I was deposited on the table of the operating-theatre in the field-ambulance, while a surgeon overhauled me to see if there was any injury necessitating an immediate operation. Satisfied that I was merely broken and punctured, I was transferred to a cot and so began my _first hospital night_. I was known personally to all the doctors in our field-ambulance. I had on several occasions messed with them, and they were always very keenly interested in my yarns of No Man's Land, so when the news spread that I had been brought in wounded I soon had a group round my bed, some of them in pyjamas being roused from their sleep to hear the news. One of them very gleefully said: "Hullo, Knyvett, old man--I've just won five pounds on you. We had a bet that you would not last out another month. You know you've had a pretty good innings and mighty lucky only to get wounded." But at that moment I was not in the mood to appreciate this form of humor, until one of them, seeing I was pretty uncomfortable, gave me an injection of morphia. But I was very glad to be resting there and felt I could hardly have endured a longer journey without a spell. I was given here the first good hot meal I had had for weeks, though I had been given a drink of steaming-hot coffee in the ambulance. There was not much sleep to be got, as a constant stream of men were being brought in and taken away, and now and again shells would fall quite close, but the ground thereabouts was very soft, and I counted fifteen shells that fell close by with a wouf and a squelch, but did not explode. This hospital was all under canvas, just three or four big marquees and a score or so of tents for the medical officers and orderlies, and any inclination that I had to complain was taken away by the sight of "walking cases" strolling in with an arm gone, or a hole in the cheek, or their jaw smashed, many far worse than I was, who would sit there waiting their turn to be examined, and then walk out again to the ambulance that carried them on to the next hospital.
Next morning I was carried out to a motor-ambulance and started on the most painful trip of my life. The driver took reasonable care, but could not go too slow, for another load was waiting for him as soon as he could return, but I am sure that I felt every stone in that road. I got the attendant to wedge me in with pillows, but only by holding myself off from the wall with both my hands could I ease the bump, and then I would wait with dread for the next one. I don't know if the other three fellows lying in the ambulance with me were as sore as I was, but I picture to-day the hours that those ambulances travel with wounded men as being added together and totalling a century of pain.
Perhaps after the war is ended, when it is too late, some one may invent a motor ambulance on easy springs that will not multiply unnecessarily the pain of torn flesh and the grating edges of bones.
Now comes the night in the casualty clearing-station at Heilly.
Straight on to another operating-table, but one in a sea of many--ten operations going on at once. Then began the probing for pieces of metal in my wounds. "Good God!" remarked the surgeon, "the best thing we can do is to run a magnet over you. We'll never find them all otherwise." Nor did they, for I carry some of them still in my body as permanent souvenirs of the few words I had with Fritz. There was a nurse in the theatre with smiling face, laughing blue eyes, and tumbled curls falling beneath her cap, and a brief acquaintance of one day was formed on the spot. She was attending another case, and a wink and a smile served for introduction. She came and visited me in the ward that night and we chatted a brief hour, then she was gone, and I know not even her name. So ships meet, dip their flag, and pass into the night.
In the bed opposite me in this hospital there was a German officer and he bellowed like a bull all night. We got pretty sick of his noise and told the medical officer in charge of the ward when he came on his rounds in the morning that if he did not chloroform or do something to silence the hound, we would. I suggested that he go and tell him that if he did not shut up he would be sent into the ward with his own privates. He did so and there was not another squeak from him.
After breakfast warm sweaters, helmets, scarfs, and mitts were issued to each of us and we were wrapped in warm blankets and carried out to a hospital-train near by. Before I left, however, I wrote out the report of my reconnoissance of the German trenches and despatched it by orderly to G. H. Q. All my possessions I carried in my hand in a small bag not nearly as big as a lady's knitting-bag. My kit was "somewhere in France" and my uniform had been cut off me and was probably ascending as incense from some incinerator, in a ritual that was an appropriate end after much service. Everything was supposed to be taken out of my pockets (which I have no doubt happened) and sent to me (which certainly did not happen). I have no sympathy with the old sanitary sergeant who superintended the last rites in the passing of my much-lived-in clothes when he was slightly wounded by a bullet from a cartridge that somehow or other dropped into the fire at the same time.
These incinerators frequently very nearly caused shell-shock to the sanitary squad, and they might just as well have been in the actual trenches, for in the gathering up of rubbish around the camp cartridges would frequently be thrown with it into the fire and explosions would ensue like the firing of a machine-gun, and bullets would whizz in all directions. Once a mule got shot, but it's a wonder that other flesh less valuable was not occasionally punctured, for these incinerators were just on the edge of the camp and generally had a group round them of those who preferred being fire-tenders to ramrod-shovers.
The hospital-train bore us with many interruptions and frequent side-trackings toward the Channel and "Blighty." In England hospital-trains take precedence over all other traffic, but here in France there were many other things more important for the winning of the war than wounded men, so hospital-trains had to step aside and give the right of way to the shells, guns, cartridges, and food for the men still facing the foe. So my third night was spent on the rails lying snugly in a car wrapped in many blankets, and only disturbed by having to "smoke" a thermometer every two or three hours, and by the nurse rousing me at six "ack emma" (A. M.) to have my face and hands washed, which is a mania that afflicts all nurses. A nurse has only one fear, that of displeasing the doctor, and though all should perish, everything must be spotless when he makes his rounds. A doctor is the only man who can awe a woman and obtain perfect obedience. Of course I am referring to them professionally, and not in their domestic relations. I knew a nurse in a military hospital who woke up a patient, who was enjoying his first sound sleep for weeks, to administer a sleeping-draft. When she was remonstrated with she said "the doctor ordered it." In France there has been since the war much "coal-saving," and had it not been that I had been careful to have with me emergency rations of blankets, I would have perished with the cold.
I was told that the engine-drivers were given a commission on what coal they saved, so all the steam we got through the warming-pipes hardly took the frost off them. Only the men in the bottom cots were able to see the scenery we passed through, and we up-stairs could have murdered them with pleasure as they kept calling out: "By George! You should see this!" "That's the funniest sight I've seen in my life!" "Isn't that a lovely sight!" etc. But journeys, even on French railways, come to an end eventually, though it only be second-class traffic, and with much joy did we welcome the news that we were running into Rouen.
In the small hours of the morning with the mist still trailing through the streets we were driven to the Infirmary for Aged Women (which they had vacated), and where was housed Number Eight General Hospital.
After our labels had been examined and checked with our wounds, and it was quite evident that we were "les hommes blesses" and not baggage, we were carried upstairs and allotted to our wards according to the part of the body in which we were wounded. They had some difficulty in my case, and as I feared that they might be carrying me from ward to ward all day and night I asked them to look on the other side of my tag to see if it was not marked in red: "Fragile, With Care." There was in the ward where I eventually anchored a V. A. D. (Voluntary Aid Detachment) nurse who will ever live in my memory as the gentlest and most attentive of all that I have known. You could not raise your hand or turn in your sleep without her gliding noiselessly to your bedside to see if you wanted anything. A hundred times would she straighten the pillows, if you fancied you would get extra comfort another way, and she ever had ready a hot glass of milk to make you sleep the better. She was a Canadian, and if there are many more like her among the Canadian women, then the men of Canada are thrice blessed. Thus passed my fourth night in French hospitals.
In the morning I saw through an open door in another ward a friend of mine whom I had parted with on landing in Egypt. I called an orderly to carry me through to an empty bed alongside him so that we might renew our friendship. He was badly wounded in the arm and face, but it was pleasant to meet again after many months. That was many months ago and the other day I met him again in New York. We have only been a short time together on each occasion, yet have continued our acquaintance on four continents, many months intervening between each meeting. There was a great hullabaloo in my ward when the matron came in and found my bed empty. When she discovered where I was, she said: "Who gave you permission to come in here?" I replied: "No one said I was not to!" And anyway the pleasure was worth the commission of the crime! That morning I was again picked up as a bundle and carried I knew not whither, leaving my friend behind.
I was carried on board a British hospital-ship and lowered about three decks down. As placards glared in one's eyes on every side about what to do in case of submarine attack, I did not like very much the idea of going down so far, for I always like to be able to depend upon myself in an emergency, and I was now as helpless as a log. They put me in a swinging cot, which was a great idea to prevent seasickness. We went slowly out the harbor to sea with our prow pointing toward "Blighty,"
the El Dorado of the wounded Tommy. 'Twas little I saw of river, harbor, or sea from my berth in the nethermost depths of that vessel's hold. I was told we went across with all lights out. The days had passed when, in our folly, we painted our hospital-ships white with a green band and marked them with a red cross, or at night circled them with a row of green lights illuminating a huge red cross near the funnel, for we had found that we were only making them conspicuous as targets for the "human shark of the sea." There have been more hospital-ships sunk than troop-ships, for the troop-ship is armed and convoyed, but the hospital-ship is an easy victim. The English port we entered was shrouded in fog, and wharf buildings never at any time look inviting, but we could nevertheless understand the excitement of our English companions, for it was Home to them, and to us "dear old England," the brave heart of the freest empire this earth has seen, and after all where is the Britisher who does not thrill with pride at landing on the soil of those little islands which have produced a race so great, and foot for foot of soil there is no land on the earth that has produced so much wealth. We could smile with appreciation and not much surprise at the Tommy who remarked; "Say, Bill, don't the gas-works smell lovely!"
CHAPTER XXVIII
IN LONDON
By hospital-train, the most comfortable ever devised, did we run into Waterloo Station--doors were opened, and men in gorgeous uniforms--much gold braid and silver buttons--came aboard. We thought that they were admirals and field-marshals at the very least, but it turned out they were only members of the Volunteer Ambulance Corps, men unfit for military service, who had provided their own cars and received not a penny of pay. With the tenderness of women they put us on stretchers and carried us out to their luxurious ambulances. With each four men went a lady to attend to all their wants. Like a mother she hovered over us and you could see her heart was bursting with love for us far-out sons of empire. Through cheering crowds we drove and our Australian hearts leaped as we heard many cooees, which made us feel that we were not far from Home, for twelve thousand miles were bridged in thought by these homelike sounds and the knowledge that we were in the land from which our parents came and where we had many kinsfolk. I was assigned to the Third London General Hospital and out to Wandsworth Common was I taken, where alongside Queen Victoria's school for officers' orphans had been built rows of comfortable huts linked up with seven miles of corridors, while the old orphanage itself contained the administrative headquarters. I was allotted to G ward, but did not know for days what a distinction that was, for the sister in charge was none other than the late Queen of Portugal, and among the V. A. D.'s were several ladies and honorables. They were camouflaged, however, under the titles of "sister" and "nurse," and we had become too intimate to need ceremony before we discovered who they were in social life. In dressing our wounds, washing us, cleaning and scrubbing the floors they were as adept as if to the manner born, but you could not fail to see that they sprung from generations of refinement. On one side of me was an Australian who had been hit on the side of the head by a shell, having therefrom a stiff neck. On the other side was an Irish padre, chaplain to an Australian battalion, and, of course, the life of the ward, and he had a greater fund of good stories than any other man, not excepting other priests, I have known. In an opposite bed was a Welshman with one leg who of necessity answered to the name of "Taffy," while next to him was a Londoner who had a leg that he would have been better without, for it had borne fourteen operations.
In London we had the world's specialists for every bodily ill, and some of us who had complications were in the hands of ten doctors at the one time. There were skin specialists and bone specialists, nerve specialists and brain specialists, separate authorities on the eye, ear, nose, and throat, and it is a pity that a man is tied up in one bag, otherwise they might all have operated at the selfsame moment in separate rooms on the same man.
There was one sister whom we all loved--I don't think; but she was only in our ward occasionally. Her real name was unknown to most of us, but she will be remembered for long as "Gentle Annie." She was so gentle that I have known only a few mules rougher, and never, after the first occasion, would I allow her to touch the dressings on my wounds. With so many to be done it was a painful performance even under kindly, sympathetic hands. We expressed our feelings toward her by giving her left-right every time she came into the ward and she would get mad at the second step. One day she called the matron, so we left-righted her as well. Then the doctor was brought in and we left-righted him, but he enjoyed the joke, perhaps realizing his helplessness, for you can't very well punish wounded men lying in bed except by depriving them of food, and we were most of us on diets anyway! The fact that we were Australians was held to be accountable for our misbehavior.
There was a little nurse, mostly on night duty, who was dubbed "Choom,"
for she came from Yorkshire and had a rich brogue. But her heart was big enough for one twice her size, and she would always tuck us in and attempt to supply all our wants, however unreasonable.
After an operation which I tell about in another chapter I was able to sit up and propel myself in a wheel-chair, and soon was having races with the champion chair-speeders of the other wards. There was a long inclined plane that was the cause of many accidents, for there was a sharp turn at the bottom and our chariots would get out of control. I have more than once turned a double somersault and it is a wonder I did not break my head, and several candid friends said it was cracked anyway. We had concerts in the hall every night, and as it was a couple of miles from our ward, we cripples who brought our own chairs with us would wait in the corridor for one of the blind to propel us along while we would do the guiding ourselves, giving directions to our steeds in nautical terms, such as: "Starboard a little!" "Steady, steady, you idiot!" "Hard aport!" "Quick!" "Now, you darned fool, you jolly nearly smashed that window!" When we got to the door of the hall, we would be piloted into the area reserved for carriages, and so tightly were we jammed that it took about twenty minutes to empty the hall, or twice as long if we tried to get out by ourselves. However, the concerts were worth while, and when Clara Butt or some other world-famed artist came along, we did not mind being late for dinner, the dishes of which were never a surprise if you remembered the day of the week.
In our ward there were mostly leg injuries, and in the one next door arm cases, and hot and fast flew the arguments as to which it were worse to lose. We demonstrated our superiority one night by raiding them for their milk, all the attackers being on crutches, and they were unable to recover it; so we decided to our own satisfaction that we were the most useful members of society, though had we not drunk it so fast they might have got it.
We had some very high talent in the hospital and our monthly gazette was a very creditable production. We had as one of the orderlies a _Punch_ artist and he was always caricaturing some of us. The patients contributed drawings, poems, and articles, and I imagine that in years to come these little papers will be of some value, containing the works of renowned artists and authors from many parts of the world.
A good number from our ward were able to take taxi-rides into the city and would return at late hours, sometimes the merrier for the excursion. I have in my memory as I write, recollections of waking suddenly out of slumber to behold Taffy and a mad Australian waltzing to the strains of a gramophone, each with only one leg, and then old Piddington would persist in rousing the ward that we might sing as a roundelay:
"And when I die, Don't bury me at all-- Just pickle my bones In alcohol.
Put a bottle of RUM-- (_much emphasis here_) At my head and feet, And then I know My bones will keep!"
My brothers are in different regiments. We enlisted from different states--one is in an English regiment--yet we all met on Good Friday in this hospital ward. They had seen in the paper my name among the casualties and, inquiring, had found out where I was and there we met, not having seen each other for many years.
One day, like a bolt from the blue, came the intimation that I was to be sent back to Australia in two days as being unfit for further service. I argued the point, went before the Medical Board, and gave each one separately a testimonial that would be no advertisement, but it was of no avail, and I realized that like a worn-out horse I was to be sent out of the fun. But to add injury to insult, I had had no opportunity to see London. What! Go home to Australia and tell them I had been in London and not seen St. Paul's, or the Abbey, or anything?
So when I realized appeal was useless I got dressed and called a taxicab and went to see the sights of London. Never was a tourist trip conducted more systematically. On crutches I hobbled round St. Paul's and through the Abbey. I saw the Tower, the Albert Memorial, and all the sights that I could remember or the taxi-driver think of sufficient importance to need a visit. I even went down Petticoat Lane. But most of all I did the theatres, four in one day, returning to the hospital at 1.30 A. M. Next day I repeated and enlarged the dose, returning a little later, but the following morning I was summoned before the O. C.
He said: "It is reported to me that you have been returning after hours. Why?" I said: "So would you, sir, if you were returning to Australia in two days and had not viewed London!" He said: "Well, it won't occur again, I hope." To which I replied: "Only to-night, sir!"
But the boat was delayed, and I had two more days of strenuous existence in the metropolis of the world.
Once again I entered a hospital-train, but this time I would have no mussing round me as if I were a helpless child, but went upright, as a man should, though on crutches.
When we journeyed to the port there was one of our good old Australian coasters waiting to bear us back again--Home. The old A. U. S. N.
steamer that I had so often travelled on from Brisbane to Sydney was now under command of the Australian navy and had the proud designation of "His Majesty's Australian Hospital-Ship."
CHAPTER XXIX
THE HOSPITAL-SHIP
Some people think that they have made a sea journey when they cross the English Channel, and Dover to Calais holds for many the memory of an age of misery. I don't suppose the provisions on these Channel steamers have very great inroads made upon them by the passengers. The soldiers have a song that well expresses experiences on this narrow stretch of water.
"Sea, sea, why are you angry with me?
Ever since I left Dover, I thought the ship would go over ----" (etc.)
But on the longer journey across the Atlantic from England to America there is more time to get one's sea-legs, and on the last day or two passengers begin to enjoy the sea journey. But this is quite enough of the sea for any one but an amphibian. The three weeks journey from America to Australia gets decidedly monotonous, and long before sighting Sydney Heads and entering the world's "pearl of ports" every one has had his fill of the sea. But lengthen that journey by three and you have had enough sea travel for a lifetime.
Well, we left England and for an eternity sailed south, seeing land only on one day and smelling it for a week. Then we clung to the end of Africa for seven days and then sailed east for a decade till Australia got in our way, and as it could not be passed without a long detour, we were deposited on its soil. In nine weeks we only called at two ports, Freetown on the west coast of Africa, and Durban on the east coast. Freetown has the usual strong combination smell of nigger, cinnamon, and decaying vegetation, in an atmosphere of heavy steam, that characterizes all tropical towns inhabited by our "black brother."
We were told that this place had but a few years ago the pleasant subtitle of "The White Man's Grave." If you served one year here in the government service you were entitled to retire for life on a pension, but the likelihood was that long before your term was up you would retire to a six-foot-by-two allotment near the beach, in the company of countless predecessors. But science had been at work here, as at Panama, and wire gauze and the kerosene spray had captured the first trenches of yellow fever and malaria, and against these weapons of the medico all counter-attacks have been unavailing. Some strong hand was ruling in this town, for the streets were spotless and the dogs lean. And, oh, how the nigger does hate cleanliness! Evidently this town was free in a real sense because well disciplined. We were told that all the white people lived up on the hill that backed the town and many kind invitations of hospitality were sent to us; so those whose wills were stronger than the enervating hand of the weather-master boarded the toy train and were carried up and up toward the summit of the hills above the steam heat, where the air seemed to be fanned from the very cooling-house of God. I had the pleasure of being entertained by a French priest who had been on the western front in the early days of the war, and he added to our knowledge more first-hand stories of the bestial Huns' ravaging of convents and raping of nuns. The bishop of this protectorate could not do enough for us, and although we were not of his faith, he looked on us as children who were very dear to the heart of God because of our sacrifices of blood and flesh for the right.
We loaded ourselves down with curios, buying tiger-rugs, mats, bead-necklaces, tom-toms, and assegais. We strung these chiefly round our necks, as we had to have hands free to manipulate our crutches, and some of us looked more like the "ol' clo' man" than smart army officers. Of course "Bertie Gloom" had to suggest that we would have to pay more duty on the "old junk" when we got it to Australia even than the price that the dealers had already robbed us of.
At Durban the first thing we saw was a girl in white semaphoring like mad from the rocks. As we spelled out that she was trying to tell us that she was an Australian, we gave her three times three. Our difficulty in reading her message was not through her bad signalling but because of her speed. Doubt if we had a signaller on board so quick! This was not the last of our indebtedness to her, for when we got into the wharf she had a regiment of Kaffirs with sugar-bags full of apples and oranges, and while we were still fifty yards from the wharf she began throwing them through the port-holes and into the hands of the men on deck. Not a half of one per cent fell short. She would have made a dandy bomber, and was a dandy all round.
In fact, the people of Durban were the most hospitable and patriotic of any people we had met. A delegation of citizens and ladies came down to the boat to inform us that we were the guests of the city and that everything was free to us. And later on we found them not to have exaggerated in the slightest. No one would accept money from us, though I don't think any of us tried to get diamond rings on these terms, but conductors on tram-cars and trains and motor-drivers and ticket-collectors at theatres one and all told us that our money was no good and gave to us their best seats.
This did not apply to the rickshaws, for they were run by Zulus and charged by the hour. You would climb in, the shafts would go up in the air, until you thought you were going to be tipped out at the back, and a herculean Zulu, decorated with horns and red and white stripes so that he might look like the devil, whom he, in reality, outdevilled, would rest himself on the body of the rick and trot along at a rate of six or seven miles an hour, quite able to keep up the pace all day. As a matter of fact, they never wanted to know where you were going, and even if you told them to take you to the post-office they would go round and round the block, never stopping to let you out unless you gave them a good poke in the ribs with your stick. Somewhere in their brains was an infernal taximeter adding up the dimes, and like their first cousins with the leather caps, they were determined to squeeze from you your last cent.
Apart from the ordinary entertainments we found that fetes and feasts had been arranged for our delectation at the Y. M. C. A. and soldiers'
clubs, so that every minute of our stay was crowded enjoyment. Even those of us who preferred quieter pleasures were not without companions, and I know of no more delightful journey in the whole world than a trip by tram-car to the Zoo or out along the Berea. Durban has certainly one of the most picturesque situations of any city in the world, and the art of man has been used with taste to reinforce nature: there are no homes in more delightful surroundings with lovelier shrubbery and gardens than here. The people of Durban have not only an eye for beauty but they are very up to date and have a coaling apparatus that holds the world's record for speed in the coaling of ships.