First Aid Nursing Yeomanry; World War, 1914-1918 -- Personal narratives
I was in a room off the "Grand Circle" of the one-time Casino, an
officers' ward. One night the Sister had left me for a moment and I
could have sworn I saw three Germans enter. I thought they said to me
that they had come to hide and if I gave them away they would hit my
leg. The mere suggestion left me dumb and I distinctly seemed to see
them getting under the two other empty beds in the room.
After a few minutes it dawned on me what a traitor I was, and bit by bit
I eased myself up on my elbows. "I must go and tell someone these
Germans are here," I thought, and turned back the clothes. After
throwing the small sand bags on the floor that kept my bad leg in
position, I next seized the cradle and pitched that overboard. I then
carefully lifted first one leg round and then the other and sat swaying
on the side of the bed. The splints naturally jutted out some distance
from the end of my one leg and this struck me as being very funny. I
wondered just how I could walk on them. Then I looked down at the other
and the proposition seemed funnier still; though I could feel as if the
leg was there, when I looked there was nothing. It was really extremely
odd! I sat there for some time cogitating these matters and was just
about to try how I could walk when very luckily in came an orderly.
"Germans!" I gasped, pointing to the two beds. I must have looked a
little odd sitting swaying there in a very inadequate "helpless" shirt
belonging to the hospital! With a muttered exclamation he rushed forward
just catching me in his arms, and I was back in bed in a twinkling. The
whole thing was so clear to me; even now I can fancy I really saw those
Germans, and the adorable V.A.D., after searching under the beds at my
request, sat with me for the rest of the night. My "good" leg was tied
securely down after that episode.
I was dead and buried (by report) several times that first week in
hospital and Sergeant Richardson from the Detail Issue Stores, who saw
we always had the best rations, came up to see me one afternoon. He was
so spick and span I hardly recognized him, and in his hand was a large
basket of strawberries. The very first basket that had appeared in the
fruiterers' that year. He sat down and told me how anxious "the boys"
were to hear how I really was. All sorts of exaggerated rumours had been
flying about.
He related how he had first heard the news on that fatal Wednesday and
how "a bloke" told him I had been killed outright. "I knocked 'im down,"
said the Sergeant with pride, "and when he comes to me the next morning
to tell to me you wos still alive, why, I was so pleased I knocked 'im
down again!"
Bad luck on the "bloke," what? I was convulsed, only the trouble was it
hurt me even to laugh, which was trying.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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