his own game and on his own ground, and let no one harbour any doubt upon that point. "The English," says he, "never lack the inexplicable spirit of Sport. Fighting to us is a Duty, not a sport, as most Englishmen take it, to our bewilderment." The hosts of the Great Great King were equally bewildered when they Saw the Spartans combing their locks and indulging in games before the conflict that was to end their lives. We propose, therefore, to retain this inexplicable spirit, believing it to be nothing less than the old Elizabethan sense of proportion-our hum orous antidote to the blind obsessions that fog the toiling mind of the Teuton. "Endless streams of our men were coming up," writes an officer from the midst of the British advance, "anxious to be 'in it,' without a care as to whether they would ever come back. All around expressions of delight and confidence were flying about, and a jingling song was on their lips "We beat 'em on the Marne, No wonder the Boche is bewildered! MEDICAL SERVICES. the I suppose that we are all conscious of the primitive instinct, most evident in the gentler sex, which lays a greater stress upon the deeds of the soldier than upon those of the non- combatant destroyer rather than the healer of men. And we feel that there is some reason in it too, when we think of the greater risk, the heavier losses, to those who go up into the forefront of battle. Yet the tale of our medical officers and surgeons is a moving tale, illuminated by many acts of bravery and self-sacrifice, the equal of those of the fighting soldier, and, in the cool scientific calculation of war, scarcely less contributory to the final victory.1 It was my fortune during my visit to France to see a great deal of the Royal Army Medical Corps and the Red Cross and allied organisations, and without attempting any statistical narrative, which would be beyond the scope of these personal impressions, I shall endeavour 1 In 'The Times' of October 4, 1916, Lord Northcliffe, in his able article on "War Doctors," gives the losses incurred by the R. A. M.C. from July 1 to September 30-three months only-as saw. to say something of what I Yet there is one statistic very greatly worth remembering, and that is, that the medical services in France under the control of Sir Arthur Sloggett, the Medical Commanderin-Chief, run to a force almost the equal of that "contemptible little army" which stood up to the Boche in his brutal plunge on France. It was not my luck to see the regimental surgeon working in the forefront of the battle, the regimental stretcherbearer going out into the hell beyond the trenches to rescue the wounded and help the dying. I cannot, therefore, say anything of their work, though I can form some conception for myself of the agony of those who, but for their devotion, might lie out there in the waste of "No Man's Land," their lives ebbing away, their throats parched with thirst, their bodies torn and buried under the débris of shell explosives. But all else that is connected with this great organisation I saw. I saw an underground dressing station in a world that was scarred and desolate with shell-holes, almost the only habitable place that survived, and so near the battle that it required something of an effort to emerge from it into the open light; I saw the wounded coming into the collecting stations, Boche and Briton together; the surgeons at work there in the din and roar of the artillery battle, and I said to myself if these men were not so busy attending to their own business they could tell one all there is to know of a modern battle, better perhaps than those whose function it is to describe such things. I saw the motor ambulances rolling up to the very edge of the battle, crowded in the narrow ways with ammunition waggons and guns, exposed without any possibility of escape to the risk of being hit. I saw the Corps Collecting Stations, where the most urgent operations are done, and a man's chance of life or happiness hangs on the skill and swift accuracy of the surgeon's hand; and behind these again the Casualty Clearing Stations, where the khaki-coloured Ambulance Trains were waiting to carry all those who could be moved to the great Base Hospitals by the sea, and over the water to England. Here those who were not yet fit to travel lay worn with pain and weariness, being ministered to by the comforting and gentle hands of women, with flowers by their beds, and pictures to cheer them on the walls, and books and papers to read; while outside under the tent-flaps, or in the lee of the hospital huts, amidst the flower-beds and the grass, were those who could lie in chairs under the open sky. Of the many pitiful sights I saw the Gas cases struggling and drowning for the lack of breath; the wounded with their white faces, their amputated limbs, their harsh abdominal wounds, their faces bandaged beyond recognition; of the dying, who could never again look upon their homes. or say their last words of trained to a very different life, farewell to loved ones, of women of refinement, of title, these I shall not attempt to of means; amongst these surspeak. Yet one who would geons, whose identity was lost know what war is like must in the universal khaki, were see these sights, and learn for eminent surgeons whose names himself, as the surgeon and are famous in England and the the nurse do, the pity and Empire, able and rising men the devilishness of it all. who had left their homes and their practices behind them; amongst the rank and file of the Hospitals were Peers working as common attendants; well-known and wealthy people on the Stage dealing out stores or brushing out dormitories; out dormitories; "Sun-dried Bureaucrats," who had earned by years of exile in hard climates the peace and quiet of retirement, hiding their light under the bushel of the hospital menial. Happily for one's faith in the power of good over evil, it is just here and at such moments that one is brought into fellowship with the redeeming qualities, the patience and fortitude of the afflicted, the tenderness and devotion of those who care for them, and the charity of the thoughtful, who, though they cannot see, can understand. Wherever I went I saw Ambulances, Hospitals, Apparatus, the gift of individuals and societies; books, papers, "comforts"; all those little things that we are apt to smile over when we see the earnest busy over them at home. But let us not smile at them again. Let us remember that in this matter of the War Everything Counts. If you cannot go up into the line of battle yourself, you can help with your money; and if you haven't money, you can render personal service; and if even that is impossible, you can give your thoughts and your feelings. Amongst these women who were content to work here amidst these wearing and pitiful scenes, to perform every menial function that the helpless can require,- even for those who had killed their own flesh and blood, there were many who had been All these people, in their own quiet, unassertive way, were busy here setting a shining example to those who still fail, whether from thoughtlessness or the lack of imagination, or downright, cold-blooded selfishness, to bring to bring their tribute to the common cause. My journeys carried me so far over this wide corner of France that is become, by the best of ties, a corner of England. I saw so many scenes that in ordinary times would have left an indelible impression upon my mind, that I find it a little difficult to disentangle one from another, and to give those who read these pages anything like a clear picture of what all this hospital business means. It was like an army within an army, a world in itself. Here, if you wish to see it, by the wayside, under the are thousands of tents and shattered church of St Eloi, twinkling lights; beds for is a Clearing Station, within thirty thousand sick and reach of the German guns. A wounded men. If you go hospital orderly is at work down into their midst you will quietly sweeping the floor; find there all that is meant the warm autumn sunlight is by the good word Organisainvading the long room in tion; all that prevision and which the wounded are lying; money can buy for those who the nurses are busy smooth- have deserved well of their ing their pillows, easing their country. Extravagant? not a maimed extremities, helping bit of it. Nothing can be too them on the difficult road by good for them. The only extheir womanly voices. The travagance is that of those surgeons are gathered outside, who live at home at ease. snatching their momentary rest,-men of the same fibre as those who are fighting beyond the hill in the trenches of Neuville St Vaast. Here, in a field, is a great fleet of of Motor Ambulance Cars, drawn up in reserve, to meet the needs of the next big push. They look like live things almost in this quiet corner, with the sun sinking in a splendour of gold beyond the trees, an aeroplane returning over their heads from the battle to its place of rest. Here, moving like a gilded shuttle through the darkness of the night, is a long khakicoloured train with its redcross emblem, symbol at once of pain and compassion. Put yourself in the place of one of those poor fellows laid out there, and think for a moment of what he has gone through to be there, of what the rest of his life may be. And here from this hill-top overlooking the sea is a view that reminds me of nothing so much as the Delhi Durbar, so far-spread is it, so wonderful in its improvisation. Here And here, too, side by side with them, you will find the enemy, cared for, looked after, just as though he was not an enemy at all. I do not know what they do over there in Bocheland with our sick and wounded; but if they seek to discriminate, let them remember that we are good to their people-that Chivalry still exists here on this side of the battle-line. Here is a German ward. The first patient is a Prussian officer with an amputated leg. In spite of the pain and loss of blood from which he has suffered, his will is still resistant; his replies to the General's questions short and resentful; his body big and powerful. Next to him there is a lad of eighteen, also a Prussian officer, very white of face, feminine in his youthfulness. A Volunteer, he says, who joined the Army straight from school. Next to him a small man from Baden, who lies with a quiet stillness and a mute appeal in his eyes. "Puir laddie," says the homely Scotchwoman in charge of the ward, "he's slowly dy ing; paralysis of the spine. He's a good laddie, and gives me no trouble." At her elbow stands a softfaced Saxon, a medical student, who is well enough to move about the wards and act as a help and interpreter. No warrior this, and very glad, says he, to be finished with the War. In a tent by themselves there are some cases of sickness, dysentery and so forth. They are looked after like the rest, but there is not much sympathy to spare for the sick man in this ward; rather hard on him when you come to think of what sickness means, and what it must mean above all to the brave man out of the fight. A little way off, in the midst of the mundane charms of Le Touquet, is the Duchess of W-'s hospital, a hospital de luxe. It is lodged in the exCasino, and is reserved for British officers. The Duchess "does her bit," looking after the bed-linen and helping in the X-ray room. You can have tea there and admire the water colours painted by the V.A.D. nurses-when they are not busy nursing the wounded; and when you look down from the late music-gallery upon the white ballroom, the refinement and luxury of its equipment, the bright flower-beds and lawns warming themselves, like the convalescents, in the bright sunshine, you realise that you have come a long way from the surgeon's tent on the battlefield, with its mud floor and its canvas stretchers; farther still from the hell of No Man's Land, where the regimental stretcherbearers move amongst the shells. One more scene, and it is in the little seaport town where the Hospital Ship is waiting to carry its freight across the Channel "back to Blighty." Evacuation, evacuation, that's the idea; to move on with all possible speed and care the wounded from the bottle-neck of the Front to the ever-widening base, till the hunter is home from the hill and the exile is back in his home. (To be continued.) ODYSSEUS. |