Diary of a Nursing Sister on the Western Front, 1914-1915Anonymous
History
Diary of a Nursing Sister on the Western Front, 1914-1915
Anonymous
World War, 1914-1918 -- Hospitals, charities, etc.; World War, 1914-1918 -- Personal narratives
Then we went back to our billet to hurl our belongings into our baggage,
and came away with the A.D.M.S. and his Staff-Major in their two
touring-cars. The Division is back resting somewhere near here. We got
to bed about 2 A.M. after tea and bread and butter downstairs, but slept
very little owing to the noise of the guns, which shake and rattle the
windows every minute.
We don't know what happens next.
At about four this morning I heard a nightingale trilling in the garden.
2 P.M.--In the Chateau garden. It is a glorious spot, with kitchen
garden, park, moat bridge, and a huge wilderness up-and-down plantation
round it, full of lilac, copper beeches, and flowering trees I've never
seen before, and birds and butterflies and buttercups. You look across
and see the red-brick Chateau surrounded by thick lines of tents, and
hear the everlasting incessant thudding and banging of the guns, and
realise that it is not a French country house but a Casualty Clearing
Hospital, with empty--once polished--floors filled with stretchers,
where the worst cases still are, and some left empty for the incoming
convoys. Over two thousand have passed through since Sunday week. The
contrast between the shady garden where I'm lazing now on rugs and
cushions, with innumerable birds, including a nightingale, singing and
nesting, and the nerve-racking sound of the guns and the look of the
place inside, is overwhelming. It is in three Divisions--the house for
the worst cases--and there are tent Sections and the straw-sheds and two
schools in the village. We had our lunch at a sort of inn in the
village. I've never hated the sound of the guns so much; they are almost
unbearable.
It is a good thing for us to have this sudden rest. I don't know for how
long or what happens next.
The General of the Division had a narrow escape after we left last
night. The roof of his house was blown off, just at the time he would
have been there, only he was a little late, but an officer was killed;
six shells came into the garden, and the seventh burst at his feet and
killed him as he was standing at the door. I'm glad they got the wounded
away in time. Aeroplanes are buzzing overhead. The Aerodrome is here,
French monoplanes chiefly as far as one can see.
10 P.M., _in bed_.--We have now been temporarily attached to the Staff
here.
Miss ---- has given me charge of the Tent Section, which can take eighty
lying down.
_Whitsunday, 1915._--In bed--in my tent, not a bell, but an Indian tent
big enough for two comfortably. I share with S----. We have nothing but
the camp furniture we took out, but will acquire a few Red Cross boxes
as cupboards to-morrow. It is a peerless night with a young moon and a
soft wind, frogs croaking, guns banging, and a nightingale trilling.
It has been a funny day, dazzling sun, very few patients.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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