lly in it, as far as horrors go. Guns were cracking
and splitting all night, lighting up the sky in flashes, and fires were
burning on both sides. The Clearing Hospital close by, which was
receiving the wounded from the field and sending them on to us, was
packed and overflowing with badly wounded, the M.O. on the station said.

We had 368; a good 200 were dangerously and seriously wounded, perhaps
more; and the sitting-up cases were bad enough. The compound-fractured
femurs were put up with rifles and pick-handles for splints, padded with
bits of kilts and straw; nearly all the men had more than one
wound--some had ten; one man with a huge compound fracture above the
elbow had tied on a bit of string with a bullet in it as a tourniquet
above the wound himself. When I cut off his soaked three layers of
sleeve there was no dressing on it at all.

They were bleeding faster than we could cope with it; and the agony of
getting them off the stretchers on to the top bunks is a thing to
forget. We were full up by about 2 A.M., and then were delayed by a
collision up the line, which was blocked by dead horses as a result. All
night and without a break till we got back to Boulogne at 4 P.M. next
day (yesterday) we grappled with them, and some were not dressed when
we got into B----. The head cases were delirious, and trying to get out
of the window, and we were giving strychnine and morphia all round. Two
were put off dying at St Omer, but we kept the rest alive to Boulogne.
The outstanding shining thing that hit you in the eye all through was
the universal silent pluck of the men; they stuck it all without a whine
or complaint or even a comment: it was, "Would you mind moving my leg
when you get time," and "Thank you very much," or "That's absolutely
glorious," as one boy said on having his bootlace cut, or "That's
grand," when you struck a lucky position for a wound in the back. One
badly smashed up said contentedly, "I was lucky--I was the only man left
alive in our trench"; so was another in another trench; sixteen out of
twenty-five of one Company in a trench were on the train, all seriously
wounded except one. One man with both legs smashed and other wounds was
asked if it was all by one shell: "Oh yes; why, the man next me was
blowed to bits." The bleeding made them all frightfully thirsty (they
had only been hit a few hours many of them), and luckily we had got in a
good supply of boiled water beforehand on each carriage