us and not in much
pain, and did so long to live even a week or two longer, so that he
might see his wife once again. But it was not to be, and he died early
the next morning--one of the dearest old men one could ever meet, and so
pathetically grateful for the very little we could do for him.
The shells were crashing over our heads and bursting everywhere, but we
were too busy to heed them, as more and more men were brought to the
dressing-station. It was an awful problem what to do with them: the
house was small and we were using the two biggest rooms downstairs as
operating- and dressing-rooms. Straw was procured and laid on the floors
of all the little rooms upstairs, and after each man's wounds were
dressed he was carried with difficulty up the narrow winding staircase
and laid on the floor.
The day wore on and as it got dark we began to do the work under great
difficulties, for there were no shutters or blinds to the upstairs
windows, and we dared not have any light--even a candle--there, as it
would have brought down the German fire on us at once. So those poor men
had to lie up there in the pitch dark, and one of us went round from
time to time with a little electric torch. Downstairs we managed to
darken the windows, but the dressings and operations had all to be done
by candle-light.
The Germans were constantly sending up rockets of blue fire which
illuminated the whole place, and we were afraid every moment they would
find us out. Some of the shells had set houses near by on fire too, and
the sky was lighted up with a dull red glow. The carts bringing the men
showed no lights, and they were lifted out in the dark when they arrived
and laid in rows in the lobby till we had time to see to them. By nine
o'clock that evening we had more than 300 men, and were thankful to see
an ambulance train coming up the line to take them away. The sanitars
had a difficult job getting these poor men downstairs and carrying them
to the train, which was quite dark too. But the men were thankful
themselves to get away, I think--it was nerve-racking work for them,
lying wounded in that little house with the shells bursting continually
over it.
All night long the men were being brought in from the trenches. About
four in the morning there was a little lull and some one made tea. I
wonder what people in England would have thought if they had seen us at
that meal. We had it in the stuffy dressing-room where we had been
workin
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