Diary of a Nursing Sister on the Western Front, 1914-1915 | Page 6

low large window, with two rugs and cushions, and a holdall for a bolster, is as comfortable as any bed, and you don't miss sheets after a day or two. There is one bathroom for 120 or more people, but I get a cold bath every morning early. S---- gets our early morning tea, and M. sweeps our room, and I wash up and roll up the beds. We are still away from our boxes, and have a change of some clothes and not others. I have to wash my vest overnight when I want a clean one and put it on in the morning. We have slung a clothes-line across our room. The view is absolutely glorious.
Saturday, August 29th.--A grilling day. It is very difficult, this waiting. No.-- had 450 wounded in yesterday, and they were whisked off on the hospital ship in the evening. It doesn't look as if there would be anything for us to do for weeks.
Sunday, August 30th.--Orders to-day for the whole Base at Havre to pack itself up and embark at a moment's notice. So No.--, No.--, No.--, and No.-- G.H., who are all here, and a Royal Flying Corps unit, the Post Office, and the Staff, and every blessed British unit, are all packing up for dear life. We may be going home, and we may be going to Brittany, to Cherbourg, or to Brest, or to Berlin.
Monday, August 31st.--We all got up at 5.30 to be ready, but I daresay we shan't move to-day. Yesterday we had two starved, exhausted, fugitive (from Amiens) No.-- Sisters in to tea on our floor, and heard their stories. The last seventeen of them fled with the wounded. A train of cattle-trucks came in at Rouen with all the wounded as they were picked up without a spot of dressing on any of their wounds, which were septic and full of straw and dirt. The matron, M.O., and some of them got hold of some dressings and went round doing what they could in the time, and others fed them. Then the No.-- got their Amiens wounded into cattle-trucks on mattresses, with Convent pillows, and had a twenty hours' journey with them in frightful smells and dirt. Our visitor had five badly-wounded officers, one shot through the lungs and hip, and all full of bullets and spunk. They were magnificent, and asked riddles and whistled, and the men were the same. They'd been travelling already for two days. An orderly fell out of the train and was badly injured, and died next morning.
It is very interesting to read on Monday the 'Times' Military Correspondent's forecast of Friday. He seems to know so exactly the different lines of defence of the Allies, and exactly where the Germans will try and break through. But he has never found out that Havre has been a base for over a fortnight. He speaks of Havre or Cherbourg as a possible base to fall back upon, if fortified against long-distance artillery firing, which we are not. And now we are abandoning Havre!
Tuesday, September 1st.--No orders yet, so we are still waiting, packed up.
Went with one of the regulars to-day to see the big hospital ship Asturias with 3000 beds, and also to see Sister ---- at the No.-- Maritime Hospital. They've been very busy there dressing the wounded for the ship. Colonel ---- brought us back in his motor, and met the Consul-General on the way, who told us K. came through to-day off a cruiser, and was taken on to Paris in a motor. Smiles of relief from every one. One of the Sisters had heard from her mother in Scotland that she had five Russian officers billeted! They are said to be on their way through from Archangel.
Troopships full of French and English troops are leaving Havre every day, for Belgium.
Wouldn't you like to be under the table when K. and J. and F. are poring over their maps to-night?
Wednesday, September 2nd.--We are leaving to-morrow, on a hospital ship, possibly for Nantes K. has given orders for every one to be cleared out of Havre by to-morrow.
We found some men invalided from the Front lying outside the station last night waiting for an ambulance, mostly reservists called up; they'd had a hot time, but were full of grit.
The men from Mons told us "it wasn't fighting--it was murder." They said the burning hot sun was one of the worst parts. They said "the officers was grand"; many regiments seem to have hardly any officers left. They all say that the S.A. War was a picnic compared to this German artillery onslaught and their packed masses continually filling up.
There is a darling little chapel on this floor, beautifully kept, just as the nuns left it, where one can say one's