World War, 1914-1918 -- Hospitals; World War, 1914-1918 -- Personal narratives
Or at least it was until a few months ago. Since then we have
had a demonstration of "scientific" war such as has never
before been given to mankind. Now, to wear a Red Cross is
simply to offer a better mark for the enemy's fire, and we only
wore them in order that our own troops might know our business
and make use of our aid. A hospital is a favourite mark for the
German artillery, whilst the practice of painting Red Crosses on
the tops of ambulance cars is by many people considered unwise,
as it invites any passing aeroplane to drop a bomb. But the
Germans have carried their systematic contempt of the rules of war
so far that it is now almost impossible for our own men to
recognize their Red Crosses. Time after time their Red Cross
cars have been used to conceal machine-guns, their flags have
floated over batteries, and they have actually used stretchers to
bring up ammunition to the trenches. Whilst I was at Furnes two
German spies were working with an ambulance, in khaki uniforms,
bringing in the wounded. They were at it for nearly a week before
they were discovered, and then, by a ruse, they succeeded in
driving straight through the Belgian lines and back to their
own, Red Cross ambulance, khaki and all. The problems, then, that
have to be faced by an ambulance corps in the present war are
fairly perplexing, and they demand a degree of resource and
cool courage beyond the ordinary. That these qualities are
possessed by the members of the ambulance corps of which
Dr. Hector Munro and Lady Dorothie Feilding are the leading
members is merely a matter of history. They have been in as
many tight corners in the last few months as many an old and
seasoned veteran, and they have invariably come out triumphant.
They started in Ghent under the Belgian Red Cross with a party
of four surgeons, five women, and three men for the stretchers,
and two chauffeurs to drive the two ambulances. Now they have
grown into an organization which takes on a great part of the
ambulance work of the Belgian Army. At Ghent they were attached
to the big Red Cross hospital in the Flandria Palace Hotel,
and at first it was dull, for most of the fighting was around Antwerp,
and the wounded were taken there. We were in Antwerp just then,
and it was by no means dull. We shared Alost and Termonde
as a common hunting-ground, and we several times had a visit from
Dr. Munro in the Boulevard Leopold. In fact, we were discussing
the possibility of arranging to work together when the crash came and
Antwerp fell.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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