The wounded are suffering from hunger as much as from their wounds. In most places, such as dressing-stations and railway-stations, nothing is provided for them at all, and many men are left for two or three days without food.
I wish I could describe it all to you! These wounded men are picked up after a fight and taken anywhere--very often to some farmhouse or inn, where a Belgian surgeon claps something on to the wounds or ties on a splint, and then our (Dr. Munro"s) ambulances come along and bring the men into the Field Hospital if they are very bad, or if not they are taken direct to a station and left there. They may, and often do, have to wait for hours till a train loads up and starts. Even those who are brought to the Field Hospital have to turn out long before they can walk or sit, and they are carried to the local station and put into covered horse-boxes on straw, and have to wait till the train loads up and starts. You see everything has to be done with a view to sudden evacuation. We are so near to the firing-line that the Germans may sweep on our way at any time, and then every man has to be cleared out somehow (we have a heap of ambulances), and the staff is moved off to some safer place. We did a bolt of this sort to Poperinghe one day, but after being there two days the fighting swayed the other way and we were able to come back.
[Page Heading: HUNGER OF THE WOUNDED]
Well, during all these shiftings and waitings the wounded get nothing to eat. I want some travelling-kitchens, and I want you to see about the whole thing. You may have to come from Scotland, because I have opened the subject with Mr. Burbidge, of Harrods" Stores. A Harrods" man is over here. He takes back this letter. I particularly want you to see him. Mr. Burbidge has, or can obtain, old horse-vans which can be fitted up as travelling-kitchens. He is doing one now for Millicent, d.u.c.h.ess of Sutherland; it is to cost 15, which I call very cheap. I wish you could see it, for I know you could improve upon it. It is fitted, I understand, with a copper for boiling soup, and a chimney. There is also a place for fuel, and I should like a strong box that would hold vegetables, dried peas, etc., whose top would serve as a table. Then there must be plenty of hooks and shelves where possible, and I believe Burbidge makes some sort of protection against fire in the way of lining to the van. Harrods" man says that he doesn"t know if they have any more vans or not.
I want someone with push and energy to see the thing right through and get the vans off. The _Invicta_, from the Admiralty Pier, Dover, sailing daily, brings Red Cross things free.
[Page Heading: PROPOSED TRAVELLING-KITCHENS]
The vans would have to have the Red Cross painted on them, and in _small_ letters, somewhere inconspicuous, "Miss Macnaughtan"s Travelling-Kitchens." This is only for identification. I thought we might begin with _three_, and get them sent out _at once_, and go on as they are required. I must have a capable person and a helper in charge of each, so that limits my number. The Germans have beautiful little kitchens at each station, but I can"t be sure what money I can raise, so must go slow.
I want also two little trollies, just to hold a tin jug and some tin cups hung round, with one oil-lamp to keep the jug hot. The weather will be bitter soon, and only "special" cases have blankets.
Clemmie, if only we could see this thing through without too much red tape!... No permission need be given for the work of these kitchens, as we are under the Belgian Minister of War and act for Belgium.
I thought of coming over to London for a day or two, and I can still do so, only I know you will be able to do this thing better than anyone, and will think of things that no one else thinks of. I can get voluntary workers, but meat and vegetables are dreadfully dear, so I shan"t be able to spend a great deal on the vans. However, any day they may be taken by the Germans, so the only thing that really matters is to get the wounded _a_ mug of hot soup.
Last night I was dressing wounds and bandaging at Dunkirk station till 3 a.m. The men are brought there in _heaps_, all helpless, all suffering.
Sometimes there are fifteen hundred in one day. Last night seven hundred lay on straw in a huge railway-shed, with straw to cover them--bedded down like cattle, and all in pain. Still, it is better than the trenches and shrapnel overhead!
At the Field Hospital the wounds are ghastly, and we are losing so many patients! Mere boys of sixteen come in sometimes mortally wounded, and there are a good many cases of wounded women. You see, no one is safe; and, oh, my dear, have you ever seen a town that has been thoroughly sh.e.l.led? At Furnes we have a good many sh.e.l.ls dropping in, but no real bombardment yet. After Antwerp I don"t seem to care about these visitors. We were under fire there for eighteen hours, and it was a bit of a strain as our hospital was in a line with the a.r.s.enal, which they were trying to destroy, so we got more than our share of attention. The noise was horrible, and the sh.e.l.ls came in at the rate of four a minute.
There was something quite h.e.l.lish about it.
Do you remember that great bit of writing in Job, when Wisdom speaks and says: "Destruction and Death say, it is not in me"?
The wantonness and sort of rage of it all appalled one. Our women behaved splendidly.
I"ll come over to England if you think I had better, but I am sure you are the person I want.... If anything should prevent your helping, please wire to me: otherwise I shall know things are going forward.
Your loving, S. MACNAUGHTAN.
The vans should be strong as they may have rough usage; also, to take them to their destination they may have to be hitched on to a motor-ambulance.
One or two strong trays in each kitchen would be useful. The little trollies would be for railway-station work. As we go on I hope to have one kitchen for each dressing-station as well.
SALLY.
_8 November._--This afternoon I went down to the Hotel des Arcades, which is the general meeting ground for everyone. The drawing-room was full and so was the Place Jean Bart, on which it looks. Suddenly we saw people beginning to fly! Soldiers, old men, children in their Sunday clothes, all running to cover. I asked what was up, and heard that a Taube was at that moment flying over our hotel. These are the sort of pleasant things one hears out here! Then Lady Decies came running in to say that two bombs had fallen and twenty people were wounded.
Once more we got bandages and lint and hurried off in a motor-car, but the civilian doctors were looking after everyone. The bomb by good luck had fallen in a little garden, and had done the least damage imaginable, but every window in the neighbourhood was smashed.
[Page Heading: NIGHT WORK AT RAILWAY SHEDS]
At night we went to the railway-sheds and dressed wounds. I made them do the Germans; but it was too late for one of them--a handsome young fellow with both his feet deep blue with frost-bite, his leg broken, and a great wound in his thigh. He had not been touched for eight days.
Another man had a great hole right through his arm and shoulder. The dressing was rough and ready. The surgeons clapped a great wad of lint into the hole and we bound it up. There is no hot water, no sterilising, no cyanide gauze even, but iodine saves many lives, and we have plenty of it. The German boy was dying when we left. His eyes above the straw began to look glazed and dim. Death, at least, is merciful.
We work so late at the railway-sheds that I lie in bed till lunch time.
Lady Bagot and I go to the sheds in the evening and stay there till 1 a.m.
_11 November. Boulogne._--I got a letter from Julia yesterday, telling me that Alan is wounded and in hospital at Boulogne, and asking me to go and see him.
I came here this morning and had to run about for a long time before I started getting a "laissez-pa.s.ser" for the road, as spies are being shot almost at sight now. By good chance I got a motor-car which brought me all the way; trains are uncertain, and filled with troops, and one never knows when they will arrive.
[Page Heading: STORIES OF THE BRITISH FRONT]
I found poor old Alan at the Base Hospital, in terrible pain, poor boy, but not dangerously wounded. He has been through an awful time, and nearly all the officers of his regiment have been killed or wounded. For my part, in spite of his pain, I can thank G.o.d that he is out of the firing-line for a bit. The horror of the war has got right into him, and he has seen things which few boys of eighteen can have witnessed. Eight days in the trenches at Ypres under heavy fire day and night is a pretty severe test, and Alan has behaved splendidly. He told me the most awful tales of what he had seen, but I believe it did him good to get things off his chest, so I listened. The thing he found the most ghastly was the fact that when a trench has been taken or lost the wounded and dying and dead are left out in the open. He says that firing never ceases, and it is impossible to reach these men, who die of starvation within sight of their comrades.
"Sometimes," Alan said, "we see them raise themselves on an arm for an instant, and they yell to us to come to them, but we can"t."
His own wound was received when the Germans "got their range to an inch" and began sh.e.l.ling their trenches. A whole company next to Alan was wiped out, and he started to go back to tell his Colonel the trench could not be held. The communication trench by which he went was not quite finished, and he had to get out into the open and race across to where the unfinished trench began again. Poor child, running for his life! He was badly hit in the groin, but managed just to tumble into the next bit of the trench, where he found two men who carried him, pouring with blood, to his Colonel. He was hastily bound up and carried four miles on crossed rifles to the hospital at Ypres, where his wound was properly dressed, and after an hour he was put on the train for Boulogne.
Alan had one story of how he was told to wait at a certain spot with 130 men. "So I waited," he said, "but the fire was awful." His regiment had, it seems, gone round another way. "I got thirty of the men away," Alan said, "the rest were killed." It means something to be an officer and a gentleman.
Every day the list of casualties grows longer, and I wonder who will be left.
_19 November. Furnes._--Early on Monday, the 16th, I left Boulogne in Lady Bagot"s car and came to Dunkirk, where I was laid up with a cold for two or three days. It was singularly uncomfortable, as no one ever answered my bell, etc.; but I had a bed, which is always such a comfort, and the room was heated, so I got my things dry. Very often I find the only way to do this or to get dry clothing is to take things to bed with one--it is rather chilly, but better than putting on wet things in the morning.
The usual number of unexpected people keep coming and going. At Boulogne I met Lady Eileen Elliot, Ian Malcolm, Lord Francis Scott, and various others--all very English and clean and well fed. It was quite different from Furnes, to which I returned on Wednesday. Most of us sleep on mattresses on the floor at Furnes, but even these were all occupied, so I hopped about getting in where I could. The cold weather "set in in earnest" as newspapers say, and when it does that in Furnes it seems to be particularly in earnest.
_To Lady Clementine Waring._
HoTEL DES ARCADES, DUNKERQUE, _18 November, 1914._
DEAREST CLEMMIE,
Forgive the delay in writing again. I was too sick about it all at first, then I was sent for to go to Boulogne to see my nephew, who is badly wounded. I can"t explain the present situation to you because it would only be censored, but I hope to write about it later.
I shall manage the soup-kitchens soon, I hope, but next week will decide that and many things. The objection to the _pattern_ is that those vans would overturn going round corners when hitched on behind ambulances.
Some wealthy people are giving a regular motor kitchen to run about to various "dressing"-stations--this will be most useful, but it doesn"t do away with the need of something to eat during those interminable waits at the _railway_-stations.
[Page Heading: CHANGES IN THE SITUATION]
To-morrow I begin my own little soup-kitchen at Furnes. I have a room but no van, and this is most unsatisfactory, as any day the room (so near the station) may be commandeered. A van would make me quite independent, but I must feel my way. The situation changes very often, as you will of course see, and when one is quite close to the Front one has to be always changing with it.
I want helpers and I want vans, but rules are becoming stricter than ever. Even Adeline, d.u.c.h.ess of Bedford, whose good work everyone knows, has waited for a permit for a week at Boulogne, and has now gone home.
When all the useful women have been expelled there will follow the usual tale of soldiers" suffering and privations: when women are about they don"t let them suffer.
The only plan (if you know of any man who wants to come out) is to know how to drive a motor-car and then to offer it and his services to the Red Cross Society. I have set my heart on station soup-kitchens because I see the men put into horse-boxes on straw straight off the field, and there they lie without water or light or food while the train jolts on for hours. I wish I had you here to back me up! We could do anything together.
As ever, yours gratefully, SALLY.
The motor kitchens cost 600 fitted, but the maker is giving the one I speak of for 300. Everyone has given so much to the war I don"t feel sure I could collect this amount. I might try America, but it takes a long time.