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
_Friday, October 30th, Boulogne._--While we were at Nieppe, after
passing Bailleul, a German aeroplane dropped a bomb on to Bailleul.
After filling up at Nieppe we went back to Bailleul and took up 238
Indians, mostly with smashed left arms from a machine-gun that caught
them in the act of firing over a trench. They are nearly all 47th Sikhs,
perfect lambs: they hold up their wounded hands and arms like babies for
you to see, and insist on having them dressed whether they've just been
done or not. They behave like gentlemen, and salaam after you've dressed
them. They have masses of long, fine, dark hair under their turbans done
up with yellow combs, glorious teeth, and melting dark eyes. One died.
The younger boys have beautiful classic Italian faces, and the rest have
fierce black beards curling over their ears.
We carried 387 cases this time.
_Later._--We got unloaded much more quickly to-day, and have been able
to have a good rest this afternoon, as I went to bed at 3 A.M. and was
up again by 8. It was not so heavy this time, as the Indians were mostly
sitting-up cases. Those of a different caste had to sleep on the floor
of the corridors, as the others wouldn't have them in. One compartment
of four lying-down ones got restless with the pain of their arms, and I
found them all sitting up rocking their arms and wailing "Aie, Aie,
Aie," poor pets. They all had morphia, and subsided. One British Tommy
said to me: "Don't take no notice o' the dirt on me flesh, Sister; I
ain't 'ad much time to wash!" quite seriously.
Another bad one needed dressing. I said, "I won't hurt you." And he said
in a hopeless sort of voice, "I don't care if you do." He had been
through a little too much.
It is fine getting the same day's London 'Daily Mail' here by the
Folkestone boat.
It is interesting to hear the individual men express their conviction
that the British will never let the Germans through to Calais. They seem
as keen as the Generals or the Government. That is why we have had such
thousands of wounded in Boulogne in this one week. It is quite difficult
to nurse the Germans, and impossible to love your enemies. We always
have some on the train. One man of the D.L.I. was bayoneted in three
different places, after being badly wounded in the arm by a dumdum
bullet. (They make a small entrance hole and burst the limb open in
exit.) The man who bayoneted him died in the next bed to him in the
Clearing Hospital yesterday morning. You feel that they have all been
doing that and worse. We hear at first hand from officers and men
specified local instances of unprintable wickedness.
_Saturday, October 31st._--Left Boulogne at twelve, and have just
reached Bailleul, 6 P.M., where we are to take up wounded Indians again.
Somehow they are not so harrowing as the wounded British, perhaps
because of the block in language and the weirdness of them. Big guns are
booming again. (This was the most critical day of the first battle of
Ypres.)
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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