Field Hospital and Flying Column: Being the Journal of an English Nursing Sister in Belgium & RussiaThurstan, Violetta
History
Field Hospital and Flying Column: Being the Journal of an English Nursing Sister in Belgium & Russia
Thurstan, Violetta
World War, 1914-1918 -- Hospitals, charities, etc.; World War, 1914-1918 -- Personal narratives
As we left the hospital we met three footsore soldiers whose boots were
absolutely worn right through. They were coming up to the hospital to
see if the Matron had any dead men's boots that would fit them. It
sounded rather gruesome--but she told us that that was quite a common
errand. The Russian military boots are excellent, but, of course, all
boots wear out very quickly under such trying circumstances of roads and
weather. They are top boots, strong and waterproof, and very often made
by the men themselves. The uniform, too, is very practical and so strong
that the men have told me that carpets are made from the material. The
colour is browner than our own khaki--and quite different both from the
German, which is much greyer, and the Austrian, which is almost blue. I
heard in Belgium that at the beginning of the war German soldiers were
constantly mistaken for our men.
X
BY THE TRENCHES AT RADZIVILOW
The next morning we went up to Radzivilow. It is the next station to
Skiernevice, and there was very heavy fighting going on there when we
went up. We were told we were going up on an armoured train, which
sounded very thrilling, but when we got to the station we only found a
quite ordinary carriage put on to the engine to take us up. The Russian
battery was at that time at the south of the railway line, the German
battery on the north of it--and we were in the centre of the sandwich.
At Zyradow these cannon sounded distant, but as we neared Radzivilow the
guns were crashing away as they did at Lodz, and we prepared for a hot
time. The station had been entirely wrecked and was simply in ruins, but
the station-master's house near by was still intact, and we had orders
to rig up a temporary dressing-station there.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account