A Regimental Surgeon Read online

  Now, though the hand of the German was heavy on this land, there was order everywhere; every Belgian station was a Red Cross depot. No German soldier need get out of his carriage; food and drink were brought to him by young women with huge red crosses on the bosoms of their white dresses. Wounded men, German only of course, were redressed by willing hands, and their nursing wants attended to in the little hospital that was the feature of each railway station. There were English wounded too in trucks at the front of the train, but they were allowed to rot in the filthy straw. I could hear them asking for water and food, and the unfeeling laughter of the crowd that ran to gaze upon so entertaining a spectacle came to me down the platform. I asked to be allowed to go to them, but this was "Streng verboten." When I was finally marched along the train at Cologne, I saw our English wounded lying on the unclean straw without either food or water, without change of dressing or any nursing conveniences. Fractured thighs I saw with painful, twisted legs; men with shoulder wounds standing to save their bodies the torture of the jolt of the stopping train; prone figures with lacerated brains snoring into eternity and unconscious of their fellows' sufferings. Now, horse manure is the most perfect breeding ground for tetanus bacilli, but there was a very kindly Providence that ever looked after our wounded in German hospitals. Our men, alone of all the wounded, received no tetanus antitoxin to protect them, yet they suffered far less from this terror than either German or French. When prisoners' limbs were amputated, often by the surgical amateurs who were held sufficient to practise the art of surgery upon the prisoner, it was the English prisoner who failed to die from shock and secondary haemorrhage.

  My escort, though officially brutal, were yet unofficially very kind. They drew the blinds of the carriage when we drew up at a station and hid me, while they asked the gentle Red Cross maiden for food and drink for three. When this precaution was not taken, the Red Cross attendant would hand in three cups of coffee and three ham sandwiches; but catching sight of me in the corner, she would indignantly withdraw one cup and one sandwich. "Neinf Englander!" with as much ferocity depicted on her countenance as her inexpressibly homely face would allow. I shall not forget, too, how one of my escort slept on the rack at night, the other beneath the seat, so that I might have the seat to myself.

  Across the Rhine we slowly steamed, and I looked with interest to see the starving women and children, the smokeless factory chimneys, the depression that our papers told us were the results of the naval blockade. But I must have come at the wrong moment, for of starvation I saw no sign; the factory chimneys smoked gaily—only an enthusiastic crowd of fat and comfortable men and women waved handkerchiefs to the Red Cross ambulance train that was steaming across the bridge behind us.

  Arrived in Cologne station, I was again interrogated and, for the moment, lodged in the off-duty room of the German station guard. The atmosphere was hostile, but I sat on a chair and took up a German illustrated paper. At this, with the bellow of an outraged bull, the unteroffizier leapt up, seized the chair from under me, tore the paper from my hand, and then taking from his pocket an English soldier's knife, proceeded to give an illustration of the uses to which the various parts were put. "This," pointing to the big knife, "to cut the throats of wounded sons of the Fatherland; that," exhibiting the spike, "for the English doctors to gouge out the eyes of the wounded defenders of their country." I should have heard more interesting explanations had not my escort come for me and marched me out. It should never be forgotten in the years to come, when the sloppy sentimentalists in England begin to find excuses for the enemy, that all this talk of dum-dum bullets, the use of the various implements in Tommy's knife, of the barbarities to German wounded, were the official propaganda of the German Government. Our prisoners at Mons were taunted with these stories, so the Germans must have been well prepared beforehand to expect these brutalities from the English. I was conducted to a cell opening on to a public subway in the station. There I found a Belgian civilian accused of spying, so he said; but he was probably placed there to try to extract information from me. He stank abominably, as did his cell; a bucket in the corner was the only sanitary convenience. After one hour he was taken away, and to my delight three English officers were brought in—two flying men and a fellow in the South Staffords, the battalion that had just come from South Africa and formed part of the 7th Division. The flying men had had an interesting experience in a fog. Their engine had failed and they had come down almost on top of a German cavalry regiment; then the engine reacted, and they gained the friendly shelter of the fog bank a few hundred feet up. Off they went, the Uhlans pursuing the noise above them in the mist. Then the engine stopped again, and down they came. "You are my prisoners," said an excited young officer riding up; and there was no doubt about it. These two fellows were treated very well so long as they were in the hands of the cavalry regiment that took them. But once away, they experienced the usual sample of official German Rightfulness to prisoners. We were hungry and had no food nor any prospect of it. Through the keyhole we were the object of the curiosity of many eyes. The guard, I believe, were charging a small fee to allow half-minute inspections of the mercenaries of that force which the Kaiser so happily described as the "contemptible British Army." The door opened and a resplendent General officer came in. Motioning us to be seated, he looked at us and his contemptuous eyes were full of doubt. "Officers? So! Commissioned officers? So! "And well he might doubt, for we looked ruffians indeed. Dirty, covered with Flanders mud, unshaven, the South Staffords officer without tunic or cap or greatcoat, a transparent oilskin waterproof over his shirt; his missing kit the spoil of his captors. But we were not ashamed to ask for food, and we got it. The inspection over, our General wrapped himself in his nice blue cloak, to avoid contamination with such filth, and departed. Then the train to Crefeld. A short march through the crowded hostile streets, and we were glad to get the safe shelter of the Hussaren Kasernen.

  The 11th Hussar barracks, crowned with barbed wire above the high brick walls, was our resting place, and there we met a queer collection of some six hundred Allied officers—French Territorial officers from Maubeuge; Russians of Samsonoff's Warsaw Army Corps, that glorious sacrifice of Russia upon the altar of a threatened Paris; Belgians from indomitable Liege with their famous General. A hundred British officers were we, and amongst us were representatives of almost every unit of the British Army.

  In the barracks we all lived in little rooms, each holding about twelve officers and impartially mixed. In order that no differential treatment might be suspected, a selection of all nationalities occupied each room. The idea seemed excellent on the face of it and just, but it was designed with a knowledge that it would make all uncomfortable, and it did. Also it was to be hoped that it might create dissension among the Allies. It did not do that, though such a condition might easily have followed.

  The English wanted, and insisted upon having, at least one window open, in spite of their numerical inferiority; the Russians with every article of clothing piled up and blankets covering their heads, shivered in extreme discomfort until the abnormal English were asleep. Then surreptitiously, the window would be shut. We woke stifling in the frowst. The window opened again, the sons of Albion slept, while our Allies suffered torment from the courant d'air that was their pet abomination. At exactly three minutes to eight the assembly bell sounded. A hurried rush to put on clothes, often the German nightshirt concealed by a greatcoat, a hasty tooth brush in the cold wash-room and then the parade.

  But we were again at a disadvantage beside our immaculate Allies. The French were at their very smartest—they always seemed to bring a big trousseau with them. The shiniest of boots adorned their feet; elegant beards, well trimmed. Our Belgian friends were very smart too. The Russians immaculately dressed in black top boots and grey overcoats. But we lacked many articles of kit. Our Expeditionary Force had travelled light. Our caps were the chosen spoil of our captors, likewise our puttees and tunics. We were mostly wounded too, and w
here the blood and necessary cutting had not destroyed our tunics, they were badly repaired. Inches of pink leg showed above the boot and below the unbuttoned laces of our riding breeches. Some appeared with civilian caps and overcoats, some unashamedly with a blanket round them; and we were often late for parade. We must have looked a set of vagabonds beside our well-groomed Allies. The only thing that saved us from official reprimand was the fact that we were inspected last; a tribute to the contempt in which our gaolers held us. Our Adjutant, Vandeleur, was garbed in the most abominable little Belgian cap and overcoat. He gravely saluted, half in military fashion, half the ostler's touch of the cap. But the Commandant was fat and kindly, and bore us no ill will for our untidiness.

  A high brick wall bounded the gravel parade ground where we played football; in the centre of the detached blocks of buildings that formed our dwellings lay a bath house where we had shower baths in detachments. Our food was fairly good, but very plain, and there was a canteen where sardines and buns could be bought. We suffered no physical cruelty; but every humiliation, rudeness and insult, on occasion, from the under-officials was heaped upon us.

  I was lucky, and was given charge of the wounded English officers in the reserve lazarette, one hundred yards away. In this hospital there were about fifty of our officers; many in grave danger, all wounded and abominably neglected, on beds with straw mattresses and coarse linen sheets. There was no nursing, even for the very worst cases; nobody but Heinrich, the orderly, who smelt vilely of stale beer and onions, and forgot to return to duty when he went with his Liebe to the town. There was a female known as "Schwester," really no more trained than a ward maid, whose efforts were confined to cleaning the operating-room; a resident young doctor, plainly showing the unqualified student in every medical and surgical attention that he attempted. But he was kind, and our visiting doctors were kind. By kind, I mean that they did not ill-treat the wounded, but they made no effort to have the bad cases watched or bathed, or to have any of the rules of nursing applied. Fresh sheets were supplied weekly, if Heinrich's overnight beer permitted. One young officer, severely ill and in acute pain, suffered everything at the hands of these incompetent orderlies; he had not had one bath in the six weeks he had been in the hospital. I was promoted to the dressings under supervision, but not allowed to perform any other medical or surgical treatment. But my most useful role was as the nurse, to change the draw-sheet, to give the daily baths in bed, to sweep away the crumbs that were the torture of a tender back, to guard and protect the prominent bones of painfully wasted hips against the bed sore that was a constant threat, shifting pillows, brushing helpless hair and teeth. One poor fellow, wounded in the lungs, paid many penalties at first for my inexperience. I never quite realised before how little the average doctor knows of nursing, the little dodges to make the helpless comfortable, to conjure sleep in wakeful nights. Thus employed, I was allowed out in a collection of civilian garments, to walk in the country or even in the town of Crefeld. But I must wear a Red Cross, and carry a pass. Despite my Teutonic clothes, I could not escape recognition, and soon I gave the town a miss and confined my walking to the country near. The Anglo-Saxon head gives its owner so badly away. In a country where the men are brachycephalic, short-headed and flat at the back, it is easy to recognise the dolichocephalic, the long head, the prominent back of the occiput that is so characteristic of the English skull. But the little boys were very well behaved, curious but not rude, and they did not throw stones— by far the best behaved people in the whole country. The farming was excellently well done and the state of farm buildings and stock good. The farmers were then sowing their winter wheat, and the rye was two inches above the ground and this in mid-November. The farms were small, only from 100 to 150 acres, and well tilled. These people had also discovered the secret of good arable farming and covered the fallow with plenty of good farmyard manure. Liquid sewage was brought out in tank carts and generously watered on the fields. The farm work was entirely done by women and girls, save that entailing the management of horses. All teamster and wagoner work and ploughing were done by old men or half-grown boys. The cabbage crop and the root crops were then being harvested. In this arable country there were partridges and hares in abundance, and the grey crows that were collecting in the fields preparatory to their winter flight to Norfolk.

  One night the orderlies were noisier than usual; clattering along the corridors so much that sleep was impossible in hospital. Then one burst into my room and read the glad tidings of the loss of the Good Hope and the Monmouth and several other ships at Coronel. We would not believe it, and yet it was the authoritative word of German High Headquarters.

  Soon a familiar air was heard outside the hospital windows; we could hardly believe our ears! A group of school children singing "Rule Britannia!" It was their ironical way of cheering up the wounded prisoners; the local boys' school with their Pan-Germanic headmaster leading them. It seems that this, of all our National songs, hurts the German nation most and fills them with thoughts of hate and fright fulness. It is indeed an arrogant song and full of pain for German naval enthusiasts. We laughed and pretended we did not mind. But there was no "Rule Britannia" when the Falkland Island affair became known, only descriptions of fearful odds in fight against a combined English, French and Japanese Fleet.

  No description of the reserve lazarette at Crefeld would be complete without reference to Erasmus, a well-known surgeon and a Geheimrat. He would come in consultation to see our very badly wounded and could sometimes be persuaded to take them to the Civil Hospital, the Krankenhaus, in Crefeld. There they could have some nursing attention and the benefit of Erasmus* own skilful and kindly hands. The nurses at this Civil Hospital, though all trained in England, were full of stories of dum-dum bullets, of English doctors who gouged out the eyes of German wounded. What can one do with such a people? Their medical knowledge alone should have told them that the operation of gouging out eyes is an anatomical impossibility. It is possible, of course, to burst the eye in violence. Only by very great effort and the use of special instruments and big curved scissors can the most skilful surgeons remove an eye. How then can one explain, except as part of deliberate official propaganda, the suggestion that such an operation could be done with the spike, provided by a thoughtful Government, to remove stones from horses' hoofs? It may seem a little thing, but I feel, and I am not alone in this way of thinking, that these deliberate official German lies about the spike in the knife, the hole in the cut-off of our rifle, and dum-dum ammunition have accounted for hundreds and hundreds of wounded and unwounded British prisoners being shot in cold blood. Not only that, but the savagery was carried as far as the field hospitals, the Government hospitals and the Roman Catholic hospitals. Many German doctors and nurses avenged their country's fancied wrongs on the bodies of our wretched prisoners.

  One day tremendous uproar rose in the Hussar barracks—an attempt at escape by three Russians. All English, French and Belgians were arrested in their rooms and locked in the big mess, and the quarters of all the Russian officers rigidly searched. Some Russians were suspected of having a great deal of money secreted about them, hence this rigid inquiry, but the money was not to be found! It appears that three Russian officers were determined to escape. The new canteen manager was a German, speaking Russian well, and of a most sympathetic attitude. Who better than he to assist them? Yes! this engaging person would, for a consideration, buy, for prisoners, things outside the camp that were forbidden! "He was sorry for prisoners," he said. So convinced were the Russians of the genuine nature of his sorrow that the question of escape was broached. Our sorrowful friend looked grave. "Yes, it might be done, but it would be very expensive." "A motor, car! So! Yes, it was possible! But the officers would understand, of course, that it was a hanging matter for the chauffeur; he must be well paid. He would look about the town of Crefeld. Yes! perhaps 500 roubles would do it." But day by day the price went up until nearly 2,500 roubles was necessary to persuade the reluctant
chauffeur. The money was paid, civilian clothes provided, coloured arm badges too, such as privileged civilians wear when they come to the camp on business. Seven o'clock! The night is dark. Three men in civilian clothes pass the sentries, outwardly bold, inwardly quaking. The first turning to the right, to the right again, here was the car standing and the chauffeur started the engine! Holland in an hour! The passports of Dutch merchants were all ready, there should be no difficulty at the frontier. The car drove through the town and stopped —but at the Police Station. Our sorrowing and sympathetic canteen manager was a police spy. Three crestfallen officers returned; searched in the thorough way Germans know so well and sent off to a fortress. The Commandant triumphant and the Government richer by 2,500 roubles!

  On November 25th forty French doctors left for France, and we were very hopeful. Every day we English medical officers were told that our turn might come at any moment.

  One Sunday morning there was unusual bustle in the camp; plainly written here the same "inspection fever" that is met with whenever the senior officer of a district comes to look and see. We were to be inspected by Freiherr von Bissing, then Commanding the 7th Army at Minister, now known in the records of infamy as the Governor of Belgium. He inspected the French, then the Russians, then the Belgians. To all he had condescending things to say. Then came our turn, and at the sight of us he halted and bellowed, "Are these the English officers?" And well might he ask, for we did look a job lot. Some in uniform, others in half undress, all who had greatcoats in complete undress underneath their greatcoats. Some in service hats, some in civilian caps, others with no cap at all. Some wearing putties and some wearing gaiters, many with pink leg or drawers showing. One officer in a blanket! "What," he yelled, "is the meaning of this? I have seen the French officers, and they are smart, soldierly people. The Russians and Belgians also have I seen; and they are as officers should be, but you—you are a set of tramps!" He paused, and looking at our Adjutant, who saluted, in ostler fashion, by touching his disreputable cap, "Who are you, and what are you doing in those clothes?" "I was wounded at Le Cateau and stripped of everything but my shirt and trousers, by German soldiers," was the very calm reply. "And that officer there, what is he doing in a blanket?" pointing towards the fellow who was in the rear rank. "I am recently wounded, and the German soldiers robbed me of everything. I have not had time to get any new kit." Then the great von Bissing departed. In appearance he was a short man with a very lined face and big bags under his eyes; he looked as if he was no stranger to every kind of debauchery and had the marks of vicious living plainly written on his face.