A "Temporary Gentleman" in FranceDawson, A. J. (Alec John)
History
A "Temporary Gentleman" in France
Dawson, A. J. (Alec John)
World War, 1914-1918 -- Personal narratives, British
Everyone has asked everyone else where we are going next, and everyone
has been given benevolent smiles and subsided into a Camps Library
magazine or book. The sitting-up cases are pottering about in the
sitting-room, where there are basket chairs and the gramophone. I can
see them through the open door. The nurses have fixed jolly little
curtains and things about, so that the place looks very homely. I
gather it's a sort of rest-house, or waiting-place, where cases can be
put, and stay put, till arrangements have been made for their admission
into the big hospitals, or wherever they are to go. We have all been
separately examined by the Medical Officer. My arm is so much better, I
think it must be practically well. I don't know about the leg. I asked
the M.O.--an awfully decent chap--to try to arrange things for me so
that I should not be cut adrift from my own Battalion, and he said he
thought that would be all right.
* * * * *
3.30 P.M.
I'm for Blighty. The M.O. came and sat on my bed just now and told
me. He certainly is a decent chap. He said the Medical Board had no
hesitation at all about my case, and that I was to cross to England
to-night. But he said I need not worry about my Battalion. He was
awfully good about it; and he's giving me a letter to a brother of his
in London. He thinks I shall be able to get back to my own Battalion
all right, and he thinks I shall be ready for duty much quicker by
going right through to Blighty than by waiting here. But what do you
think of it? Fancy going to Blighty; and to-night, mind you! I'd
never dreamt of it. And what about poor old "A" Company? It's a queer
feeling. We've all been sorted out now; the goats from the sheep. I
suppose it's a case of the worst-chipped crockery for Blighty, and the
rest for tinkering here. But I can't help thinking a week, or two, at
the outside, will put me right.... Here come Army Forms to be signed.
* * * * *
9.30 P.M.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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