 Chapter 4 of Diary of a Nursing Sister on the Western Front 1914-1915. This is a LibriVox recording or LibriVox recording during the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org, recording by Shulif Amalhym. Diary of a Nursing Sister on the Western Front 1914-1915 by Anonymous. Chapter 4 on number Ambulance Train 2. First Battle of Ipa. October 20th 1914 to November 17th 1914. The thundering line of battle stands, and in the air das moans and sings, but day shall clasp him with strong hands, and night shall fall him with soft wings. Jolene Grenfell. Tuesday, October 20th 6pm. Just leaving Roiv for Boulogne. We've seen some of the Indians. The Canadians seem to be still on Salesbury plain. No one knows what we're going to Boulogne empty for. We have been busy today getting the train ready, stocking dressings, etc. All the 500 blankets are sent in to be fumigated after each journey, and 500 others drawn and stared. And while they may be, one of the difficulties is the lively condition of the men's shirts and trousers, was worse than fleece, when they come from the trenches in the same clothes they've worn for five weeks or more, you can't wonder we make tracks for a bath at Roiv. We've just taken on two Belgian officers who want to lift to Boulogne. Wednesday, October 21st, arrived at Boulogne 6am, went on to Calais, and reached Saint-Omer at 2pm, where I believe we are to take up from the motor ambulances. A train of Indians is here. Some Belgian refugees boarded the train at Boulogne and wanted to lift to Calais, but I had to be turned off reluctantly on both sides. I've been going through bedding equipment today. No mail for me yet, but the others have had one today. 3.30pm, off for steenwork, close to the Belgian frontier, north west of Lille, good business. Just in five aeroplanes have been warned by major b***** to wear brasset in prominent place owing to dangerous journey and view. 4.30pm, this feels like the front again. 1,000 and 1,000 of Indian troops are marching close to the line, with long fare British officers and turbans mounted, who salute us and we wave back, transport on mules. Gorgeous sunset going on, perfectly flat country, no railway traffic except de la guerre. 6pm, steenwork, paged dark, saw big guns flashing some way off. The motor ambulances are not yet in, was he wounded. The line is cut farther on. 8pm. We have had dinner, and have just been downed the line to see the place about a hundred yards off. The Germans were here six days ago, caught into a big sewer that goes on the line and blew it up. There is a hole, thirty feet long, fifteen across and fifteen deep. Very good piece of work. They occupied the station and bragged about getting across to England from Calais. The medical officer, who lives here, to be sling with the sergeant and seven men, between the field ambulances and the trains, dying towards us. It is a wee place. The station is his headquarters. Thursday, October 22nd, took on from convoys all night in pitch darkness. A very bad load this time, going to go septic, swelling under the bandages. There was a fractured spine and a malignant urema, both dying. We put these two off today at Saint-Omer. We came straight away in the morning and are now nearly back at Boulogne. Friday, October 23rd, all unloaded by eleven p.m. last night, eighteen hundred in a day and night. Number Ambulance train was in. Visited M and S. Bad by twelve. Clothes on for forty hours. Slapped alongside K. Two hospital ships in. Watched them loading up from ambulances. No time to go ashore. The wounded officers we had this time said, the fighting at the front is very heavy. The men said the same. They slept from sheer exhaustion almost before their boots were got off and before the cocoa came round. In the morning they perked up, throwed police with their sleep and talked incessantly of the trenches and the charges and the odds each regiment had against them and how many were left out of their company and all the most gruesome details you can imagine. They seemed to get their blood up against the Germans when they're actually doing the fighting. You're too excited to notice what hits you or to think of anything but your life and your country, one man added. Some of us has got to get killed and some wounded and some captured and we wonder which is for us. 11.15 Just off for... I wasn't the act of trotting off into the town to find the bars. When I met a London Scottish it was a very urgent note for the officer commanding. Thought I'd better buy the wee and it was to say, your train is urgently required. How soon can you start? So I had a lucky escape of being left behind. We had left till 1pm. Then the major nearly got left. We couldn't start that minute because our stores weren't all in and the rail transport officer came up in a great fuss that we were holding up five supply trains and reinforcements so the British army had to wait for us. The worst discomforts of this life are a. called b. Want of drinking water when you're thirsty c. The appalling atmosphere of the French dining car d. Lack of room for a bath and difficulty of getting hot water e. Dirt f. Eccentricities in the meals g. Bad on no lines h. Difficulties of getting laundry done i. Personal capture of various livestock j. Broken nines k. Want of exercise on the up journey d. Against all these minor details p. Being at a front d. All that that includes of a thrilling interest d. Being part of the machinery to give the men the first care and comparative comfort since they landed at the time they most needed d. At least expected 6pm a house of rook again e. We are said to be going to Belgium this time p. Possibly EEPA there are a terrible lot of wounded to be caught down more than all the trains can take they're putting some of them off on the station to where there is a medical officer with a few men and going back for more there were two lovely French torpedo boats alongside of us at Boulogne 7.30pm EEPA is derived all very bucked at being in Belgium an armoured train protective coloured all over in huge dabs of red, blue, yellow and green against aeroplanes is alongside of us in the station meant by 30 men Royal Navy 3 trucks are called Nelson Jellico and Drake with guns they look fine the men say it is a great game they are directed where to fire German positions of batteries and as soon as they answer the train nebs out of range they were very jolly and showed us of their tame rabbit on active service they have had no casualties so far our load hasn't come in yet we are two miles from our fighting line no firing tonight to be heard soon began though Sunday, October 25th couldn't ride last night the only thing was to try and forget it all it has been an absolute hell of a journey there is no other word for it first you must understand that this big battle from Austin to Lill is perhaps the most desperate of all though that is said of each in turn more the end and this but the men and officers who have been through all say this is the worst the Germans are desperate and stick at nothing and the Allies are the same and in determination to drive them back each man personally seems to be the same consequently the carnage is being appalling and we have been practically in it as far as horrors go guns were cracking and splitting all night lighting up the sky in flashes and fires were burning on both sides the clearing hospital close by which was receiving the wounded from the field and sending them on to us was packed and overflowing with badly wounded the medical officer on the station said we had 368 a good 200 were dangerously and seriously wounded perhaps more and the sitting up cases were bad enough the compound fractured femurs were put up rifles and pick handles were splints padded with bits of kilts and straw nearly all the men had more than one wound some had ten one man with a huge compound fracture above the elbow had hide on a bit of string with a bullet in it as a tourniquet above the wound himself when I cut off a soaked three layers of sleeve there was no dressing on it at all they were bleeding faster than we could cope with it and the agony of getting some of the stretches onto the top bunks is a thing to forget we were full up by about 2am and then were delayed by collision up the line which was blocked by dead horses as a result all night and without a break till we got back to Bologna at 4pm next day yesterday we grappled with them and some of them were not dressed when we got into B the had cases were delirious and trying to get out of the window and they were giving stryknine and morphia all round two were put off dying at Centremer but we kept the rest alive to Bologna the outstanding shining things that had you in the eye all through was a universal silent pluck of the men they stuck it all without a whine or complaint or even a comment it was would you mind moving my leg when you get time and thank you very much or that's absolutely glorious as one boy said on having his bootlace cut or that's grand when you stuck a lucky position for a wound in the back one badly smashed up said contently I was lucky I was the only man left alive in our trench so was another in another trench 18 out of 25 of one company in a trench where on the train all seriously wounded except one one man with both legs smashed and other wounds was asked if it was all by one shell oh yes why the man next to me was blowed to bits the bleeding made them all frightfully thirsty they had only been ahead a few hours many of them and luckily we had gotten a good supply of boiled water beforehand on each carriage so we had plenty when there was time to get it in the middle of the worst of it in the night I became conscious of a Belgian Boy Scout of 14 in the corridor with a glass and a pail of drinking water that boy worked for hours with his glass and pail on his own or wherever you sent him we took him back to Calais he had come up into the firing line on his cycle fitted with a rifle with tobacco for the troops and lived with a British whom he loved sharing their rations he was a little brick one of the civil surgeons got him taken back with us where he wanted to go there were 25 officers on the train they said there were 11,000 Germans dead and they were using the dead piled up instead of trenches about one o'clock that night when they heard a rifle shot it was a German spy shooting at the sentry sailor on the armour train alongside of us they didn't catch him it took from four to ten p.m. to unload our bad cases and get them into hospitals or motor ambulances they lay run rows on their stretches on the platform waiting their turn was out to crumble there have been so many hundreds brought down this week that they've had suddenly to clear four hotels for hospitals we are now in the filthiest of sightings and the smell of the burning of our heaps of filthy debris of the train is enough to make you sick we all slept like logs last night and could have gone on all day but the train has to be cleaned down by the orderlies and everything got ready for the next lot they nearly moved us up again last night but we shall go today I think if one year beforehand what all this was going to be like one would hardly want to face it but somehow you're glad to be there we were tackling a bad wound in the head and when it was finished and the man was being got comfortable he flinched and remarked that leg is a beast we found a compound fractured femur put up with a rifle for a splint he had blankets on it had never mentioned that his thigh was broken it too had to be packed and all he said was that leg is a beast and that leg is a beast Monday the 26th 7am Ipa we got here again about 10pm last night in pouring wet and expected another night like Friday night but we for some reason remained short of the station and when we found there was nothing doing lay down in our clothes and slept booted and spurred a Macintosh, Abrans, etc we were all so tired and done up yesterday medical officers, sisters and orderlies that we were glad that you were inspired there was a tremendous banging and flashing to the north about 3pm and this morning it was very noisy and shaking the train some of it sounds quite close it is a noise you rather miss when it leaves off one of the last lot of officers told us he had himself seen in a barn three women and some children all dead and all with no hands the noise this morning is like a continuous roll of thunder interrupted by loud bangs and the popping of the French like our Maxime's the nearest Tommy can get to that word Millet draws us there are two other ambulance trains in but I hear we are to load up first this place is full of Belgian women and children refugees in a bad way from exhaustion a long line of our horse ambulances is coming slowly in had a very interesting morning got leave to go into the town and see the cathedral of Saint-Martin none of the others would botch from the train so I went alone town chock full of French and Belgian troops and unending streams of columns also Belgian refugees cars full of staff officers the cathedral is 13th century glories as usual there are hundreds of German prisoners in the town and cloth hull it was a very warish feeling saying once prayers in the cathedral to the sound of guns battles in the world a medical officer from the clearing hospital with a haggard face asked me if I could give him some eau de cologne and both real for a wounded officer with a gangrene his leg lying on the station sister acts and I took some down also mafia and fed them all frightful cases and structures in the waiting room they are for our train when we get in he told me he had never seen such awful wounds such numbers of them they are brought down in carts or anything he said there are 1500 dead Germans piled up in a field 5 miles off they say the German officers of 10 day service are commanding Tuesday October 27th Bologna we got loaded up and off by about 7pm we arrived back here this morning there are two trains to unload ahead of us so we shall probably be on duty all day it is the second night running we haven't had our clothes off though we did lie down the night before last night we had each a four hour shift to lie down when all the worst were seen too one man died at 6am and another is dying as usual our delirious and the hamerage was worse than ever it is frightfully difficult to stop it with these bad wounds in compound fractures one surgeon has both eyes gone from a shell wound the twelve setting up cases on each carriage are a joy after the tragedy of the rest they stopped talking and smoking till late because they are so surprised and pleased to be alive and it is too comfortable to sleep one man was a broken leg if he boasts his pillows for a worse man and said I'm not bad at all only got me leg broke a redding man with his face wounded and one eye gone capped up a running fire of wit and hilarity during his dressing about having himself food or craft as a guy forks for sketchy bits Wednesday October 28th got to Bologna yesterday morning followed a most difficult day it was not until 10pm that they began to unload the sick the unloading staff at Bologna have been so overworked night and day the trains get piled up waiting to be unloaded fifty motor ambulances have been sent for to the front and here they have to depend largely on volunteer people with private motors then trains get blocked by other trains each side of them and nothing short of the fear of death will move a French engine driver to do what you want him to do meanwhile two men on our train died and several others were getting on with it and all the serious cases were in great distress and misery as a crowning help the train was divided into three parts each five minutes walk from any other dispensary on one bid, kitchen on another everybody got very desperate and at last after superhuman efforts the train was cleared by midnight and we went thankfully but rarely to our beds which you had not got into for the two previous nights today was fine and sunny and while the train was getting in store we went into the town to find a blanchysri and bought a cake and a petticoat and had a press of different air we expect to move up again any time now most welcome meals in news of the weds rebellion today I wonder if both of will be able to hold it the times of yesterday which you can get here and today's Daily Mail say the fighting beyond EPAS severe but that gives the British public no glimmering of what it really is the regiment had three men left out of one company the men say general cried on seeing the remains of the regiments who answered the roles and yet we still drive the Germans back there is a train full of slightly wounded Indians in they are cooking chapatties on nothing along the K the boat to a pact was refugee families yesterday we had some badly wounded Germans on our train and some French officers the British army doesn't intend the Germans to get to Calais and they won't get Thursday October 29th yep woke up to the family of bangs and rattles again this time at a wee place about four miles from Armontier we are to take up 150 here and go back to Bayeaux for 150 there it is a lovely sunny morning but very cold the peasants are working in the fields as peacefully as at home a royal army medical corps lieutenant was killed by a shelf three miles from here three days ago we've just been giving out scarves and socks to some field ambulance men along the line just seen a British aeroplane send off a signal to our batteries a long smoky snake in the sky also a very big British aeroplane with a machine gun on her a German aeroplane dropped a bomb into his field on Tuesday meant for the air station here this is a headquarters of the fourth division Friday October 30th Boulogne while we were at Niep after passing Bayeaux a German aeroplane dropped a bomb onto Bayeaux after filling up at Niep we went back to Bayeaux and took up 238 Indians mostly with smashed left arms from a machine guns that caught them in the act of firing over a trench they are nearly all 47th 6th perfect lambs they hold up their wounded hands and arms like babies for you to see and insist on having some rest was as they've just been done or not they behave like gentlemen and to alarm after you've dressed them they have masses of long fine dark hair and as their turbans done up with yellow coombs glorious teas and melting dark eyes one died the younger boys have beautiful classic Italian faces and the rest have fierce black beards curling over their ears we carried 387 cases this time later we got unloaded much more quickly today and have been able to have a good rest this afternoon as I went to bed at 3am and was up again by 8 it was not so heavy this time as the Indians were mostly sitting up cases those of a different caste had to sleep on the floor of the corridors as the others wouldn't have them in one compartment of four lying down ones got restless with the pain of their arms and I found some more sitting up rocking their arms and wailing I, I, I, poor pets they all had morphia and subsided one British Tommy said to me don't take no notice or the dirt on me flash sister I ain't had much time to wash quite seriously another bad one needed dressing I said I won't hurt you and he said in a hopeless order voice I don't care if you do there had been through a little too much it is fine getting the same days London Daily Mail here by the Falkerstone boat it is interesting to hear the individual men expressing their conviction that the British will never let Germans through to Calais they seem as keen as the generals or the government that is why you have had such a thousand of wounded in Bologna in this one week it is quite difficult to nurse the Germans and impossible to love your enemies we always have summoned the train one man of the Durham Light Infantry was bayoneted in three different places after being badly wounded in the arm by a dumb dumb bullet they make a small entrance hall and burst the limp open in exit the man who bayoneted him died in the next bedroom in the clearing hospital yesterday morning you feel that they have all been doing that and worse we hear at first hand from officers and men specified local instances of unprintable wickedness Saturday October 31 left Bologna at 12 and have just reached Bayoy 6pm where we are to take up wounded Indians again somehow they are not so harrowing as a wounded British perhaps because of the blocking language and the weirdness of them big guns are booming again this was a most critical day of the first battle of Ipa H sent me a lovely parcel of 50 packets of cigarettes and some chocolate and A sent a box of nut milk choc they will be grand for the men one draw back on having the Indians is that you find them squatting in the corridor comparing notes on what varieties they find in their clothing considering the way one gets smothered with their blankets and the bunks it is a most personally alarming element in the war so far Sunday November 1 Bologna or Saints Day we loaded up with British after all late in the evening and had a very heavy night one of mine died suddenly a femoral haemorrhage after sitting up and enjoying his breakfast 12 noon we are still unloaded the die was up all night and so went out for a blow after breakfast found two British torpedo boat destroyers in dock on ones they were having divine service close to the K I listened specially to the part about loving our enemies then I found the English church, colonial and continental quite nice and good chance but I was too sleepy to stay longer than the Psalms it is ages since one had a chance to go to church after lunch now they are all unloaded one will be able to get a stuffy station sleep regardless of noise and smells we carried 39 officers on the train mostly cavalry very brave and angelic and polite in their uncomfortable and unwanted helplessness they liked everything enthusiastically the beds and the foods and the bandages one worn out moment as he was tucked up by Joe it is splendid to be out of the sound of those beastly guns it's priceless I had a very interesting conversation with a major this morning who was hit yesterday he says it's the only question of where and when you get it sooner or later practically no one escapes rife of firing counts for nothing it is all the coal boxes and the Jack Johnson's the shortage of officers getting very serious on both sides and it becomes more and more a question of who can wear out the other in the time he said that aircraft has altered everything in war German aeroplanes come along give a little dip over our positions and away go the German guns and these innocent would be peasants working in the fields give all sorts of signals by whirling windmills round suddenly when certain regiments come into action the poor El regiment were badly cut up in this way yesterday half an hour after coming into their first action we had them on the train they say the French fight well with us better than alone and the Indians can't be kept in their trenches it is up and at them but we shall soon have lost all the men we have out here trains and trains full common every day and night we are waiting now for five trains to unload it is a dazzling morning Monday, November 2 on way up to the pressure on the medical service is now enormous one train came down today with our sisters with twelve hundred sitting up cases they stayed for hours in the siding nearest without water, cigarettes or newspapers you will see in today's times that the Germans have got back around Eber again where I went into the cathedral last Monday number of ambulance trains was badly shelled there yesterday the Germans were trying for the armour train the naval officer on the armour train had to stand behind the engine driver as a revolver to make him go where he was wanted to the sitting up cases on number caught out and fled three miles down the line a black mariah shall burst close to and killed a man they are again urgently needing ambulance trains so I hope we are going there tonight eighty thousand German reinforcements are said to have come up to break through our line and the British dead are now piled up on the field but they are in letting the Germans through three of our men died before we unloaded at 8pm yesterday two of shock from lying ten hours in the trench not dressed Tuesday, November 3, Bayeau, 8.30am just going to load up wish we'd gone to Eber Germans said to be advancing Wednesday, November 4, Bologna we had a lot of badly wounded Germans who had evidently been left many days their condition was appalling two died, one of tetanus and one British we have had a lot of London Scottish wounded in their first action reinforcements, French guns, British cavalry are being hurried up the line they all look splendid Wednesday, November 11 sometimes it seems as if we shall never get home the future is so unwritten a frightful explosion like this hell of a wall which flared up in a few days will take so much longer to wipe up what can be wiped up I think the British men who have seen the desolation and the atrocities in Belgium have all personally settled that it shan't happen in England and that is why the headlines always read the British army immovable waves of German infantry broken allies throw enemy back at all points Eber held for three weeks under a rain of shells you can tell they feel like that from their entire lack of resentment about their own injuries their conversation to each other from the time they are landed on the train until they are taken off is never about their own wounds and feelings but exclusively about the fighting they have just left if one only had time to listen or take it down it would be something worth reading because it is not less as home on newspaper stuff but tall to each other with their own curious comment and phraseology and no hint of a gallery or a press incidentally one gets a few eye-openers into what happens to a group of men when a Jack Johnson lands a shell in the middle of them nearly every man on the train especially if the badly smashed up ones tells you how exceptionally lucky he was because he didn't get killed like his mate Boulogne Thursday November 12th 8pm have been here all day had hot bath on the St Andrew news from the front handed down the line coincided with the Daily Mail Friday 13th still here forced day of rest no one knows why nearly all the trains are here the news today is glorious they say that the Germans did get through into Iper and were bayoneted out again Friday November 13th Boulogne we have been all day in park lane siding among the trains in pouring wet and slush I am used myself with a pot of white paint and a forceps and wool for a brush painting the numbers on both ends of the coaches inside all down the train you can't see the chalk marks at night this unprecedented four days rest night in bed is doing us all a power of good we have books and mending and various occupations Saturday November 14th glorious sunny day but very cold still in Boulogne but out of park lane siding slump and among the ships again some French sailors of the torpedo boats are drilling on one side of us everything Royal Army Medical Corps at the base is having a rest this week ships, hospitals and trains Major S said there was not so much doing at the front thank heaven the line is still wanted for troops we have just heard that there are several trains to go up before our turn comes and that we are to wait about six miles off better than the siding anyhow meanwhile we can't go off because we don't know when the train will move out the tobacco and the cigarettes from Harrods have come in separate parcels so the next will be the chocolate and hankies and cards etc it is a grand lot and I am longing to get up to the front and give them out Sunday November 15th we got to move on in the middle of the night and are now on our way up the cold of this train life is going to be rather a problem our quarters are not heated but we have made a quiet looted a very small oil stove which faintly warms the corridor but you can imagine how no amount of coats or clothes keeps you warm in a railway carriage in winter I am going to make a footmuff out of a brown blanket which will help it's more to walk out of doors will do it but that you can't get off when the train is stationary for fear of its vanishing and for obvious reasons when it is moving I did walk around the train for an hour in the dark and slime and the siding yesterday evening but it is not a cheering form of exercise today it is pouring cats and dogs awful for loading sick and there will be many after this week for the trains everyone of course cleared out of beautiful Eepa but we are going to load up at Borparanger the town next before it which is now Railhead lately the trains have not been so far Monday November 16th Bologna 9am we loaded up at Bayo 344 the clearing hospitals were very full and some came off a convoy one of mine died one wounded above the knee was four days in the open before being picked up he had six bullets in his leg two in each arm and crawled about till found one of the arm wounds he got during this I went to bed at four the news was all good taken as a whole but the men say they were a bit short handed once at a gloomy this isn't war it's murder you go there to your doom heard the sad news of Lord Roberts we are all the better for our weeks rest Tuesday November 17th 3am when we got our load down to Bologna yesterday morning all the hospitals were full and the weather was too rough for the ships to come in and clear them so we were ordered on to Avre a very long journey a German died before we got to Avville where we put off two more very bad ones at a time here we put off four more who wouldn't have reached Avre about midnight something broke on the train and we were hung up for hours and haven't yet got to Rouen so we shall have them on the train all tomorrow too and have all the dressings to do for the third time one of the night orderlies has been run in for being asleep on duty he climbed into a top bunk where a Frenchman was taken off at Amiens and deliberately covered up and went to sleep he was in charge of 28 patients another was left behind at Bologna absent without leave thinking we should unload and the train went off for Avre he'll be running too shows how you can't leave the train just got to Saint-Just that looks as if we were going to empty at Versailles instead of Avre lovely starlight night but very cold everybody feels pleased and honoured that Lord Roberts managed to die with us on active service at headquarters and who would choose a better ending to such a life? 7am after all we must be crawling round to Rouen for Avre past Bauvet lovely sunrise over winter woods and trusted country our load is a heavy and anxious one 344 we shall be glad to lend them safely somewhere the amputations, fractures and lung cases stand these long journeys very badly and off chapter 4 chapter 5 of Diary of a Nursing Sister on the Western Front 1914-1915 this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org Diary of a Nursing Sister on the Western Front 1914-1915 by Anonymous chapter 5 on number ambulance train 3 British and Indians November 18, 1914 to December 17, 1914 because of you we will be glad and gay remembering you we will be brave and strong and hail the advent of each dangerous day and meet the great adventure with a song from a poem on JG the Boulogne siding Saint-Omer Indian soldiers His Majesty King George Lancashire men on the war Hasebrooke Bailol French Engine Drivers Sheepskin Coats A Village in Northeast France Headquarters Wednesday, November 18, 2pm At last reached beautiful Rouen through Saint-Just, Beauvais and up to Sergouin and down to Rouen From Sergouin through Rouen to Avere is supposed to be the most beautiful train journey in France but it is saying a good deal Put off some more bad cases here A boy sergeant aged 24 may save his eye and general blood poisoning if he gets irrigated quickly You can watch them going wrong with two days and two nights on the train and it seems such hard luck and then if you don't write urgent or immediate on their bandages in blue pencil they get overlooked in the Russian to hospital when they are landed So funny to be going back to old Avere that hot-torrid nightmare of waiting for orders in August But thank heaven we don't stop there but back to the guns again 5pm, we are getting on for Avere at last This long journey from Belgium down to Avere has been a strange mixture Glorious country with the flame and blue haze of late autumn on hills, towns and valleys bare beachwoods with hot red carpets Glorious British army lying broken in the train sleep or the chance of it three hours one night and four the next with all the hours between except meals hard work putting the British army together again Haven't taken off my putty since Sunday Seems funny 400 people of whom four are women and about 60 are sound all whirling through France by special train Why? Because of the swelled head of the all highest We had a boy with no wound suffering from shock from shellbursts When he came round if you asked him his name he would look fixedly at you and say yes If you asked him something else with great effort he said Mother 8pm, got to Avere Wednesday 18th November 6pm Soteville near Rouen This afternoon's up journey between Avere and Rouen has been a stripe of pure bliss with no war about it at all A brilliant dazzling day which our island couldn't do if it tried in November rug, coat and cushion on your bed and the most heavenly view unrolling itself before you without lifting your head to see it ending up with the lights of Rouen twinkling in the smoke of the factory chimneys under a flaring red sunset We are to stop here for repairs to the train chauffage, electric light, water supply and gas all to be done then we shall be a very smart train The electric light and the heating will be the greatest help a chapel and a bathroom I should like added At Avgar last night the train ran into the Garmery team where we left in the Asturias for Saint Nazaire early in September which is immediately under the great place that number General Hospital bad for their hospital in August I ran up and saw it all it is absolutely first class there were our people off the train in lovely beds in huge wards with six rows of beds clean sheets, electric light, hot food and all the medical officers, sisters and nursing orderlies in white overalls hard at work on them orderlies removing their boots and clothing where we hadn't done it we leave as much on as we can now because of the cold sisters washing them and settling them in and with the MO doing their dressings all as busy as bees only stopping to say to us aren't they brave they said we brought them an awfully bad lot and we said we shed all the worst on the way they don't realize that by the time they get to the base these men are beyond complaining each stage is a little less infernal to them than the one they've left and instead of complaining they tell you how lovely it is it made one realize the grimness of our stage in it the emergencies, the makeshifts and the little four can do for nearly four hundred in a train with their greatest output we each had 80 lying down cases this journey we got to bed at eleven and didn't wake till nearly nine to the sound of the number come to the cookhouse door boys Thursday, November 19th spent the day in a wilderness of railway lines at Sotfield, Sharp Frost walk up and down the lines all morning horizon bounded by fog this afternoon raw, wet, snowing, slush outside if it is so deadly cold on this unheated train what do they do in the trenches with practically the same equipment they came out with in August can't last like that makes you feel a pig to have a big coat and hot meals and dry feet I've made a fine footmuff with a brown blanket it is twelve thicknesses sewn together have still got only summer under clothing my winter things have been sent on from Avc but the parcel has not yet reached me hope the footmuff will ward off chillblanes got a daily mail of yesterday we heard of the smash up of the Prussian guard on the people who did it and had some of the PG on our train Ypres is said to be full of German wounded who will very likely come to us Friday, November 20th, 10am Boulogne deep snow Boulogne Saturday, November 21st in the siding all day yesterday and today train to be cut down from 650 tons to 450 so we are reconstructing and putting off wagons it will reduce our number of patients but we shall be able to do more for a smaller number and the train will travel better and not waste time blocking up the stations and being left in sidings in consequence the cold this week has been absolutely awful the last train brought almost entirely cases of rheumatism there only hope at the front must be hot meals and I expect the army service corps sees that they get them somehow a trip train of a very rough type of Glasgow men reinforcing the Highlanders was alongside of us early yesterday morning each truck had a roaring fire of coke in a pail they were in roaring spirits it was icy cold my winter things arrived from Avra yesterday so I am better equipped against the cold also this morning an engine gave us an hour or two's chauffage just at getting up time which was a help Sunday, November 22nd left Boulogne early this morning and got to Merville about midday loaded up and got back to Boulogne in the night many wounded Germans and a good lot of our sick knocked over by the cold I don't know how any of them stick it five bombs were dropped the day before where we were today and an old man was killed things are being badly given away by spies even of other nationalities some men were sleeping in a cellar at Ypres to avoid the bombardment with some refugees in the night they missed two of them they were found on the roof signalling to the Germans with flashlights in the morning they paid the penalty the frost has not broken and it is still bitterly cold Tuesday, November 24th was up all Sunday night unloaded early at Boulogne had a bath on a ship and went to bed stayed in siding all day Wednesday, November 25th left Boulogne about 9.30 last night at dinner our charming debonair French garçon was very drunk and spilt the soup all over me there was a great scene in French the fat fatherly corporal who has a face and expression exactly like the Florentine people in Girelandaio's nativities and who has the manners of a French aristocrat on his way to the guillotine tried to control him but it ended in a sort of fight and poor Charles got the sack in the end and has been sent back to Paris to join his regiment he was awfully good to us sisters used to make us coffee in the night and fill our hot bottles and give us hot bricks for our feet at meals just going on now to a place we've not been before called Choc the French have today given us an engine with the red cross on it and an extra man to attend to the chauffage so we have been quite warm and lovely we ply him at the stations with cigarettes and chocolate and now falls over himself in his anxiety to please us the officers of the two divisions which are having a rest have got 100 hours leave in turns we all now spend hours mapping out how much we could get at home in 100 hours from Boulogne Wednesday, November 25th arrived at 11pm last night at a godforsaken little place about 8 miles from the firing line a very depressed major taking a most gloomy view of life and the war in charge of Indians pitched dark night and they were a mile away from the station so we went to bed at 12 and loaded up at 7.30 this morning all Indians, mostly badly wounded they are such pathetic babies just as inarticulate to us and crying as if it was a crash I've done a great trade in Hindustani picked up at a desperate pace from a Hindu officer today if you write it down you can soon learn it and I've got all the necessary medical jargon now you read it off and then spout it without looking at your notebook the awkward part is when they answer something you haven't got the Germans are using sort of steam plows for cutting trenches the frost has broken, thank goodness the Hindu officer said it was more than they bargained for but they were very, very glad to fight for England he thought the Germans were putting up a very good show there have been a great many particularly ghastly wounds from hand grenades in the trenches we have made a very good journey down and expect to unload this evening as we are just getting into Boulogne at 6.30 p.m. Thursday, November 26 we did a record yesterday loaded up with the Indians full load, bad cases quite a heavy day back to Boulogne and unloaded by 9 p.m. and off again at 11.30 p.m. no waiting in the siding this time three hospital ships were waiting this side to cross by daylight they can't cross now by night because of enemy torpedoes so all the hospitals were full again and the trains were taking their loads on to Rouen and off we should have had to if they hadn't been Indians we loaded up today at Beilul where we have been before headquarters of third and fourth divisions we had some time to wait there before loading up so went into the town and saw the cathedral beautiful old tower hideously restored inside but very big and well kept the town was very interesting centuries up the streets every hundred yards or so the usual square packed with transport and the usual jostle of Tommies and staff officers and motor cars and lorries we saw general French go through the surgeon general had been there yesterday and five sisters are to be sent up to each of the two clearing hospitals there they should have an exciting time a bomb was dropped straight on to the hospital two days ago killed one wounded man blew both hands off one order with a bomb blew both hands off one orderly and wounded another the airman was caught and said he was very sorry he dropped it on the hospital he meant it for headquarters we have a lot of cases of frostbite on the train one is as bad as in scott's expedition may have to have his foot amputated I'd never seen it before they are nearly all slight medical cases very few wounded we have a slight load from the point of view of work but we shall have them on the train all night one of us is doing all the train half the night and another all the train the other half the other two go to bed all night I am one of these as I have got a bit of a throat and have been sent to bed early we've never had a light enough load for one to do the whole train before the men say things are very quiet at the front just now is it the weather or the Russian advance great amusement today major peak left behind at Hasebrook talking to the rail transport officer but scored off us by catching us up at Saint-Homer on an engine which he collared Saturday, November 28th sunny and much milder we came up in the night last night to Saint-Homer and have not taken any sick on yet there seems to be only medical cases about just now which is a blessed relief to think of they are inevitable in the winter here or at home the major has gone up to Poporynge with one carriage to fetch six badly wounded officers and four men who were left there the other day when the French took the place over I was just getting cigarettes for an upcoming train of field kitchens and guns out of your parcel when it began to move the men on each truck stood ready and caught the packets as eagerly as if they'd been diamonds as I threw them in for my train it was a great game only two went on the ground the surprise I suppose is in the round tin we are keeping it for a lean day 6pm we are just coming to Shoke for Indians again not far from Armontier so I am looking up my Hindustani conversation again on Friday the day between these two journeys sister N and I got a motor ambulance from the TO and whirled off to Wimmeraw in it it is a lovely place on the sea about three miles off now with every hotel casino and school taken up by RMC base hospitals it was a lovely blue morning and I went right out to the last rock on the sands and watched the breakers while sister N attended to some business it was glorious after the everlasting railway carriage atmosphere then we found a very nice old church in the town it is too wet to load up with the Indians tonight so we have the night in bed and take them down tomorrow a sergeant of the 10th Hussars told me he was in a house with some host Belgian refugees he noticed that when a little bell near the ceiling rang one of them always dashed upstairs he put a man upstairs to trace this bell and intercept the Belgian it was connected with the little trap door of a pigeon house when a pigeon came in with a message this door rang the bell and they went up and got the message they didn't reckon on having British in the house they were shot next morning it takes me a month to read a seven penny out here Sunday advent November 29 on the way down from Schoch we have got Indians British and eight Germans this time one big handsome dignified muscleman wouldn't eat his biscuit because he was in the same compartment as a Hindu and the Hindu wouldn't eat his because the muscleman had handed it to him the babu I called in to interpret was very angry with both and called the muscleman a full man and explained to us that he was telling them that in England don't care muscleman don't care Hindu only in Hindustan and that if the captain Sahib said eat it was hukam and they'd got to my sympathies were with the beautiful polite sad looking muscleman who wouldn't budge an inch and only salamed when the babu went for him Monday November 30 Boulogne yesterday a wounded Tommy on the train told me the Jack Johnson's have all gone today's French communique says the enemy's heavy artillery is little in evidence there is a less strained feeling about everywhere a most blessed lull we were late getting our load off the train last night and some were very bad one of my six with pneumonia did not live to reach Boulogne another pneumonia was very miserable and kept saying Hindustan Gurum England Tanda they all think they are in England the Gurkars are supposed by the orderlies to be Japanese they are exactly like Japs only brown instead of yellow the orderlies make great friends with them all one Hindu was singing Bonnie Dundee to them a little gentle voice very much out of tune their great disadvantage is that they are alive with Jack Johnson's not the guns they take off all their under clothes and throw them out of the window and we have to keep supplying them with pyjamas and shirts they sit and stand about naked scratching for dear life it is fatal for the train because all the cushions seats are now infected and so are we I love them dearly but it is a big price to pay Tuesday December 1st we are today in a beautiful high embankment at Wymru three miles from Boulogne right on the sea and have been dry docked there till 3pm when we have just started for while endless trains of men and guns have gone up past us His Majesty King George was in the restaurant car of one of them we have been out all the morning down to the grey and rolling sea and have been celebrating December 1st by sitting on the embankment reading back numbers of the times and one of the colour sergeants and I have been painting enormous red crosses on the train punch comes regularly now and is devoured by our mess we are very like the apostles and share everything from cakes and spheres to remedies for Jack Johnson's bread and butter doesn't happen a lot bread and butter doesn't happen alas 6.30pm we've just caught up HM King George's train at Saint-Homer but he is evidently outdining with Sir John French we are just alongside he has red and blue curtains lining the bridges to keep his royal khaki shoulders from getting smutty his chef has a grey beard he is with Poincaré Wednesday December 2nd we got to soak very late last night and are loading up this morning but only a few here we shall stop at Lile and take more on we went for our usual exploring walk through seas of mud there are more big motor lorries here than I've seen anywhere we wandered past a place where Indians were busy killing and skinning goats a horrible sight to one of these château where the staff officers have their headquarters it was a lovely house in a very clean park there was a children's swing under the trees and we had some fine swings later officers have been on the train on both places begging for newspapers and books we save up our punches and daily mails and times for them and give them any seven pennies we have to spare they say at least 40 people read each book and they finish up in the trenches HM King George was up here yesterday afternoon in a motor and gave three Victoria crosses we have only taken on 83 at the two places there is so little doing anywhere no guns have been heard for several days and there is not much sickness an officer asked for some papers for his field ambulance men so I gave him the rest of the children's the sailors on the armored train had the first half he came back with some pairs for us they are so awfully grateful for the things we give them that they are like to bring us something in exchange seven men off a passing truck fell over each other getting writing cases and chocolate today they almost eat the writing cases with their joy 9 p.m. we filled up at Saint-Homer from the three hospitals there a great many cases of frostbite were put on they crawl on hands and knees poor dears some left in hospital are very severe and have had to be amputated below the knee some of the toes drop off I have one carriage of 24 Indians a Sikh refused to sit in the same seat without a little major of the Gurkhas I showed him a picture of Bob's and he said at once Robert's Sahib they love the daily mirrors with pictures of Indians the Sikhs are rather whiny patients and very hard to please but the little Gurkhas are absolute stoics and the Bengal Lancers who are Mohammedans are splendid Thursday December 3 we kept our load on all night as we got in very late I went to bed 10.20 a.m. and then took all the train unloaded directly after breakfast some men from Lancashire were rather interesting on the war they thought it would do Europe so much good in the long run and the French might try and get their own back when they get into Germany but the British is too tender-hearted to do them things they arranged that Belgium should have Berlin they all get very pitiful over the Belgian homes in desolation it seems to upset them much more than their own horrors in the trenches a good deal of the fighting they talk about as if it was an exciting sort of football match full of cells and tricks and chances they roar with laughter at some of their escapes there was no hospital ship in which spells a bath or no bath to me I tramped round the town till I found a hotel which kindly supplied a fine bath for 175 and I found another and nicer English church and a Roman Catholic one grand mail when I came in from home Friday December 4th had a busy day loading at three places just going to turn in as I have to be at that 2 a.m. we shall have the patients on all night it is a fearful night pouring and blowing we have taken a tall white haired Padre up with us this time he wanted a trip to the front we happened to go to a place we hadn't been to before in a coal mining district while we loaded he marched off to explore and was very pleased at finding a well-shelled village and an unexploded shell stuck in a tree it specially seemed to please him to find a church shelled he has enjoyed talking to the crowds of men on the train on the way down he lives and messes with us we opened the Herod's cake today it is a beauty the men were awfully pleased with the bull's eyes said they hadn't tasted a sweet for four months one of the colour sergeants has just dug me out to see some terrific flashes away over the channel which he thinks is a naval battle I think it is lightning it was the gale is terrific must be giving the ships a doing Saturday, December 5th, 7am we had a long stop on an embankment in the night and at last the chef de Gare from the next station came along the line and found both the French guards rolled up asleep and the engine driver therefore hung up then he ran out of coal and couldn't pull the train up the hill so we had another four hours weight while another engine was sent for got into Boulogne at 6am bitterly cold and wet and no chauffage Sunday, December 6th a brilliant frosty day on way up to Beilol we unloaded early at Boulogne yesterday and waited at a good place halfway between Boulogne and Calais a high down not far from the sea with a splendid air some of the others went for a walk as we had no engine on but I had been up since 2am and have hatched another bad cold and so retired for a sleep till tea time just got to Haslbrook ten men and three women were killed and twenty wounded here this morning by a bomb they are very keen on getting a good bag here especially on the station and for other reasons as it is an important junction 4pm we have been up to Beilol and there were no patients for us so we are to go back to the above bomb place to collect theirs Beilol was packed with pale war worn, dirty but cheerful French troops and training for their front they have been all through everything and say they want to go on but they are not finished they carry fearful loads including an extra pair of boots a whole collection of frying pans and things and blankets picks etc all on their backs the British officers on the station came and grabbed our yesterday's daily mail and asked for soap so what you sent came in handy they went into the town to buy grapes for us in return this place is famous for grapes huge monster purple ones but the train went out before they came back we had got some earlier though 9pm we are nearly back at Boulogne and haven't taken up any sick or wounded anywhere one of the trains has taken Indians from Boulogne down to Marse several days journey Monday December 7th pouring wet day still standing by nothing doing anywhere it is a blessed relief to know that and the rest does no one any harm had a grand mail today there is a heart breaking account of my beautiful Ypres on page 8 of December 1st times there was a cavalry officer looking round the cathedral with me that day the guns were banging I often wonder where the Belgian woman is who showed me the way and wanted my South Africa ribbons as a souvenir she showed me a huge old painting on the wall of the cathedral of Ypres in an earlier war I all but got left in Boulogne today we are dry docked about 5 miles out not far from Ombloteuse it was bad luck not seeing the king we caught him up at Saint-Omer and saw his train and from there he motored in front of us to all our places where we went they said the king was here yesterday and gave feces we haven't seen the damned good boy either Tuesday December 8th got up to Beilol by 11am and had a good walk on the line waiting to load up glorious morning aeroplanes buzzing overhead like bees and dropping colored signals about only filled up my half of the train both wounded and sick including some very bad enterics an officer in the trenches sent a man on a horse to get some papers from us luckily I had a batch of the times spectator and punches we have come down very quickly and hope to unload tonight 9.30 Wednesday December 9th inciting at Boulogne all day pouring wet Thursday December 10th left for Beilol at 8am heard at Santo Mayor of the sinking of three German cruisers arrived at 2pm loaded up in the rain wounded and sick full load they were men wounded last night very muddy and trenchy said the train was like heaven it was lovely fun taking the sweets round they are such an unexpected treat the sitting ups make many jokes and say they serve round arder sweets than this in the firing line more explosive like one showed us a fearsome piece of shell which killed his chum next to him last night there is a good deal of dysentery about and acute rheumatism the clearing hospitals are getting rather rushed again and the men say we shall have a lot coming down in the next few days 100 men of one regiment got separated from their supports and came up against some German machine guns in a wood with tragic results we are shelling from Ypres but there is no answering shelling going on just now though the Taubes are busy we are wondering what the next railhead will be and when some charming honourable artillery companies are on the train this time and a typically plucky lot of Tommies one of the best of their many best features is their unfailing friendliness with each other they never let you miss a man out with sweets or anything if he happens to be asleep or absent Friday, December 11th they wouldn't unload us at 11pm at Boulogne last night but sent us on to the Duchess of Westminster's hospital at a little place about 20 miles south of Boulogne and we didn't unload till this morning it was my turn for a whole night in bed not that this means we are having many nights up but that when the load doesn't require two sisters at night two go to bed and the other two divide the night after unloading we had a poke round the little fishing village and of course the church a company of Canadian Red Cross people unloaded us the hospital has not been open very long it was all sand dunes and fir trees on the way very attractive and cement factories mail in again 9pm we came back to Boulogne to fill up with stores after lunch and haven't been sent out again yet but we often go to bed here and wake up and ask our soldier servants Batman who bring us jugs of hot water in the morning where we are it's the motion of the train in bed now and you get used to the noise Saturday December 12th the French engine drivers are so erratic that if you're long enough on the line it's only a question of time when you get your smash up ours came last night when they were joining us up to go out again they put an engine on to each end of one half of the train not the one our car is in and then did a tug of war that wasn't a success so they did the concertina touch and put three coaches out of action including the kitchen so we're stuck here now Boulogne till heaven knows when fortunately no casualties Sunday December 13th we've been hung up since Friday night by the three damaged trucks and took the opportunity of getting some good walks yesterday and actually going to church this morning sister B has been ordered to join the hospital she mobilized today and we had to pack her off this morning the staffs of the trains which have all been shortened have been put down from four to three very glad I wasn't taken off we saw a line of graves with wooden crosses in a field against the skyline last journey we have seen a lot of the skin coats the men are getting now sheepskin with any sort of fur or skin sleeves just the skin sewn together you may see a grey or white coat with brown or black fur or astrakhan sleeves some wear the fur inside and some outside they simply love them reduced to pacing the platform in the dark and rain to get warm it is 368 paces so I've done it six times to well cover a mile but it is not an exciting walk funny thing it seems in this war that for many departments you are either thoroughly overworked or entirely hung up which is much worse in things like the pay department or the post office or the provisioning for the ASC it seldom gets off the overworked line but in this and in the fighting line it varies very much quote we were at H on that day Monday December 14th got off at last at 3.30 a.m loaded up 300 at Merville a place we've only been to once before near the coal mines guns were banging only four miles off had a good many bad cases medical and surgical this time kept one busy to the journey's end we are unloaded tonight so they will soon be well seen to instead of going down to Rouen or Avre which two other trains just in have got to do we have a good many Gordon's on one was hugging his bagpipes and we had him up after dinner to play which he did beautifully with a wrapped expression we are going up again tonight three trains wanted immediately been expecting that Tuesday December 15th we were unloaded last night at 9.30 and reported ready to go up again at 11 p.m didn't move us till 5 a.m went to same place as yesterday and cleared the clearing hospitals again some badly wounded with wounds exposed and splints padded with straw as in the Ypres days the black watch have got some cherub-faced boys of 17 out now the mud and floods are appalling the scotch regiments have lost their shoes and spats and weighed barefoot in the waterlogged trenches this is a true fact I'm afraid not a few of many regiments have got rheumatism some acute that they will never lose the plout fields and roads are all more or less under water and each day it rains more we have got a Red Cross doctor on the train who was in the next village to the one we loaded from this morning it has been taken and retaken by both sides and had a population of about 2,000 the only living things he saw in it today besides a khaki supply column passing through were one cat and some goldfish in one villa a big brass bedstead was hanging through the drawing room ceiling by its legs the clothes hanging in the cupboards were slashed up and nothing left anywhere he says at least 10 well-to-do men of 50 are doing motor ambulance work with their own Rolls Royces up there and cleaning their cars themselves at 6am I happened to ask a man who was a stretcher bearer belonging to the rifle brigade how he got hit oh I was carrying a dead man he said modestly my officer told me not to move him till dark because of the sniping but his face was blown off by an explosive bullet and I didn't think it would do the chaps who had to stand round him all day any good so I put him on my back and they copped me in the leg I was glad he wasn't a wounded man because I had to drop him he told me some French ladies were killed in their horse and cart on the road near their trenches the other day they would go and try to get some of their household treasures two were killed two and a man and the horse wounded he helped to take them to the R-A-M-C dressing station Wednesday December 16 we are on our way up again today and by a different and much jollier way to Saint-Homer going south of Boulogne and across country instead of up by Calais we came back this way with patience from Ypres once it is longer but the country is like Hampshire Downs instead of the everlasting flat swamps the other way of course it is raining six p.m. for once we waited long enough at Saint-Homer to go out and explore the beautiful ruined abbey near the station we went up the town very clean compared with the towns farther up swarming with grey touring cars and staff officers headquarters of every arm labelled on different houses and a huge church the same date as the abbey with some good carving and glass in it we kept an eye open and we saw Sir John French and the Prince of Wales but didn't meet them saw the English military church where Lord Roberts began his funeral service for once it wasn't raining Thursday December 17 left Saint-Homer at 11 p.m. last night and woke up this morning at Boulogne saw two aeroplanes being fired at black smoke balls bursting in the air heard that Hartlepool and Scarborough have been shelled just the bare fact in last night's globe our will have an exciting time we're longing to get back for today's daily mail there has been a lot of fighting in our advance southeast of Ypres since Sunday the Gordon's made a great bayonet charge but lost heavily in officers and men in half an hour we have some on the train the French also lost heavily and lie unburied in hundreds but the men say the Germans were still more badly punished they tell us that in the base hospitals they never get a clean wound even the emergency amputations and trefonings and operations done in the clearing hospitals are septic and no one who knew the conditions would wonder at it we shall all forget what aseptic work is by the time we get home the anti-tetanus serum injection that every wounded man gets with his first dressing has done a great deal to keep the tetanus under and the spreading gangrene is less fatal than it was it is treated with incisions and injections of H202 or when necessary amputation in case of limbs you suspect it by the grey colour of the face and by another sense before you look at the dressing at Beilol a man at the station greeted me and it was my old theatre orderly at number 7 Praetoria we were very pleased to see each other I fitted him out with a pack of cards postcards, acid drops and a nice grey pair of socks a wounded officer told us he was giving out the mail in his trench the night before last and nearly every man had either a letter or a parcel just as he finished a shell came and killed his sergeant and corporal they hadn't had their heads out of the trench at that moment for the mail neither of them would have been hit the officer could hardly get through the story for the tears in his eyes end of chapter 5 chapter 6 of Diary of a nursing sister on the western front 1914-1915 this is a Librivox recording all Librivox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit Librivox.org Diary of a nursing sister on the western front 1914-1915 by Anonymous chapter 6 on number ambulance train 4 Christmas and New Year on the train December 18, 1914 to January 3, 1915 Judge of the passionate hearts of men God of the wintery wind and snow Take back the blood-stained year again Give us the Christmas that we know FG Scott Chaplin with the Canadians The Army and the King Mufflers Christmas Eve Christmas on the train Princess Mary's present The trenches in winter Christmas on the train Princess Mary's present The trenches in winter A typical example New Year's Eve at Rouen The young officers Friday, December 18, 10.30 am We've had an all-night journey to Rouen and have almost got there One of my sitting-ups was 106 degrees this morning but it was only malaria first typical one I have met since South Africa A man who saw the king when he was here said they wouldn't let him come near the trenches if a shell had come and hit him I think the army would have gone mad there'd be no keeping him in the trenches after that This place before Rouen is Darnital a beautiful, spirey town in a valley pronounced by the staff of number ambulance train Darnital 6 p.m We unloaded by 12 and had just had time to go out and get a bath at the best baths in France Shipped a big cargo of Jack Johnson's this journey but luckily made no personal captures Got to sleep this afternoon as I was on duty all yesterday and up to 2 a.m. this morning pouring cats and dogs as usual No time to see the cathedrals We had this time a good many old seasoned experienced men of the regular army who had been through all the four months came out in August They are very strong on the point of mixing territorials and Kitchener's army where it is not composed of old servicemen and Indians well in with men like themselves One company of royal engineers lost all its officers in one day in a charge A Highland Light Infantry man gave a chuckling account of how they got to fighting the Prussian guard with their fists at wipers because they were at two close quarters to get in with their bayonets They really enjoyed it and the Germans didn't Saturday 19th We are dry docked today at Sotville outside Rouen Zee and I half walked and half trammed into Rouen this morning It is lovely to get out of the train This afternoon number played a football match against the khaki train and got well beaten They've only been in the country six weeks and only do about one journey every eight days so they are in better training than ours but it will do them a lot of good We looked on Sunday 20th 6pm At last we are on our way back to Boulogne and Males and the news of the war at home and abroad At Rouen or rather the desert four miles outside it we only see the paper of the day before and we miss our males and have no work since unloading on Friday This morning was almost a summer day Warm, still, clear and sunny We went for a walk and then got on with painting the red crosses on the train which can only be done on fine days of which we've had few The men were paraded and then sent Root marching which they much enjoyed It was possible as word was sent that the train was not going out till 130 It did however move at 12 which shows how little you can depend on it even when a time is given They had a mouth organ and sang all the way Monday December 21st Got to Boulogne early this morning after an exceptionally racketyd journey all one's goods and chattels dropping on one's head at intervals during the night Engine driver, rather, Eivre, I should think Off again at 10.30am Mail in weather appallingly cold and no chauffage On way up to Shoke where we shall take up Indians again how utterly miserable Indians must be in this eternal and cold The fields and land generally are all half under water again We missed the last two days papers and so have heard nothing of the war at home except that the casualties are over 60,000 Five mufflers went this afternoon to five men on a little isolated station on the way here When I said to the first boy Have you got a muffler He thought I wanted one for someone on the train Well, it's not a real muffler, it's my sleeping-cap he said, beginning to pull it off his neck But you're welcome to it if it's any use What do you think of that? He got pink with pleasure over a real muffler and some cigarettes You start with two men When you come back in a minute with the mufflers the two have increased to five silent expectant faces Wednesday 23rd We loaded up at Lile late on Monday We loaded up at Lile late on Monday night with one of the worst loads we've ever taken all wounded half Indians and half British You will see by Tuesday's French communicase that some of our trenches had been lost and these had been retaken by the Highland Light Infantry Manchester's and 7th Dragoon Guards It was a dark wet night and the loading people were halfway up to their knees in black mud We didn't finish loading till 2am and we're hard at it trying to stop hemorrhage etc till we got them off the train at 11 yesterday morning The JJ's were swarming but a large khaki pinny tying over my collar and with elastic wristbands saved me this time One little gerca with his arm just amputated and a wounded leg could only be pacified by having acid drops put into his mouth and being allowed to hug the tin Another was sent on as a sitting up case Halfway through the night I found him gasping with double pneumonia It was no joke nursing him with 7 others in the compartment He only just lived to go off the train Another one I found dead about 5.30am We were to have been sent on to Rouen but the officer commanding train reported too many serious cases and so they were taken off at Boulon It was a particularly bad engine driver too I got some bathwater from a friendly engine and went to bed at 12 next day We were off again the same evening and got to Boulon this morning train full but not such bad cases and are on our way back again now Expect to be sent on to Rouen Now we are 3 instead of 4 sisters It makes the night work heavier but we can manage all right in the day In the last journey some of the worst cases got put into the top bunks in the darkness and rush and one only had candles to do the dressings by One of the colour sergeants was on leave but has come back now All the trains just then had bad loads The clearing hospitals were overflowing The Christmas cards have come and I'm going to risk keeping them till Friday in case we have patients on the train If not, I shall take them to a sister I know at one of the Boulon hospitals We have got some honourable artillery company on this time who try to stand up when you come in as if you were coming into their drawing room The tommys in the same carriage are quite embarrassed One boy said just now We had a happy Christmas last year Where I said At home long a mother he said beaming Christmas Eve 1914 and no fire and no chauffage and cotton frocks funny life isn't it and the men are crouching in a foot of water in the trenches and thinking of home long a mother British, Germans, French and Russians We are just up at Shoke We load up with Indians again Had more journeys this week than for a long time You just get time to get what sleep the engine driver and the cold will allow you on the way up 8pm, just nearing Boulon with another bad load Half Indian, half British Had it in daylight for the most part, thank goodness Railhead today was one station further back than last time as the men had to be evacuated after the Germans got through on Sunday The two regiments, cold stream guards and Camerons who drove them back lost heavily and tell a tragic story There are two men only one is a boy on the train who got wounded on Monday night both compound fracture of the thigh and were only taken out of the trench this morning, Thursday to a dressing station and then straight on to our train we heard the guns this morning Why they are alive I don't know but I'm afraid they won't live long they are sunken and grey-faced and just strong enough to say anyway I'm out of the trench now They had drinks of water now and then in the field but no dressings and lay in the slush Stretcher bearers are shot down immediately with or without the wounded by the German snipers and this is Christmas and the world is supposed to be civilized They came in from the trenches today with blue faces and chattering teeth and it was all one could do to get them warm and fed By this evening they were most of them revived enough to enjoy Christmas cards There were such a nice lot that they were able to choose them to send to mother and my young lady and the Mrs and the children and have one for themselves The Indians each had one and salamed and said God save you and I will pray to God for you and God win your enemies and God kill many Germans and the Indian men too cold kill more Germans if not too cold One with a South Africa Ribbon spotted mine and said Africa same like you Midnight Just unloaded going to turn in We are to go off again at 5am tomorrow so there will be no going to church Mail in but not parcels There is a big block of parcels down at the base and we may get them by Easter With superhuman self-control I have not opened my mail tonight so as to have it tomorrow morning Christmas Day 11am On way up to Bethune where we have not been before about 10 miles beyond yesterday a place I've always hoped to see Sharp white frost fog becoming denser as we get nearer Belgium A howling mob of reinforcements stormed the train for smokes We threw out every cigarette pipe, pair of socks mits, hankies, pencils we had left It was like feeding chickens but of course we hadn't nearly enough Everyone on the train has had a card from the king and queen in a special envelope with the royal arms in red on it and this is the message in writing hand With our best wishes for Christmas 1914 May God protect you and bring you home safe Mary R George R.I That is something to keep isn't it An officer has just told me that those men haven't had a cigarette since they left Southampton hard luck I wish we'd had enough for them It is the smokes and the rum ration that has helped the British army to stick it more than anything after the conviction that they've each one got that the Germans have got to be done in in the end A sergeant of the Coldstream Guards told me a cheering thing yesterday He said he had a draft of young soldiers of only four months service in this week's business Talk of old soldiers he said You'd have thought these had had years of it when they were ordered to advance there was no stopping them After all we are not going to Bethune but to Merville again this is a very slow journey up with long indefinite stops We all got bad headaches by lunchtime from the intense cold and a short night following a heavy day At lunch we had hot bricks for our feet and hot food inside which improved matters and I think by the time we get the patients on there will be chauffage The orderlies are to have their Christmas dinner tomorrow but I believe ours is to be tonight if the patients are settled up in time Do not think from these details that we are at all miserable We say for king and country at intervals and have many jokes over at all and there is the never failing game of going over what we'll all do and avoid doing after the war 7pm loaded up at Merville and now on the way back Not many badly wounded but a great many minor medicals crocked up nothing much to be done for them We may have to fill up at Haslbrook which will interrupt the very festive Christmas dinner the French staff are getting ready for us It takes a man French or British to take decorating really seriously The orderlies have done wonders with theirs Aeroplanes done in cotton wool on brown blankets is one feature This lot of patients had Christmas dinner in their clearing hospitals today and the king's Christmas card and they will get Princess Mary's present Here they finished up Duke's Christmas cards and had oranges and bananas and hot chicken broth directly they got in 12 midnight still on the road We had a very festive Christmas dinner going to the wards which were in charge of nursing orderlies between the courses soup, turkey, peas, mince pie, plum pudding chocolate, champagne absanthe and coffee Absanthe is delicious like squills We had many toasts in French and English the king, the president absent friends, soldiers and sailors and I had the blessé and the melade We got up and clinked glasses with the French staff at every toast and finally the little chef came in and sang to us in a very sweet musical tenor Our great anxiety is to get as many orderlies and NCOs as possible through the day without being run in for drunk but it is an uphill job I don't know where they get it We are wondering what the chances are of getting to bed tonight 4am very late getting into Boulogne not unloading till morning just going to turn in now till breakfast time end of Christmas day Saturday December 26 saw my lambs off the train before breakfast one man in the Warwick's had 12 years service a wife and two children but when Kitchener wanted more men he rejoined this week he got an explosive bullet through his arm smashing it up to rags above the elbow he told me he got a man to tie the torn muscles up and then started to crawl out dragging his arm behind him after some hours he came upon one of his own officers wounded who said good god son you'll be bleeding to death if we don't get you out of this catch hold of me and the chaplain so he cuddled me and I cuddled the chaplain and we got as far as the doctor at the clearing hospital his arm was taken off through the shoulder joint but I'm afraid it is too late he is now a pallid wreck dying of gangrene he passed the war and when it would end and asked when he'd be strong enough to sit up and write to that officer and apologized for wanting drinks so often he is one of the most top class gallant gentlemen it's ever been my jolly good luck to meet and there are hundreds of them we had Princess Mary's nice brass box this morning the voluntary aid detachment here was present to every man on the train this morning and to the orderlies they had 25,000 to distribute cigarette cases, writing cases books, pouches, etc the men were frightfully pleased it was so unexpected the processions of hobbling, doubled up, silent muddy, sitting up cases who pour out of the trains want something to cheer them up as well as the lying downs it is hard to believe they are the fighting men now they've handed their rifles and bandoliers in it is snowing fast we have to go and drink the men's health at their spread at one o'clock then I hope a spell of sleep we have chauffage on today to thaw the foirage the pipes are frozen 6 p.m we all processed to the orderlies the truck and the OC made a speech and the quartermaster sergeant dished out drinks for us to toast with and we had the king and all of ourselves with great enthusiasm Mr T had to propose the sisters and after a few trembling solemn words about we all know the good work they do he suddenly giggled hopelessly and it ended in a healthy splodge all round orders just come to be at Santo Mer by 10 p.m if that means loading up further on about 1 a.m I think we shall all die too noisy here to sleep this afternoon and the men are just now so merry with tipperary and dressing up that they will surely drop the patience off the stretchers but will hope for the best Sunday December 27th had a grand night last night woke up at Bethune went out after breakfast and saw over number clearing hospital which has only been there 48 hours in a huge girls college partly smashed by big shell holes an awful mess but the hole parts are being turned into a splendid hospital several houses shelled and big guns shaking the trains this morning the medical officers went to the orderlies concert last night when we went to bed it was excellent and nobody was drunk we are taking on a full load of lying down straight from three field ambulances so we shall be very busy not arrived yet 6 p.m. nearing Boulogne I have one little badly wounded gerca who keeps ejaculating German and all the rest British some very badly frostbitten the trenches are in a frightful state one man said there's almost as many men drowned as killed when they're wounded they fall into the water of three officers one of whom is on the train and tells the story in a deep water trench for two days one was drowned the other had to have his clothes cut off him stuck fast to the mud and be pulled out naked and the other is involuted with rheumatism two men were telling me how they caught a sniper established in a tree with a thousand rounds of ammunition and provisions he asked for mercy but he didn't get it they said he had just shot two stretcher bearers Monday, December 28 this trip to Rouen will give us a longer journey up and therefore some more time and we shall get another bath the following story is a typical example of what the infantry often have to endure it was told to me by the sergeant three men of the southwest borderers and five of the welsh regiment on advancing to occupy a trench found themselves cut off with a second lieutenant he advanced alone to Reconoider and was probably shot they said they never saw him again so the sergeant of the welsh regiment aged 22 took command and led them for safety still under fire to a ditch with one foot of water in it this was on the Monday night before Christmas they stayed in it all Tuesday and Tuesday night when it was snowing before daylight he skirmished them to a trench he knew of 200 yards in advance where he had seen one of his regiment the day before this was in water above their knees he showed me the mudline on his trousers this turned out to be one of the German communication trenches they stayed in that all Wednesday Wednesday night and Thursday living on some biscuit one man had some bits of chocolate and drinking the dirty trench water in which was a dead German dressed as a gerca we was praying all the time said one of them then one ventured out to get water and was shot on Christmas Eve night it froze hard and they were so weak and starved and numb the sergeant decided they couldn't stick it any longer so they cast their equipment and made a dash for a campfire they could see one of them is an old grey haired reservist with seven children by good luck they struck a road which led them to some cold streams billet a house there they were fed with tea bread, bacon and jam and stayed an hour but didn't get dried then these cold stream guards had to go into action and the sergeant took them on to some grenadir guards billet by this time he and one other had to be carried by the others there they stayed the night Christmas day and saw the emos of a field ambulance who sent them all into hospital at Bethune once we took them on this train to Rouen all severely frost bitten weak and rheumatic an infant boy of 19 was telling me how he killed a german of six feet three inches billet I says there's one of them big devils only I called him worse than that he said politely to me and we all three emptied our rifles into him and he never moved again nine p.m. at Saulteville off Rouen we got unloaded at one p.m. and then made a dash for the best baths in France Tuesday December 29 we've had a quite useful day off today still at Saulteville had a walk this morning also got through arrears of mending and letter writing they played another football match this afternoon and did much better than last time but still got beaten Wednesday December 30 still at Saulteville one of our coaches is off being repaired here and goodness knows how long we shall be stuck had a walk this morning along the line the train puffed past me on its way to Rouen for water I tried to make the engine driver stop by spreading myself out in front of the engine but he shooed me out of the way and after some deliberation I seized a brass rail and lept on to the foot board about halfway down the train it wasn't at all difficult after all we had Seymour Hicks's lock behind us they're doing performances for the hospitals and rest camps in Rouen today but unfortunately we are too far out to go in Thursday December 31 New Year's Eve still at Saulteville and clemed with cold there was no paraffin on the train this morning so we couldn't even have the passage lamp lit this afternoon I went with major and the French major and the little fat French cabarelle who is the same class as the French major or better into Rouen and they trotted us round sightseeing the little cabarelle showed us all the points of the cathedrals and the 12th century stone pictures on the north porch and on the towers and also the church of Saint-Maclew with the wonderful Aswar cloisters now a college for Genfee we had tea in the town and trammed back this evening New Year's Eve the French staff had decorated the restaurant with Chinese lanterns and we had a festive New Year's Eve dinner with chicken and Christmas pudding on fire and sautern and champagne and crackers the pudding on of caps amused everyone in Phinimal and we had more speeches and toasts I forgot to tell you that the French major's home is broken up by Les Armand and he doesn't know where his wife and three children are on Christmas night during toasts he suddenly got up and said in a broken voice Am e p'tis enfan e ma ffam the coach is mended and back from La Toglie and we may go off at any moment I hope we shall wake up on the way to Boulogne and Males New Year's Day 1915 Rouen a happy New Year to us all we are not off yet and several other trains are doing nothing here we came into Rouen this afternoon and heard that we are to clear the hospitals here tomorrow and take them down to Avre thank goodness we are to move at last went for a walk in the town after tea and after dinner the OC and sister B and one of the civil surgeons and the French major and I went to the cinema it was excellent or we thought it so after the months of train and nothing else Saturday, January 2nd 12 noon just loading up for Avre with many of the same men we brought down from Béitun on Sunday it seems as if we might just as well have taken them straight down to Avre they look clean now and have lost the trench look have been asked to say how extra excellent the Christmas cake was we finished it yesterday ditto the tip tree jam it is a week on Monday since we had any mails there is a major of ours on the train getting a lift to Avre who is specialist in pathology and he has been investigating the bacillus of malignant edema and of spreading gangrene they are hunting anaerobes Sir Almrath right at Boulon and a big friend professor in Paris for a vaccine against this which has been persistently fatal this man knew of two cases who were as he puts it good cases for dying and therefore good cases for trying his theory on both got well began to recover within 8 hours and one of them was my re-enlisted Warwickshire man with the arm amputated who was got out by the wounded officer and the Padre January 3 a sergeant we took down to Avre yesterday told me of his battalions very heavy losses he said out of the 1400 of all ranks he came out with there are now only 5 sergeants one officer and 72 men left he said the young officers won't take cover they get too excited and won't listen to people who've had a little experience one would keep putting his head out of the trench because he hadn't seen a German I kept telling of him said the sergeant but of course he got it end of chapter 6