CHAPTER XXVII
HOSPITALS AND TRAINS
No. 7 Canadian General was only one of a group of hospitals situated along the highway that led from Etaples to Camiers. There were seven or eight large hospitals in all, though only two were Canadian, the others being British. Although I was quartered at No. 7, I had also to attend the other Canadian Hospital, No. 1. There were about 2,500 beds in No. 7, and about 2,000 in No. 1.
At one end of No. 1, there was a marquee chapel-tent and at the rear of No. 7 there was a low wooden chapel called “Church of Our Lady, Help of Christians,” but this was used mostly by the British Catholics.
The military hospital in France usually consisted of a number of long, low, detached one-story huts, built in rows, each row behind the other. Between the rows ran little lanes just wide enough to permit two ambulances to pass. There was a door in each end of every hut, so that it was very easy to go from one hut into the other. Each hut was a ward; in some hospitals they were numbered; in others they were lettered. Down each side of the aisle, running from door to door, was a row of beds—low iron beds covered with army blankets. In most of the hospitals there were no counterpanes, but there were always clean white sheets and pillow-cases. At one end of the ward were two small cubicles, one of which was the nurses’ office, the other a kind of pantry and emergency kitchen, though nearly all the cooking was done in the general kitchen, which was a special hut.
Into these large, quiet wards, far away from the roar of the heavy guns, the crackle of machine-guns and rifles, the wounded lads came, carried by train and ambulance.
Many who will read these lines have seen the troop-trains, with their hundreds of khaki-clad lads leaning out from car windows, cheering, singing, and waving, as they were carried swiftly by on their way to seaport or training-camp. Perhaps they have watched long companies of soldier boys march up dusty roads, while flags waved and bands played and people cheered, to the lines of cars waiting for them. If so, they will recall the great buoyancy of the lads—their gaiety as they passed on their way to training-camp or port of embarkation for overseas.
This light-heartedness accompanied them across the sea and went with them up through France as they journeyed in other troop-trains to the front. And whenever thirsty engines stopped at watertanks, or when a halt was made to exchange a tired engine, little French children assembled and gazed wide-eyed at the soldiers who had come from across the seas. They wondered, too, what those words meant that some one on the troop-trains always called out and which brought such a thundering response. Many trains went up along the same way through France and stopped, as others had stopped, and always some voice called out those words, and always hundreds of voices roared back, “No!” So in time the French children learned them, and whenever the trains slowed into a station the little ones would run to the cars, and one of their number would call out, “Har we doon-hearted?” Then, mingled with the laughter of the khaki-clad lads, would come thundering the answer, “No!”
After awhile trains bearing soldiers began to come down from the line. But when the engines stopped at watering-tanks or stations the little French children that gathered about them noticed certain differences between these trains and the ones that went up to the front. Everything seemed very silent, save for the slow panting of the engine. On the side of every car was painted, in the middle of a large white circle, a red cross. No groups of laughing faces appeared at open car windows; though now and again the white, drawn face of some one lying in a berth peered out through the glass. Sometimes a white bandage was tied around the head, and sometimes on the white bandage was a dark-red patch. No one called out, “Are we downhearted?”
Trains kept coming down from the front somewhat irregularly; silent trains with red crosses painted on white circles on the sides of the cars. Then one day there was a slight change in the appearance of these hospital trains. The red cross was still there, but painted near one end, on the side of the car, was an oblong of red, white and blue about three feet long and two wide. The little children knew well what this was—the tricolor of France. But they did not know what the oblong of red, white and blue painted on the side, at the other end of the car, represented. The disposition of the color was different, and the formation of the colored parts was not the same. There were more stripes in this oblong, and the stripes were narrower and red and white in color. In the upper corner was a small blue square with many white stars on it. Then one day some one told the little children that this was the flag of the Americans who had come from so far across the seas to help their fathers and brothers in the war.
As I write these words I recall the passing of the trains of France. Those that went up took light-hearted lads who leaned from car windows and sang and cheered as they went through French villages. And the trains that came down, with red crosses on them, had for their passengers quiet lads who lay in berths, bandaged in every conceivable way. But although they suffered much, and although occasionally a low moan escaped through pain-drawn lips, those wonderful lads were still “not downhearted.”
They passed through many different hands after they were wounded and always they were well treated. First, stretcher-bearers picked them up and carried them to the regimental aid post, which was usually a dugout in one of the support trenches. Here they received treatment from the medical officer of the battalion and his staff. Then they were carried by other stretcher-bearers down the trenches to the field station, from which places motor ambulances took them to the advanced dressing station where bandages were re-arranged or improved. Then they went to the clearing station, where they remained for perhaps two or three days until there was a clearing for the hospital to which they were to go.
Ambulances took them to the Red Cross trains and stretcher-bearers carried them gently to berths in the cars, and then they began their long journey to the base hospital—the big quiet hospital far away from the roar of the guns. From time to time medical officers passed down the aisle of the car, and sometimes a Red Cross nurse, clad in light grey uniform, gave medicine to the wounded lads or examined a dressing.
The journey from the casualty clearing station to the base hospital often took many hours. It was usually evening when the long line of Red Cross cars came slowly into the smooth siding that had been built since the war. The bugle call would sound and many hospital orderlies and stretcher-bearers would assemble, as, one after another, the big green ambulances, each one driven by a woman, came swiftly down to the siding. Gradually their speed slackened, and they moved slowly down the line of hospital cars, in the sides of which doors opened. Then gently and carefully the wounded lads, wrapped in thick brown army blankets and lying on stretchers, were lowered from the cars and carried to the open ends of the ambulances, where the stretchers were fitted into racks running their full length—two above and two below. As soon as the stretchers were securely strapped the machine slowly moved off to the hospital, which was just a few hundred yards away.