World War, 1914-1918 -- Campaigns -- Turkey -- Gallipoli Peninsula
We arrive at Lemnos about 8 p.m. and enter the harbour that I was in
last April. What a lot has happened since those days, and what ages
it seems ago! We go alongside a hospital ship, the _Sicilia_, and our
stretcher cases are taken off on to the ship. Have a look through
the port-hole and see a very big saloon full of beds and doctors,
orderlies and very smart and efficient nurses busily in attendance.
Then we go nearer into the shore and get on to a pinnace, and go to
a pier. Here three of us—namely Weatherall, Williams, of the Royal
Scots, and myself—get into an ambulance motor and are driven inland,
and arrive at the Australian hospital. Then we go into the orderly
tent, and a sergeant takes down our names, etc., and religion.
Religion! Let us talk of religion when all Huns are exterminated. Then
a pleasant-looking Australian Captain comes in, diagnoses my case, and
says “Milk diet,” which is entered in a book.
We are then taken to another group of three marquees joined together,
full of wounded Tommies in bed. Then a Major Newlands, one of the
leading surgeons of Australia, comes in and sees me, and after a cup
of tea we go to sleep—at least, we are supposed to. Several of the
Australians are chatting, and it is interesting listening to them.
Suddenly one of the wounded stirs in his sleep and says “One, two,
three, four; one, two, three, four,” several times, and finishing by
“One, two, three, four,” and then a pause, and then “Five,” said with
a sigh of relief. He sits up in bed, and making the row that one makes
with one’s mouth when urging on a horse, he says, “Go on.” One of the
orderlies goes over and gently puts his head back on to the pillow.
He was fast asleep, and was going over in his dreams the taking up of
ammunition to the trenches.
_July 4th._
I and three other officers are in a ward with Tommies, for the hospital
is overflowing. Orderlies bring around basins of water to wash, and
then breakfast of bread and milk. Then the Major comes round and sounds
me pretty thoroughly, and orders me to stay in bed until further orders.
Lunch: rice and milk. Very hot; nothing to smoke. Flies damnable, and I
find myself actually longing to get back to work on the Peninsula. But
I do certainly enjoy at present the relief of being away from shells
and bullets and the horrors of war.
_July 5th._
Awakened early by one of the wounded crying loudly for a doctor. The
poor chap had been hit in the leg by an explosive bullet and had a
pretty bad wound. He was in great agony, and amongst other things cried
out, “What a war; and this is what they do to me!” and then he made a
continual cluck with his mouth that one makes by putting one’s tongue
to the roof of one’s mouth and drawing it away when annoyed.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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