot, truly that seemed a dead-end occupation. They dressed his wounds every day. Very many yards of gauze were required, with gauze at so many francs a bolt. Very much ether, very much iodiform, very many bandages. It was an expensive business, considering all this waste for a man who was to be shot as soon as he was well enough. How much better to expend this upon the hopeless cripples or those who were to face death again in the trenches? The night nurse was given to reflection. One night, about midnight, she took her candle and went down the ward, reflecting. Ten beds on the right-hand side, ten beds on the left-hand side, all full. How pitiful they were these little soldiers asleep! How irritating they were these little soldiers awake! Yet how sternly they contrasted with the man who had attempted suicide! Yet did they contrast after all? Were they finer, nobler than he? The night nurse, given to reflection, continued her rounds. In bed number two on the right lay Alexander asleep. He had received the Medaille Militaire for bravery. He was better now, and that they had asked the Medesins major for permission to smoke. The Medesins major had refused, saying that it would disturb the other patients. Yet after the doctor had gone, Alexander had produced a cigarette and lighted it, defying them all from behind his Medaille Militaire. The patient in the next bed had become violently nauseated in consequence, yet Alexander had smoked on, secure in his Medaille Meditaire. How much honour lay in that? Here lay Felix asleep. Poor, quairless, feeble-minded Felix, with a foul fistula which filled the whole ward with its odor. In one sleeping hand lay his little round mirror. In the other he clutched his comb. With daylight he would trim and comb his moustache, his poor little drooping moustache, and twirl the ends of it. Beyond lay Alphonse drugged with Morpheia after an intolerable day. That morning he had received a package from home a dozen pears. He had eaten them all, one after the other, though his companions in the beds adjacent looked on with hungry, longing eyes. He offered not one to either side of him. After his gorge he had become violently ill, and demanded the basin in which to unload his surcharged stomach. Here lay Epilite, who for eight months had jerked on the bar of a captive balloon, until a appendicitis had sent him into hospital. He was not ill, and his dirty jokes filled the ward, provoking laughter, even from dying Marius. How filthy had been his jokes! How they had been matched and beaten by the jokes of others! How filthy they all were, when they talked with each other, shouting down the length of the ward! Wherein lay the difference? Was it not all a dead-end occupation, nursing back to health, men to be patched up and returned to the trenches, or a man to be patched up, court-martialed and shot? The difference lay in the ideal. One had no ideals, the others had ideals and fought for them. Yet had they? Poor selfish Alexander, poor vain Felix, poor gluttonous Alphonse, poor filthy Epilite, was it possible that each cherished ideals hidden beneath, courageous dreams of freedom and patriotism? Yet if so, how could such beliefs fail to influence their daily lives? Could one cherished standard so noble, yet be himself so ignoble, so petty, so commonplace? At this point her candle burned out, so the Night Nurse took another one and passed from bed to bed. It was very incomprehensible. Poor whining Felix, poor whining Alphonse, poor whining Epilite, poor whining Alexander, all fighting for La Patrie, and against them the man who had tried to desert La Patrie. So the Night Nurse continued her rounds up and down the ward, reflecting, and suddenly she saw that these ideals were imposed from without, that they were compulsory, that left to themselves Felix, Epilite and Alexander and Alphonse would have had no ideals. Somewhere higher up a handful of men have been able to impose upon Alphonse, Epilite and Felix and Alexander and thousands like them a state of mind which was not in them of themselves. Bass metal gilded, and they were all harnessed to a great car, a juggernaut, ponderous and crushing upon which was enthroned mammon or the goddess of liberty or reason, as you like. Nothing further was demanded of them than their collected physical strength, just to tug the car forward, to cut a wide swath, to leave behind a broad path along which could follow at some later date the hordes of progress and civilization. Individual nobility was superfluous. All the idealists demanded was physical endurance from the mass. Dawn filtered in through the little square windows of the ward, two of the patients rolled on their sides that they might talk to one another. In the silence of early morning their voices rang clear. Does thou know, mon ami, that when we captured that German battery a few days ago we found the gunners chained to their guns? Paris 18 December 1915 End of Chapter 1 Chapter 2 of The Backwash of War by Ellen Newbold Lamotte Chapter 2 La Patrie Raconaisante They brought him to the poster des secours just behind the lines, and laid the stretcher down gently, after which the bearer stretched and re-stretched their stiffened arms, numb with his weight. For he was a big man of forty, not one of the light striplings of the young classes of this year or last. The wounded man opened his eyes, flashing black eyes, that roved about restlessly for a moment, and then rested vindictively, first on one, then on the other, of the two, rank odd years. Salé embusqué, dirty cowards, he cried angrily. How long is it since I have been wounded? Ten hours? For ten hours have I laid there waiting for you? And then you come to fetch me only when it is safe? Safe for you? Safe to risk your precious, filthy skins? Safe to come where I have stood for months? Safe to come where for ten hours I have laid my belly opened by a German shell? Safe? Safe? How brave you are when night has fallen, when it is dark, when it is safe to come for me? Ten hours late. He closed his eyes, jerked up his knees, and clasp both dirty hands over his abdomen. From waist to knees the old blue trousers were soaked with blood, black blood, stiff and wet. The rank odd years looked at each other and shook their heads. One shrugged a shoulder. Again, the flashing eyes of the man on the stretcher opened. Salé embusqué, he shouted again. How long have you been engaged in this work of mercy? For twelve months since the beginning of the war, and for twelve months since the beginning of the war, I have stood in the first-line trenches. Think of it, twelve months, and for twelve months you have come for us when it was safe. How much younger are you than I? Ten years, both of you? Ten years? Fifteen years? Or even more? To have influence, influence. The flaming eyes closed again, and the bears shuffled off, lighting cheap cigarettes. Then the surgeon came impatiently. A grand blessé to be hastened to the rear at once. The surgeon tried to unbutton the soaking trousers, but the man gave a scream of pain. For the sake of God, cut them, Monsieur Le Mayor. Cut them, do not economize. They are worn out in the service of the country. They are torn and bloody. They can serve no one after me. Ah, the little economies, the little false economies. Cut them, Monsieur Le Mayor. An assistant with heavy-blunt scissors, half cut, half tore the trousers from the man in agony. Clots of black blood ruled from the wound, then a stream bright and scarlet, which was stopped by a handful of white gauze retained by tightly-wrapped bands. The surgeon raised himself from the task, mon pauvre vieux, he murmured tenderly, once more, and into the supine leg he shot a stream of morphia. Two ambulance men came in, Americans in khaki, ruddy, well-fed, careless. They lifted the stretcher quickly and skillfully. Marius opened his angry eyes and fixed them furiously. Salet étranger! he screamed. What are you here for? To see me with my bowels running on the ground? Did you come for me ten hours ago when I needed you? My head in mud, my blood warm under me? Ah, not you. There was danger then. You only come for me when it is safe. They shoved him into the ambulance, buckling down the brown canvas curtains by the light of a lantern. One cranked the motor, then both clambered to the seat in front, laughing. They drove swiftly, but carefully, through the darkness, carrying no light. Inside the man continued his imprecations, but they could not hear him. Rangers, sightseers, he sobbed in misery, driving a motor, when it is I who should drive the motor. Have I not conducted a Paris taxi for these past ten years? Do I not know how to drive, to manage an engine? What are they here for? France? No, only themselves, to write a book, to say what they have done when it was safe. If it was France, there is the foreign legion, where they would have been welcome, to stand in the trenches as I have done. But, do they enlist? Ah, no, it is not safe. They take my place with the motor, and come to get me when it is too late. Then the morphia, relieving him, he slept. In a field hospital, some ten kilometers behind the lines, Marius lay dying. For three days he had been dying, and it was disturbing to the other patients. The stench of his wounds filled the air. His curses filled the ward. For Marius knew that he was dying, and that he had nothing to fear. He could express himself as he chose. There would be no earthly court-martial for him. He was answerable to a higher court. So Marius gave forth freely to the ward his philosophy of life, his hard, bare, ugly life as he had lived it, and his comments on a la patrie as he understood it. For three days, night and day, he screamed in his delirium, and no one paid much attention, thinking it was delirium. The other patients were sometimes diverted and amused, sometimes exceedingly annoyed, according to whether or not they were sleepy or suffering. And all the while the wound in the abdomen gave forth a terrible stench, filling the ward, for he had gas gangrene, the odor of which is abominable. Marius had been taken to the side of the abdominal wounds, and on one side of him lay a man with a fecal fistula which smelled atrociously. The man with the fistula, however, had got used to himself, so he complained mightily of Marius. On the other side lay a man who had been shot through the bladder, and the smell of urine was heavy in the air round about. Yet this man had also got used to himself, and he too complained of Marius, and the awful smell of Marius. For Marius had gas gangrene, and the gangrene is death, and it was the smell of death that the others complained of. Two beds farther down lay a boy of twenty who had been shot through the liver. Also his hand had been amputated, and for this reason he was to receive the quadrigare. He had performed no special act of bravery, but all mutilés are given the quadrigare, for they will recover and go back to Paris, and in walking about the streets of Paris with one leg gone, or an arm gone, it is good for the morale of the country that they should have a quadrigare pinned on their breasts. So one night at about eight o'clock the general arrived to confer the quadrigare on the man two beds from Marius. The general was a beautiful man, something like the Russian Grand Duke. He was tall and thin, with beautiful slim legs encased in shining tall boots. As he entered the ward, emerging from the rain and darkness without, he was very imposing. A few raindrops sparkled upon the golden oak leaves of his cap, for although he had driven up in a limousine, he was not able to come quite up to the ward, but had been obliged to traverse some fifty yards of darkness in the rain. He was encircled in a sweeping black cloak, which he cast off upon an empty bed, and then surrounded by his glittering staff he conferred the metal upon the man two beds below Marius. The little ceremony was touching in his dignity and simplicity. Marius, in his delirium, watched the proceedings intently. It was all over in five minutes. Then the general was gone, his staff was gone, and the ward was left to its own reflections. Opposite Marius, across the ward, lay a little jewellery. That is to say a soldier of the Bataillon d'Afrique, which is the criminal regiment of France, in which regiment are placed those men who would otherwise serve sentences in jail. Prisoners are sent to this regiment in peacetime and in time of war. They fight in the trenches as do the others, but with small chance of being decorated. Social rehabilitation is their sole reward as a rule. So Marius waxed forth, taunting the little joyeux whose feet, the opposite his feet, a yard apart. Tim, my little friend, he shouted, so that all might hear. Thou canst never receive the quatiguere, as Francois has received it, because thou art of the Bataillon d'Afrique, and why art thou there, my friend? Because one night at a café thou didst drink more wine than was good for thee, so much more than was good for thee, that when an old boulevard hier, with much money in his pocket, proposed to take thy girl from thee, thou didst knock him down and give him a black eye, common brawler, disturber of the peace. It was all due to the wine, the good wine, which made thee value the girl far above her worth. It was the wine, the wine, and every time an attempt is made in this chamber to abolish drinking the good wine of France, there is violent opposition. Opposition from whom? From the old boulevard hier, whose money is invested in the vineyards, the very man who cast covetous eyes upon thy mimi. So thou goest to jail, then to the Bataillon d'Afrique, and the wine flows and thy mimi, where is she? Only never canst thou receive the quatiguere, my friend? La patrie reconnaisante the sees to that. Marius shouted with laughter, he knew himself so near death, and it was good to be able to say all that was in his heart, and orderly approached him, one of the six young men, attached as male nurses to the ward. Ah, thou bidst me be quiet, sale embusqué? He taunted, I will shout louder than the guns, and hast thou ever heard the guns nearer than this safe point behind the lines? Thou art here doing woman's work, caring for me, nursing me, and what knowledge dost thou bring to thy task, thou ignorant, grosser's clerk? Surely thou hast some powerful friend who got thee mobilized as infirmier, a woman's task, instead of a simple soldier like me doing his duty in the trenches. Marius raced himself in bed, which the infirmier knew, because the doctor had told him, was not a right position for a man who has a wound in his stomach, some thirty centimeters in length. Marius, however, was strong in his delirium, so the infirmier called another to help him throw the patient upon his back. Soon three were called to hold the struggling man down. Marius resigned himself. Summon all six of you, he shouted, all six of you, and what do you know about illness such as mine? You, a grosser's clerk. You, barber. You, cultivateur. You, driver of the boat-train from Paris to Scherberg. You, agent of the gas-society of Paris. You, driver of a Paris taxi such as myself. Yet here you all are in your wisdom, your experience to nurse me, mobilized as nurses because you are friend of a friend of a deputy, whilst I, who know no deputy, am immobilized in the first-line trenches. Sale ambusque, sale ambusque, la patrie raccana santa. He laid upon his back a little while, a quiet. He was very delirious, and at the end could not be far off. His black eyebrows were contracted into a frown, the eyelids closed and quivering. The gray nostrils were pinched and dilated, the gray lips snarling above yellow crusted teeth. The restless lips twitched constantly, mumbling fresh treason inaudibly. Upon the floor on one side lay a pile of coverlets, tossed angrily from the bed, while on each side the bed dangled white muscular hairy legs, the toes touching the floor. All the while he fumbled to unloose the abdominal dressings, picking at the safety pins with weak dirty fingers. The patients on each side turned their backs to him to escape the smell, the smell of death. A woman nurse came down the ward, she was the only one, and she tried to cover him with the fallen bedding. Marius attempted to clutch her hand to encircle her with his weak delirious, amorous arms. She dodged swiftly and directed an orderly to cover him with the fallen blankets. Marius laughed in glee, a fiendish, feeble, shrieking laugh, have nothing to do with a woman who is diseased, he shouted. Never, never, never! So they gave him more morphia, that he might be quiet and less indecent, and not disturbed the other patients. And all that night he died, and all the next day he died, and all the night following he died, for he was a very strong man, and his vitality was wonderful. And, as he died, he continued to pour out to them his experience of life, his summing up of life, as he had lived it and known it. And the side of the woman nurse evoked one train of thought, and the side of the men nurses evoked another, and the side of the man who had the quadri-guerre evoked another, and the side of the gérir evoked another. And he told the ward all about it incessantly. He was very delirious. His was a filthy death. He died after three days cursing and raving. Before he died, that end of the ward smelled foully, and his foul words shouted at the top of his delirious voice, echoed foully. Everyone was glad when it was over. The end came suddenly. After very much raving it came, after terrible abuse, terrible truths. One morning very early the night nurse looked out of the window, and saw a little procession making its way out of the gates of the hospital enclosure, going towards the cemetery of the village beyond. First came the priest carrying a wooden cross that the carpenter had just made. He was chanting something in a minor key, while the sentry at the gates stood at salute. The cortège passed through, numbering a dozen soldiers, four of whom carried the beer on their shoulders. The beer was covered with a glorious tricolor of France. She glanced instinctively back towards Marius. It would be just like that when he died. Then her eyes fell upon a Paris newspaper, lying on her table. There was a column headed, Nausea et rose, More au champ d'honneur, La patrie reconnaisante. It would be just like that. Then Marius gave a last, sudden scream, Vive la France, he shouted, Vive les sores embusquées, Oh, le Kaiser! The ward awoke, scandalized, Vive la patrie reconnaisante, He shouted, Oh, le Kaiser! Then he died. Paris, 19 December, 1915. Chapter 3 of The Backwash of War by Ellen Newbold Lamotte. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Chapter 3. The Hole in the Hedge The field hospital stood in a field outside the village, surrounded by a thick, high hedge of prickly material. Within, the enclosure was filled by a dozen little wooden huts, painted green, connected with each other by plank walks. What went on outside the hedge, nobody within knew. War, presumably. War ten kilometers away to judge by the map, and by the noise of the guns, which on some days roared very loudly, and made the wooden huts shake and tremble, although one got used to that after a fashion. The hospital was very close to the war, so close that no one knew anything about the war, therefore it was very dull inside the enclosure, with no news and no newspapers, and just quarrels and monotonous work. As for the hedge, at some points, as the prickly thorn gave out or gave way, stout stakes and stout boarding took its place, thus making it a veritable prison wall to those confined within. There was but one recognized entrance, the big double gates with a sentry box beside them, at which box or within it, according to the weather, stood a sentry, night and day. By day a drooping French flag over the gates showed the ambulances where to enter. By night a lantern served the same purpose. The night sentry was often asleep, the day sentry was often absent, and each wrote down in a book, when they thought it important, that all of those who came and went into the hospital grounds. The fueled ambulances came and went, the hospital motors came and went, now and then the general's car came and went, and the people attached to the hospital also came and went, openly, through the gates, but the comings and goings through the hedge were different. Now and then holes were discovered in the hedge, holes underneath the prickly thorn, not more than a foot high, but sufficient to allow a crawling body to wriggle through on its stomach. These holes persisted for a day or two or three, and then were suddenly staked up, with strong stakes and barbed wire, after which, a few days later perhaps, other holes like them would be discovered in the hedge, a little further along. After each hole was discovered, curious happenings would take place amongst the hospital staff. Certain men, orderlies or stretcher-bearers, would be imprisoned. For example, the nurse of Sali, the ward of the grand blessé, would come on duty some morning and discover that one of her orderlies was missing. Fouquet, who swept the ward, who carried basins, who gave them and their breakfasts, was absent. There was a beastly hitch in the ward work and consequence. The fore was filthy, covered with cakes of mud, cramped in by the stretcher-bearers during the night. The men screamed for attention they did not receive. The wrong patients got the wrong food at mealtimes. And then the nurse would look out of one of the little square windows of the ward and see Fouquet marching up and down the plank walks between the barraques, carrying his eighty pounds of marching kit and smiling happily and defiantly. He was in prison. The night before he had crawled through a hole in the hedge, got blind drunk in a neighbouring estamine, and had swaggered boldly through the gates in the morning to be imprisoned. He wanted to be. He just could not stand it any longer. He was sick of it all, sick of being empfamil, of sweeping the floor, of carrying vessels, of cutting up tough meat for sullen one armed men with the quadrager pinned in their coffee-streaked night-shirts. Bah, the quadrager pinned to a night-shirt egg-stained and smelling of sweat. Long, long ago, before anyone thought of war, oh, long ago, that is, about six years, Fouquet had known a deputy. Also his father had known the deputy, and so when it came time for his military service he had done it as empfamil, as nurse, not soldier. He had done stretcher-drill with empty stretchers. He had swept wards, empty of patience. He had done his two years military service practising on empty beds, on empty stretchers. He had had a snap, because of the deputy. Then came the war, and still he had a snap, although now the beds and the wards were all full. Still there was no danger, no front-line trenches, for he was mobilised as empfamil, as nurse in a military hospital. He stood six feet tall, which is big for a Frenchman, and he was big in proportion, and he was twenty-five years old and ruddy and strong. Yet he was obliged to wait upon a little screaming man, five feet two, whose nose had been shot away, exchanged for the mataya militaire upon his chest, who screamed out to him, Bring me the bass, and I'm the ské! And he had brought it. If he had not brought it, the little screaming man with no nose and the flat bandage across his face would have reported him to the madat Saint-Chef, and in time he might have been transferred to the front-line trenches. Anything is better than the front-line trenches. Fouquet knew this, because the wounded men were so bitter at his not being there. Old men were very bitter. At the end of the summer they changed the troops in this sector, and the young Zouaves were replaced by old men of forty and forty-five. They looked very much older than this when they were wounded and brought into the hospital, for their hair and beers were often quite white, and besides their wounds they were often sick from exposure to the cold winter rains of Flanders. One of these old men, the Zouaves, had a son also serving in the trenches. He was very rude to Fouquet, this old man, old and young, they called him ambosquet, which meant that they were jealous of him, that they very much envied him for escaping the trenches and considered it very unjust that they knew no one with influence who could have protected them in the same way. But Fouquet was very sick of it all. Day in, day out were eighteen months before, since the beginning of the war, he had waited upon the wounded. He had done as the commoner soldier had ordered him, clotting up and down the ward in his heavy wooden sabbaths, knocking them against the beds, eliciting curses for his intentional clumsiness. There were also many priests in that hospital, likewise serving as infamiers. They too fetched and carried, but they did not seem to resent it. Some others resented it. Fouquet resented the war and the first-line trenches and the field hospital and the wounded men, and everything connected with the war. He was utterly bored with the war. The hole in the hedge and the estaminette beyond it was all that saved him. There was a priest with a yellow beard who also used the hole in the hedge. He used it almost every night when it was open. He slipped down to the village to spend the night with a girl. Only he was crafty and slipped back again through the hole before daylight and was always on duty again in the morning. True, he was very cross and irritable and the patients did without things rather than ask him for them and sometimes they suffered a great deal doing without things on these mornings when he was so cross. But with Fouquet it was different. He walked in boldly through the gates in the morning and said that he had been out all night without leave and that he was bored to the point of death. So the met-a-tang-shaf punished him. He imprisoned him and as there was no prison he served his six-day sentence in the open air. He donned his eighty pounds of marching kit and tramped up and down the plank walks and round behind the barraques in the mud at the sight of all so that all might witness his humiliation. He did not go on duty again in the ward and in consequence the ward suffered through lack of his grudging uncouth administration. Sometimes he met the directoress as he trudged up and down. He was always afraid to meet her because once she had gone to the met-a-tang-shaf and had him pardoned. Her gentle heart had been touched by her grace so she had had his sentence remitted and he had been obliged to go back to the ward to the work he loathed to the patience he despised after only two hours freedom in a rare October sun. Since then he had carefully avoided the directoress when he saw her blue cloak in the distance coming down the trottois. Women were a nuisance at the front. Men who picked up papers and frankly envied him for this man had a very easy post. He was mobilized as a member of the Formation of Hospital Number Blank and his work consisted of picking up scraps of paper scattered about the grounds within the enclosure. He had a long stick with a nail in the end and a small basket because there wasn't much to pick up. With the nail he picked up what scraps there were to do it. He walked about in the clean fresh air and when it rained he cuddled up against the stove in the pharmacy. The present paper gatherer was a chemist. His predecessor had been a priest. It was a very nice position for an able-bodied man with some education and Fouquet greatly desired it himself only he feared he was not sufficiently well educated since in civil life and down the toatois he cast envious glances at the man who picked up papers. So bearing his full weight marching kit he walked up and down between the barricades dogged and defiant. The other orderlies and stretcher bearers laughed at him and said there goes Fouquet, punished and the patients who missed him asked where is Fouquet, punished and the nurse of that ward who also missed Fouquet said Fouquet, punished but Fouquet's swaggering up and down in full sight of all was pleased because he had had a good drink the night before and did not have to wait upon the patients the day after and to him the only same thing about the war was the discipline of the army. End of Chapter 3 Chapter 4 of The Backwash of War by Ellen Newbold Lamott This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Chapter 4 Alone Rochard died today. He had gas gangrene. His thigh from knee to buttock was torn out by a piece of German shell. It was an interesting case because the infection had developed so quickly. He had been placed under treatment immediately to reaching the hospital from the trenches about six hours after he had been wounded to have a thigh torn off and to reach first-class surgical care within six hours is practically immediately. Still a gas gangrene had developed which showed that the Germans were using very poisonous shells. At that field hospital there had been established a surgical school to which young men just graduated from medical schools or old men graduated long ago from medical schools were sent to learn how to take care of the wounded. After they had received a two-month experience in this sort of war surgery they were to be placed in other hospitals where they could do the work themselves. So all those young men who did not know much and all those old men who had never known much had forgotten most of that were up here at this field hospital learning. This had to be done because there were not enough good doctors so in order to care for the wounded at all it was necessary to furbish up the immature and the senile. However the Medet-Sanchef in charge of the hospital and in charge of the surgical school was a brilliant surgeon and a good administrator so he taught the students a good deal. Therefore when Roshad came into the operating room all the young students and the old students crowded with a flash from that right thigh from knee to buttock down to the bone and the stench was awful. The various students came forward and timidly pressed the upper part of the thigh the remaining part all that remained of it with their fingers and little crackling noises came forth like bubbles gas gang green very easy to diagnose. Also the bacteriologists from another hospital in the region happened to be present and he made a culture of the material discharged from the wound and afterwards told the Medet-Sanchef that it was positively and absolutely gas gang green. But the Medet-Sanchef had already taught the students that gas gang green may be recognized by the crackling and the smell and the fact that the patient as a rule dies pretty soon. They could not operate on Roshad and amputate his leg as they wanted to do the infection was so high into the hip it could not be done. Moreover Roshad had a fractured skull as well. Another piece of shell had pierced his ear and broken into his brain and lodged there. Either wound would have been fatal but it was the gas gang green and a torn out thigh that would kill him first. The wound stank. It was foul. The Medet-Sanchef took a curet a little scoop and scooped away the dead flesh, the dead muscles, the dead nerves, the dead blood vessels and so many blood vessels being dead being scooped away by that sharp curet how could the blood circulate in the top half of that flaxid thigh? It could not. Afterwards into the deep yawning wound they put many compresses of gauze soaked in carbolic acid which acid burned deep into the germs of the gas gang green and killed them and killed much good tissue besides. Then they covered the burning smoking gauze with absorbent cotton then with clean, neat bandages after which they called the stretcher-bearers and Roshad was carried from the operating table back to the ward. The night nurse reported next morning that he had passed a night of agony. He cried all night and turned from side to side to find relief. Sometimes he lay on his good side sometimes he lay on his bad side and the night nurse turned him from side to side according to his fancy because she knew that on neither one side nor the other would he find relief except such mental relief as he got by turning. She sent one of the orderlies Phuket for the medicine chef and the medicine chef came to the ward and looked at Roshad and ordered the night nurse to give him morphia and again morphia as often as she thought best for only death could bring relief from such pain as that and only morphia, a little in advance of death, could bring partial relief. So the night nurse took care of Roshad all that night and turned him and turned him from side to side to the other and gave him morphia as the medicine chef had ordered. He sent it to his cries all night for the morphia brought him no relief. Morphia gives a little relief at times from the pain of life but it is only death that brings absolute relief. When the day nurse came on duty next morning there was Roshad in agony, he cried and again and again all the time meaning the pain in his leg and because of the piece of shell which had penetrated his ear and lodged in his brain somewhere, his wits were wandering. No one can be fully conscious with an inch of German shell in his skull and there was a full inch of German shell in Roshad's skull in his brain somewhere for the radiographist said so. He was a wonderful radiographist and anatomist and he worked accurately with a beautiful expensive machine given him or given the field hospital by Madame Curie. So all night Roshad screamed in agony and turned and twisted first on the hip that was there and then on the hip that was gone and on neither side even with many ampules of morphia could he find relief which shows that morphia good as it is is not as good as death. So when the day nurse came on in the morning there was Roshad strong after a night of agony, strong after many piqueurs of strychnia which kept his heart beating and his lungs breathing, strong after many piqueurs of morphia which did not relieve his pain. Thus the science of healing stood baffled before the science of destroying. Roshad died slowly he stopped struggling he gave up trying to find relief by lying upon the hip that was there or the hip that was gone. Then he ceased to cry. His brain and which was lodged a piece of German shell seemed to reason to become reasonable with break of day. The evening before after his return from the operating room he had been decorated with a mataya militaire conferred upon him an extremis by the general of the region. Upon one side of the metal which was pinned to the wall at the head of the bed were the words of the man. Discipline had triumphed he was very good and quiet now very obedient and disciplined and no longer disturbed the ward with his moanings. Little Roshad, little man gardener by trade aged 39 widower with one child the piece of shell and his skull had made one eye blind there had been a hemorrhage into the eyeball which was all red and sunken and the eyelid over so the red eye stared and stared into space and the other eye drooped and drooped and the white showed and the eyelid drooped till nothing but the white showed and that showed that he was dying but the blind red eye stared beyond it stared fixedly unwinkingly into space. So always the nurse watched the doe white eye which showed the approach of death. The ward was fond of Roshad he had been there only a few hours he meant nothing to anyone there he was a dying man in a field hospital that was all Little Stranger Roshad with one blind red eye that stared into hell the hell he had come from and one white dying eye that showed his hold on life his brief short hold the nurse cared for him very gently very conscientiously very skillfully the surgeon came many times to look at him but he had done for him all that could be done so each time he turned away with a shrug Phuket the young orderly stood at the foot of the bed his feet apart his hands on his hips and regarded Roshad and said and Simon and the other orderly also stood at the foot of the bed from time to time and regarded Roshad and said so Roshad died a stranger among strangers and there were many people there to wait upon him but there was no one there to love him there was no one there to see beyond the horror of the red blind eye of the dull white eye of the vile gangrene smell and it seemed as if the red staring eye was looking for something the hospital could not give it seemed as if the white glazed eye was indifferent to everything the hospital could give and all about him was the vile gangrene smell which made an aura about him and shut him into himself very completely and there was nobody to love him to forget about that smell he sank into a stupor about ten o'clock in the morning and was unconscious from then till the time the nurse went to lunch reluctantly but it was necessary to eat she instructed Phuket the quarterly to watch Roshad carefully and to call her if there was any change after a short time she came back from lunch and hurried to see Roshad hurried behind the flamboyant red cheerful screens that shut him off from the rest of the ward Roshad was dead at the other end of the ward sat the two orderlies in wine Paris April 15 1915 end of chapter 4 chapter 5 of The Backwash of War by Ellen Neubold LeMont this LibriVox recording is in the public domain chapter 5 a Belgian civilian a big English ambulance drove along the high road from Ypres going in the direction of a French field hospital some ten miles from Ypres ordinarily it would have had no business with this French hospital since all English wounded are conveyed back to their own bases therefore an exceptional case must have determined its root it was an exceptional case for the patient lying quietly within its yawning body sheltered by its brown canvas wings was not an English soldier but only a small Belgian boy a civilian and Belgian civilians belong neither to the French nor English services it is true that there was a hospital for Belgian civilians at the English base at Hasbrook and it would have seemed reasonable to have taken the patient there but it was more reasonable to dump him at this French hospital which was nearer not from any humanitarian motives but just to get rid of him the sooner in war civilians are cheap things at best and an immature civilian Belgian at that is very cheap so the heavy English ambulance turned its way up the muddy hill mashed through much mud at the entrance gates of the hospital and crunched to a halt on the cinders before the side of the tent where it discharged its burden and drove off again the surgeon of the French hospital said what if we did do with this yet he regarded the patient thoughtfully it was a very small patient moreover the big English ambulance had driven off again so there was no appeal the small patient had been deposited upon one of the beds in the Salle-Denton and the French surgeon looked at him and wondered what he should do the patient now that he was here belonged as much to the French field hospital as to any other and as the big English ambulance had driven off again there was not much use in protesting the French surgeon was annoyed and irritated it was a characteristic English tricky thought this getting other people to do their work why could they not have taken the child to one of their own hospitals since he had been wounded in their lines or else have taken him to the hospital provided for Belgian civilians where full as it was there was always room for people as small as this the French surgeon worked himself up into quite a temper there is one thing about members of the entente they understand each other the French surgeon's thoughts traveled round and round in an irritated circle and always came back to the fact that the English ambulance had gone and here lay the patient and something must be done so he stood considering a Belgian civilian aged ten or there about shot through the abdomen or there about and dying obviously as usual the surgeon pulled and twisted the long black hairs on his hairy bare arms while he considered what he should do he considered for five minutes and then ordered the child to the operating room and scrubbed and scrubbed his hands and his hairy arms preparatory to a major operation for the Belgian civilian aged ten had been shot through the abdomen by a German shell or piece of shell and there was nothing to do but try to remove it it was a hopeless case anyhow the child would die without an operation or he would die during the operation or he would die after the operation the French surgeon scrubbed his hands viciously for he was still greatly incensed over the English authorities who had placed the case in his hands and then gone away again they should have taken him over the English bases sent Omar or a Hasbrook it was an imposition to abduct him so unceremoniously here simply because here was so many kilometers nearer shirking the surgeon called it and was much incensed after a most searching operation the Belgian civilian was sent over to the ward to live or die as circumstances determined as soon as he came out of ether he was sent to ball for his mother being ten years of age he was unreasonable and balled for her incessantly and could not be pacified the patients were greatly annoyed by this disturbance and there was indignation that the welfare and comfort of useful soldiers should be interfered with by the whims of a futile and useless civilian a Belgian child at that the nurse of that ward was a civilian giving him far more attention than she had ever bestowed upon a soldier she was sentimental and his little age appealed to her her sense of proportion and standard of values were all wrong the directrice appeared in the ward and tried to comfort the civilian to still his howls and then after an hour of vain effort she decided that his mother must be sent for and it was necessary to send for his mother whom alone of all the world he seemed to need so a French ambulance which had nothing to do with Belgian civilians nor with Ypres was sent over to Ypres late in the evening to fetch this mother for whom the Belgian civilian aged ten balled so persistently she arrived finally and it appeared reluctantly about ten o'clock in the evening she arrived and the moment she alighted from the big ambulance sent to fetch her she began complaining she had complained all the way over said the chauffeur she climbed down backward from the front seat perched for a moment on the hub while one heavy leg with foot shawed in slipping sabbath groped wildly for the ground a soldier with a lantern watched impassively watched her solid splash into a mud puddle so she continued her complaints she had been dragged away from her husband from her other children and she seemed to have little interest in her son the Belgian civilian said to be dying however now that she was here now that she had come all this way she would go in to see him for a moment since the directories seemed to think it so important the directories of this field hospital was an American by marriage a British subject and she had curious antiquated ideas she seemed to feel that a mother's place was with her child if that child was dying the directories had three children of her own whom she had left in England over a year ago when she came out to Flanders for the life and adventures of the front but she would have returned to England immediately without an instance hesitation had she received word that one of these children was dying which was a point of view opposed to that of this Belgian mother who seemed to feel that her place was back in her home with her husband and other children in fact this Belgian mother had been rudely dragged away from her home from her family from certain duties that she seemed to think important so she complained bitterly and went into the ward most reluctantly to see her son said to be dying she saw her son and kissed him and then asked to be sent back to Ypres the directories explained that the child would not live through the night the Belgian mother accepted this statement but again asked to be sent back to Ypres the directories again assured the Belgian mother that her son would not live through the night and asked her to spend the night with him in the ward to assist at his passing the Belgian woman protested from the directories commands if she insists then I must assure in the obey I have come all this distance because she commanded me and if she insists that I spend the night at this place then I must do so only if she does not insist then I prefer to return to my home to my other children at Ypres however the directories who had a strong sense of a mother's duty to the dying commanded and insisted and the Belgian woman gave way she sat by her son all night listening to his rafings and ballings and was with him when he died at three o'clock in the morning after which time she requested to be taken back to Ypres she was moved by the death of her son but her duty lay at home Madame Laudatrice had the promise to have a mass said at the burial of the child which promise having been given saw no necessity for remaining my husband she explained has a little estimate just outside of Ypres we have been very fortunate only yesterday of all the long days of the war of the many days of bombardment did a shell fall into our kitchen wounding our son as you have seen but we have other children to consider to provide for and my husband is making much money selling drink to the English soldiers I must return to assist him so the Belgian civilian was buried in the cemetery of the French soldiers but many hours before this took place the mother of the civilian had departed for Ypres the chauffeur of the ambulance which was to convey her back to Ypres turned very white when given his orders everyone dreaded Ypres and the dangers of Ypres it was the place of death only the Belgian woman whose husband kept an estimate and made much money selling drink to the English soldiers did not dread it she and her husband were making much money out of the war money which would give their children a start in life when the ambulance was ready she climbed into it with alacrity although with a feeling of gratitude because the directories had promised a mass for her dead child these Belgians said a French soldier how prosperous they will be after the war how much money they will make from the Americans and from the others who come to see the ruins and as an afterthought in an undertone he added c'est ça la belge End of chapter 5 Chapter 6 of the Backwash of War by Ellen Neubald Lamotte this Libervox recording is in the public domain Chapter 6 The Interval As an orderly error wasn't much good he never waited upon the patients if he could help it and when he couldn't help it he was so disagreeable that they wished they had not asked him for things the newcomers who had been in the hospital only a few days used to think he was deaf since he failed to hear their request and they did not like to yell at him out of consideration for their comrades who were only adjoining beds nor was he a success at sweeping the ward since he did it with the broom in one hand and a copy of the pati parisien in the other in fact when he sat down on a bed away at the end and frankly gave himself up to a two-year-old copy of La Rire sent out with a lot of old magazines for the patients he was no less effective than when he sulkily worked there was just one thing he liked and did well and that was to watch for the generals he was an expert in recognizing them when they were as yet a long way off he used to slouch against the windowpains and keep a keen eye upon the toatois on such days or at such hours as the generals were likely to appear upon catching sight of the oak leaves in the distance he would at once notify the ward that the porterlies and the nurse could tidy up things before the general made rounds he had a very keen eye for oak leaves the golden oak leaves on the generals' kepi and he never by any chance gave a false alarm or mistook a kernel in the distance and so put us to tidying up unnecessarily he did not help with the work of course about continued leaning against the window of the general's progress at the toatois that he had now gone into sal 3 that he had left sal 3 and was conversing outside sal 2 that he was now positively on his way up the incline leading to sal 1 and would be upon us any minute sometimes the general lingered unnecessarily long on the incline the wooden slope leading up to the ward in which case he was not visible from the window an alarm would amuse us by regretting that he had no periscope for the transom over the door there were 2 generals who visited the hospital the big general, the important one the commander of the region who was always beautiful to look upon in his tight, well-fitting black jacket, trimmed with astrakhan, who came from his limousine with a normandy stick dangling from his wrist or spotless, clean gloves this, the big general came to decorate the men who were entitled to the quadrager and the medallia militaire and after he had decorated 1 or 2, as the case might be he usually continued on through the hospital, shaking hands here and there with the patients and chatting with the directories and with the doctors and officers who followed in his wake the other general was not nearly so imposing he was short and fat and dressed in a grey-blue uniform of the shade known as invisible and his kepi was hidden by a grey-blue cover with a little square hole cut out in front so that an inch of oak leaves might be seen he was much more formidable than the big general, however since he was the menace inspector of the region and was responsible for all the details thereabouts he made rather extensive rounds closely questioning the surgeons as to the wounds and treatment of each man and as he was a doctor as well he knew how to judge of the replies whereas the big general was a soldier and not a doctor and was thus unable to ask any disconcerting questions so that his visits while tedious were never embarrassing when a general came on the place as a signal to down tools the surgeons would hurriedly finish their operations or postpone them if possible and the dressings in the wards were also stopped or postponed while the surgeons would hurry after the general whichever one it was and make deferential rounds with him if it took all day and as it usually took at least two hours the visits of the generals one or both meant considerable interruption to the hospital routine sometimes by chance both generals arrived at the same time which meant that there were double rounds beginning at opposite ends of the enclosure and the surgeons were in a quandary as to who suit they should attach themselves and the days when it was busiest when the work was hardest when there was more work than double the staff could accomplish in 24 hours were the days that the generals usually appeared or some days when it was very bad in a field hospital just as there are some days when there is nothing to do and the whole staff is practically idle the bad days are those when the endless roar of the guns makes the little wooden barricades rock and rattle and when endless processions of ambulances drive in and deliver broken ruined men and then drive off again to return loaded with more wrecks the beds in the cell where the ambulances unload are filled with heaps under blankets coarse hobnailed boots stick out from the blankets and sometimes the heaps which are men moan or are silent on the floor lie piles of clothing filthy muddy blood soap torn or cut from the silent bodies on the beds the stretcher bearers step over these piles of dirty clothing or kick them aside as they lift the shrinking bodies to the brown stretchers and carry them across one by one to the operating room the operating room is filled with stretchers lying in rows upon the floor waiting their turn to be emptied to have their burdens lifted from them to the high operating tables and as fast as the stretchers are emptied the stretcher bearers hurry back to the sale de temps where the ambulances dump their loads and come over to the operating room again with fresh lots three tables going in the operating room and the white gown surgeons stand so thick around the tables that you cannot see what is on them there are stretchers lying on the floor of the corridor and against the walls of the operating room and more ambulances are driving in all the time from the operating room they are brought into the wards these bandaged heaps from the operating tables these heaps that once were men the clean beds of the ward are turned back to receive them to receive the motionless bandaged heaps that are lifted, shoved or rolled from the stretchers to the beds again and again all day long the procession of stretchers comes into the wards the foremost bearer kicks open the door with his knee and lets in ahead of him a blast of winter rain which sets dancing the charts and papers lying on the table and blows out the alcohol lamp over which the syringe is boiling someone bangs the door shut the unconscious form is loaded on the bed he is heavy and the bed sags beneath his weight the brancardiers gather up their red blankets and shuffle off again leaving cakes of mud and streaks of muddy water outside the guns roar and inside the barracks shake and again and again the stretcher bearers come into the ward carrying dying men from the high tables in the operating room they are all that stand between us and the guns these wrecks upon the beds others like them are standing between us and the guns others like them who will reach us before morning wrecks like these they are old men most of them the old troops gray and bearded there is an attack going on that does not mean that the Germans are advancing it just means that the ambulances are busy for these old troops these old wrecks upon the beds are holding up the Germans otherwise we should be swept out of existence our hospital ourselves would be swept out of existence were it not for these old wrecks upon the beds these filthy bearded dying men upon the beds who are holding back the Germans more like them in the trenches are holding back the Germans by tomorrow these others too will be with us leading dying but there will be others like them in the trenches to hold back the Germans this is the day of an attack yesterday was the day of an attack the guns are raising hell seven kilometers beyond us and our barracks shake and tremble with their thunder these men gray and bearded dying in our clean beds wetting our clean sheets with the blood that oozes from their dressings have been out there moaning in the trenches when they die we will pull off the bloody sheets and replace them with fresh clean ones and turn them back neatly waiting for the next agonizing man we have many beds and many fresh sheets and so we are always ready for these old hairy men who are standing between us and the Germans they seem very weak and frail and thin how can they do it these old men last summer the young boys did it now it is the turn of these old men there are three dying in the war today it will be better when they die the German shells have made them ludicrous repulsive we see them in this awful interval between life and death this interval when they are gross absurd fantastic life is clean and death is clean but this interval between the two is gross absurd fantastic there down at the end is Roya he came in three days ago a piece of shell penetrated his right eyelid a little wound so small that it was not worth addressing yet that little piece of obus lodged somewhere inside his skull above his left ear so the radiographist says and he is paralyzed paralyzed all down the other side and one supine hand flops about and one supine leg flops about in jerks one bleary eye stays open and the other eyelid stays shut over the other bleary eye meningitis has set in and it won't be long now before we'll have another empty bed yellow foam flows down his nose thick yellow foam bubbles of it bursting bubbling yellow foam it humps up under his nose and up and up in bubbles and the bubbles burst and run in turgid streams down upon his shaggy beard on the wall above his bed hang his metals they are hung up high up so he can see them he can't see them today because now he is unconscious but yesterday and the day before before he got as bad as this he could see them and it made him cry he knew he had been decorated in extremis because he was going to die and he did not want to die so he sobbed and sobbed all the while the general decorated him and protested that he did not want to die he'd saved three men from death earning those vebbles and at the time he never thought of death himself yet in the ward he sobbed and sobbed and protested that he did not want to die back of those red screens is Henri he is a priest mobilized as informer a good one too and very tender and gentle with the patients he comes from the ward next door sale 2 and is giving extreme unction to the man in that bed back of the red screens peek through the screens and you can see Henri in his shirt sleeves with a little crumpled purple stole around his neck so the patient has never regained consciousness since he's been here but Henri says it's all right he may be a Catholic better to take chances it can't hurt him anyway if he isn't I am glad Henri is back of those red screens a few minutes ago he came down the ward in search of absorbent cotton for the holy oils and then he got so interested watching the doctors doing dressings stayed so long watching them that I thought he would not get back again behind the screens in time see that man in the bed next he's dying too they treponed him when he came he can't speak but we got his name and regiment from the metal on his wrist he wants to write isn't it funny he has a block of paper and a pencil and all day long he writes writes on the paper and always over and over again he writes on the paper and he gives the paper to everyone who passes he's got something on his mind that he wants to get across before he dies but no one can understand him no one can read what he has written it is just scroll scribbles unintelligible day and night for he never sleeps he writes on that block of paper and tears off the sheets to everyone who passes and no one can understand for it is just illegible unintelligible scribbles once we took the paper away to see what he would do and then he wrote with his finger upon the wooden frame of the screen the same thing, scribbles but they made no mark on the screen and he seemed so distressed because they made no mark that we gave him back his paper again and now he's happy or I suppose he's happy he seems content when we take this paper and pretend to read it he seems happy scribbling those words that are words to him but not to us careful, don't stand too close he spits yes all the time at the end of every line he spits far too, way across the ward don't you see that his bed and the bed next are covered with rubber sheets that's because he spits big spits too far across the ward and always he writes incessantly day and night he writes on that block of paper and spits way across the ward at the end of every line he's got something on his mind that he wants to get across do you think he's thinking of the Germans he's dying though he can't spit so far today as he did yesterday he's dignified and life is dignified but the intervals are awful they are ludicrous repulsive is that a roar calling calling that the generals are coming both of them together hurry tidy up the ward rub away the froth from under rollin's nose pull his sheets straight take that wet towel and clean the Macintosh upon that bed and the bed adjoining away the screens pull the sheets straight tidy up the ward tell the others not to budge the generals are coming Paris 9 May 1916 End of Chapter 6 Chapter 7 of the Backwash of War by Ellen Newbold Lamotte this LibriVox recording is in the public domain Chapter 7 Women and Wives a bitter wind swept in from the North Sea it swept in over many miles of Flanders planes driving gusts of rain before it it was a biting gale by the time it reached the little cluster of wooden huts composing the field hospital and rain and wind together dashed against the huts blew under them, blew through them crashed two pieces a swinging window down at the laundry and loosened the roof of Sal 1 at the other end of the enclosure it was just ordinary winter weather such as had lasted for months on end and which the Belgians spoke of as vile weather while the French called it a vile Belgian weather the drenching rain soaked into the long green winter grass and the sweeping wind was bitter cold and the howling of the wind was louder than the guns so that it was only when the wind paused for a moment between blasts that the rolling of the guns could be heard in Sal 1 the stove had gone out it was a good little stove but somehow was unequal to struggling with the wind which blew down the long rocking stove pipe and blew the fire out so the little stove grew cold and the hot water jug on the stove grew cold and all the patients at that end of the ward likewise grew cold and demanded hot water bottles and there wasn't any hot water with which to fill them so the patients complained and shivered and in the pauses of the wind one heard the guns then the roof of the ward lifted about an inch and more wind beat down and as it beat down so the roof lifted the orderly remarked that if this Belgian weather continued by tomorrow the roof would be cleaned off blown off into the German lines so all laughed as Fouquet said this and wondered how he could lie a bed with the roof of Sal 1 the Sal of the Grand Blessé blown over into the German lines the ward did not present a neat appearance for all the beds were pushed about at queer angles in from the wall out from the wall some touching each other some very far apart and all to avoid the little leaks of rain which streamed or dropped down from the little holes in the roof this weary weary war these long days of boredom in the hospital these days of incessant wind and rain and cold Armand, chief orderly, ordered Fouquet to rebuild the fire and Fouquet slipped on his sabbats and clogged down the ward away outdoors in the wind and returned finally with a box of coal on his shoulders which he dumped heavily on the floor he was clumsy and sullen and the coal was wet and mostly slate and the patients laughed at his efforts to rebuild the fire finally however it was a light again and radiated out a faint warmth which served to bring out the smell of out of form and of draining wounds and other smells which loaded the cold close air then no one knows who began it one of the patients showed the nurse a photograph of his wife and child and in a moment every man in the twenty beds was fishing back of his bed in his musette under his pillow for photographs of his wife they all had wives it seems for remember these were the old troops who had replaced the young zoos who had guarded this part of the front all summer one by one that they came out these photographs from weather beaten sacks from shabby boxes from under pillows and the nurse must see them all pathetic little pictures they were of common working-class women some fat and work worn some thin and work warm some with stodgy little children grouped about them some without but all were practically the same they were the wives of these men in the beds here the working-class wives of working-class men the soldiers of the trenches ah yes France is democratic it is the nation's war and all the men of the nation regardless of rank are serving but some serve in better places than others the trenches are mostly reserved for men of the working-class which is reasonable as there are more of them the rain beat down and the little stove glowed and the afternoon drew to a close and the photographs of the wives continued to pass from hand to hand there was much talk of home and much of it was longing and much of it was pathetic and much of it was resigned and always the little ugly wives the stupid ordinary wives represented home and the words home and wife were interchangeable and stood for the same thing and the glories and heroisms of war seemed of less interest as a factor in life than these stupid little wives then the chief orderly showed them all the photograph of his wife no one knew that he was married but he said yes and that he received a letter from her every day sometimes it was a postcard also that he wrote to her every day we all knew how nervous he used to get about letter time when the vagamestra made his rounds every morning distributing letters to all the wards we all knew how impatient to get when the vagamestra laid his letter upon the table and there at lay on the table while he was forced to make rounds with the surgeon and could not claim it until long afterwards so it was from his wife that daily letter so anxiously so nervously awaited Simon had a wife too Simon the young surgeon German looking in appearance six feet of a blonde but not blonde really whatever his appearance there was in him something finer something tenderer something nobler to distinguish him from the brute about three times a week he walked into the ward with his fountain pin between his teeth he did not smoke but he chewed his fountain pin and when the dressings were over he would tell the nurse shyly accidentally as it were some little news about his home some little incident concerning his wife some affectionate anecdote about his three young children once when one of the staff went over to London on vacation Simon asked her to buy for his wife a leather coat such as English women wear for motoring always he thought of his wife spoke of his wife plan some thoughtful little surprise or gift for her you know they won't let wives in front women can come into the war zone on various pretext but wives cannot wives it appears are bad for the morale of the army they come with their troubles to talk of how business is failing of how things are going to the bad at home because of the war of how great the struggle how bitter the trials and the poverty and hardship they established the connecting link between the soldier and his life at home his life that he is compelled to resign letters can be censored and all disturbing items cut out but if a wife is permitted to come to the war zone to see her husband there is no censoring the things she may tell him the disquieting disturbing things so she herself must be censored not permitted to come so for long weary months men must remain at the front on active inactivity their wives cannot come to see them only other people's wives may come it is not the woman but the wife that is objected to there is a difference in war it is very great there are many women at the front how do they get there to the zone of the armies on various pretexts to see sick relatives in such and such hospitals or to see other relatives brothers, uncles, cousins oh there are many reasons which make it possible for them to come and always there are the Belgian women who live in the war zone for at present there is a little strip of Belgium left and all the civilians have not been evacuated from the armies zone so there are plenty of women first and last better ones for the officers naturally just as the officers mess is of better quality than that of the common soldiers but always there are plenty of women never wives who mean responsibility but just women who only mean distraction and amusement just as food and wine so wives are forbidden because lowering to the morale but women are winked at because they cheer and refresh the troops after the war it is hoped that all unmarried soldiers will marry but doubtless they will not marry these women who have served them in the war zone that again would be depressing to the country's morale it is rather paradoxical but there are those who can explain it perfectly no no I don't understand it's because everything has two sides you would be surprised to pick up a franken to find liberty equality and fraternity on one side and on the other the image of the sour smoothed out a rose is a fine rose because of the color you put at its roots you don't get a medal for sustained nobility you get it for the impetuous action of the moment an action quite out of keeping with the trend of one's daily life you speak of the young aviator who was decorated for destroying a zeppelin single handed and in the next breath you add and he killed himself a few days later by attempting to fly when he was drunk and so it goes there is the sediment at the bottom of most souls war a superb as it is is not necessarily a filtering process by which men and nations may be purified well there are many people to write you of the noble side the heroic side the exalted side of war I must write you of what I have seen the other side the back wash they are both true in Spain they banged their silver rings upon a marble slab accepting the stamp upon both sides and then decide whether as a whole they ring true every now and then our mom the orderly goes to the village to get a bath he comes back with very clean hands and nails and says that it has greatly solaced him the warm water then later that same evening he gets permission to be absent from the hospital and he goes to our village to a girl but he is always as eager as nervous for his wife's letter as ever it is the same with Simon the young surgeon only Simon keeps himself pretty clean at all times as he has an orderly to bring him pictures of hot water every morning as many as he wants but Simon has a girl in the village to whom he goes every week only why does he talk so incessantly about his wife and show her picture to me about the place why should we all be bored with tales of Simon's stupid wife when that's all she means to him only perhaps she means more I told you I did not understand then the guestionnaire the little fat man in khaki who is purveyor to the hospital every night he commandeers an ambulance and drives back into the country to a village 12 miles away to sleep with a woman the doctor he is 64 and has grandchildren he goes down to our village for a little girl of 14 he was decorated with a legion of honor the other day it seems incongruous oh yes of course there are decent girls at the start at the beginning of the war but you know women how they run after men especially when the men wear uniforms all guilt buttons and braid that most of the women in the war zone are ruined have you ever watched the village girls when a regiment comes through or stops for a night or two on its way to the front have you seen the girls make fools of themselves over the men well that's why there are so many accessible for the troops of course the professional prostitutes from Paris aren't admitted to the war zone but the Belgian girls made such fools of themselves that the others weren't needed across the lines back of the German lines in the invaded district it is different the conquering armies just ruined all the women they could get hold of anyone will tell you that say sal bosh for it is inconceivable how any decent girl even a Belgian could give herself up voluntarily to a hun they use force those brutes it's all the difference in the world no the women over there didn't make fools of themselves over those men how could they no no over there in the invaded districts the Germans forced those girls here on this side the girls cajole them in till they gave in can't you see you must be pro-German anyway they are all ruined and not fit for any decent men to mate with after the war they are pretty dangerous to some of these women no I don't mean in that way but they act as spies for the Germans and get a lot of information out of the men and send it back somehow into the German lines the Germans stop at nothing nothing is too dastardly too low for them to attempt there were two Belgian girls once who lived together in a room in a little village back of our lines they were natives and had always lived there so of course they were not turned out and when the village was shelled from time to time they did not seem to mind and all together they made a lot of money they only received officers the common soldiers were just dirt to them and they refused to see them certain women got known to a place as those who received soldiers and those who received officers these girls were intelligent too and always asked a lot of intelligent interested questions and you know a man when he is excited will answer unsuspectingly any question put to him the Germans took advantage of that it is easy to be a spy just know what questions you must ask and it is surprising how much information you can get the thing is to know upon what point information is wanted these girls knew that it seems and so they asked a lot of intelligent questions and as they received only officers they got a good lot of valuable information for as I say when a man is excited he will answer many questions besides who could have suspected at first that these two girls were spies but they were as they found out finally after several months their rooms were one day searched and a mass of incriminating papers were discovered they had taken these girls from their families held their families as hostages and had sent them across into the English lines with threats of vile reprisals upon their families if they did not produce information of value wasn't it beastly making these girls prostitutes and spies upon pain of reprisals upon their families the Germans knew that they were so attractive that they would receive only officers that they would receive many clients of high rank of much information who would readily fall victim to their wiles they were very vile themselves these Germans the curious thing is how well they understand how to beat a trap for their enemies in spite of having nothing in common with them how well they understand the nature of those who were fighting in the name of justice of liberty and civilization Paris, 4 May 1916 End of Chapter 7 Chapter 8 of the Backwash of War by Ellen Newbold Lamotte this Libberbox recording is in the public domain Chapter 8 Pour la Patrie this is how it was it is pretty much always like this in a field hospital just ambulances rolling in and dirty dying men and guns off there in the distance the weariness and the same day after day till one gets so tired and bored big things may be going on over there on the other side of the captive balloons that we can see from a distance but we are always here on this side of them and here on this side of them it is always the same the weariness of it the sameness of it the same ambulances and dirty men and groans or silence not operating rooms the same beds always full in the wards this is war but it goes on and on over and over day after day till it seems like life life in peacetime it might be life in a big city hospital so alike is the routine only the city hospitals are bigger and better equipped and the ambulances are smarter and the patients don't always come in ambulances or in sometimes or come in streetcars or in limousines and they are of both sexes men and women and have ever so many things that matter with them the hospitals of peacetime are not nearly so stupid so monotonous as the hospitals of war wars humane compared to peace more spectacular I grant you more acute that's what interests us but for the sheer agony of life peace is way ahead war is so clean peace is so dirty there are so many foul diseases in peacetime they drag on over so many years too no war is clean I'd rather see a man die in prime of life in wartime than see him doddering along in peacetime brokenhearted broken spirited life broken and very weary having suffered many things to die lost at a good ripe age how they have suffered those who drive up to our city hospitals in limousines in peacetime what's been saved them those who die young and clean and swiftly here behind the guns in the long run it dots up just the same only war spectacular that's all well he came in like the rest only older than most of them a shock of iron gray hair a bit above heavy black brows and the brows were contracted in pain shot as usual in the abdomen he spent three hours on the table after admission the operating table and when he came over to the ward they said not a dog's chance for him no more had he when he came out of ether he said he didn't want to die he said he wanted to live very much he said he wanted to see his wife again and his children over and over he insisted on this insisted on getting well he caught hold of the doctor's hand and said he must get well that the doctor must get him well then the doctor drew away his slim fingers from the rough imploring grasp and told him to be good and patient be good be patient said the doctor and that was all he could say for he was honest knowing that there were 18 little holes cut by the bullet leaking poison into that gashed distended abdomen when these little holes that the doctor could not stop had leaked enough poison into a system he would die not today no but day after tomorrow three days more so all that first day the man talked of getting well he was insistent on that today the second of the three days the doctor gave him very much pain laid hold of him his black brows bent with pain and he grew puzzled how could one live with such pain as that that afternoon about five o'clock came the general the one who decorates them in he had no sword just a riding whip so he tossed the whip on the bed for you can't do an accolade with anything but a sword the Madaya Militaire not the other one but the Madaya Militaire carries a pension of a hundred francs a year so that's something so the general said very briefly in the name of the Republic of France I confer upon you the Madaya Militaire then he bent over and kissed the man on his forehead pinned the metal to the bedspread and departed there you are just a brief little ceremony we all got that impression the general has decorated so many dying men and this one seemed so nearly dead he seemed half conscious yet the general might have put a little more feeling into it not made it quite so perfunctory yet he's done this thing so many many times before it's all right he does it differently when there are people about but this time there was no one present just the doctor the dying man and me and so we four knew what it meant just a widow's pension therefore there wasn't any reason for the accolade for the sonorous ringing phrases of a dress parade we all knew what it meant so did the man when he got the metal he knew too he knew there wasn't any hope I held the metal before him after the general had gone in its red plush gaze cheap somehow the exchange didn't seem even he pushed it aside with a contemptuous handsweep a disgusted shrug I've seen these things before he exclaimed we all had seen them too we all knew about them he and the doctor and the general and I he knew and understood most of all and his tone was bitter after that he knew the doctor couldn't save him and that his wife and children again whereupon he became angry with the treatment and protested against it the pictur hurt they hurt very much and he did not want them moreover they did no good for his pain was now very intense and he tossed and tossed to get away from it so the third day dawned and he was alive and dying and knew that he was dying which is unusual and disconcerting he turned over and over and black fluid vomited from his mouth into the white enamel basin from time to time the orderly emptied the basin but always there was more and always he choked and gasped and knit his brows in pain once his face broke up as a child breaks up when it cries so he cried in pain and loneliness and resentment he struggled hard to hold on very much to live but he could not do it he said je ne tiens plus which was true he couldn't hold on the pain was too great he clenched his hands and writhed and cried out for mercy but what mercy had we we gave him morphia but it did not help so he continued to cry to us for mercy he cried to us and to God between us we let him suffer and like that us and God then I called the priest we have three priests on the ward as orderlies and I got one of them to give him the sacrament I thought it would quiet him we could not help him with drugs and he had not got it quite in his head that he must die and when he said I am dying he expected to be contradicted so I asked Capalod to give him the sacrament and put a red screen around the bed to screen him from the ward then Capalod turned to me and asked me to leave it was summertime the window at the head of the bed was open and the hay outside was new cut and piled into little hay cocks over in the distance the guns rolled as I turned to go I saw Capalod holding a tray of holy oils in one hand while with the other he emptied the basin containing black vomitas out the window no it did not bring him comfort or resignation he fought against it he wanted to live and he resented death very bitterly down at my end of the ward it was a silent summer afternoon I heard them very clearly I heard the low words from behind the screen dite Dieu je vous donne ma vie librement pour ma patrie the priest usually say that to them for death as more dignity that way it is not in the ritual but it makes a soldier's death more noble so I suppose Capalod said it I could only judge by the response I could hear the heavy labored breath the choking wailing cry we we cast out at intervals oh mon dieu we again the mumbling guiding whisper we we came sobbing gasping in response so I heard the whispers the priests whispers and the sturterous choke the feeble wailing rebellious wailing in response he was being forced into it forced into acceptance beaten into submission beaten into resignation we we came to protesting moans ah we it must be dawning upon him now Capalod is making him see we we the choking salves reach me ah mon dieu we then a very deep panting crying breaths dieu je vous donne ma vie librement pour ma patrie librement librement oh we we he was beaten at last the choking dying bewildered man had said the noble words god I give you my life freely for my country after which came a volley of low toned Latin phrases rattling in the stillness like the popping of emitre is two hours later he was still alive restless but no longer resentful it is difficult to go he murmured and then tonight I shall sleep well a long pause followed and he opened his eyes without doubt the next world is more chic than this he remarked smiling and then I was mobilized against my inclination now I have won the mediah military my captain won it for me he made me brave he had a revolver in his hand end of chapter 8