A surgeon in khaki

We left Serches at 5 p.m. and retraced our road for about two miles till we reached the ancient Château-farm of Mont de Soissons. This historic farm was our headquarters during September and till the date we left in October 1914, and it was during this eventful period that all the great stirring events “on the Aisne” took place. “On the Aisne,” how much of tragedy and pathos, of great deeds, of gallant deaths, stubborn fighting, and indomitable courage are associated with those words?

On the night after our arrival at Mont de Soissons, the ambulance officers were sitting about eleven o’clock round a table in the old dining-room of the Château, when an urgent order arrived from headquarters to send doctors, stretcher-bearers, and ambulance waggons with equipment to Missy. The orders were for the ambulances to get to Missy in the dark, pick up the wounded, and at all costs to come out again in the dark. To get to Missy, which was situated on the far side of the Aisne, we would have to cross the river, and,—reading between the lines of this definite order to get in under cover of darkness and get out again in the dark,—one could see that our night ride was to be a somewhat perilous one.

Section C, the section to which I was attached, was ordered to undertake the task, and at twelve o’clock, on a pitch-dark rainy night, our section was ready to move off. We had five waggons, with the complete personnel of one section. Major B—— was in command, with Lieutenant I—— and myself as the other medical officers, and with us Monsignor, the Catholic chaplain attached to our field ambulance, also came as a volunteer. Monsignor was the salt of the earth, and whenever he thought that he could be of service to our wounded men he was there. There was no demand on him on this wild rainy night to leave the comfortable shelter of the farmhouse and voyage out towards the enemy lines; but he had a strong sense of duty, and behind the priest there was more than a soupçon of the knight-errant, who warmed at the thought of a dangerous adventure.

We were not permitted to light our waggon lamps, and in the darkness we rumbled off, anxious not to lose any time over our mission, and if possible complete it under cover of darkness.

Misfortune dogged us from the start. We had but one map; and as nobody could give us any directions, that was our only guide. We mapped out the route, Mont de Soissons to Serches—Serches to Venizel on the banks of the Aisne, where was the bridge by which we were to cross the river—Venizel to Bucy le Long, and thence to Missy. Altogether, we reckoned that we had 7 or 8 miles at least to go; but it proved to be a “long, long way to Tipperary.”

After being five minutes on the march we discovered that we were on the wrong road, and it took twenty minutes to turn the waggons on the narrow, muddy pavé and get on again. Passing through Serches, we turned to the left and followed the road through a valley leading to the banks of the Aisne. Here again we were nearly off on a wrong road, and lost about another twenty minutes righting ourselves. The country was intersected with roads not indicated on our map. We now got on to a narrow road dipping sharply down towards a clump of trees, and here one of our waggons slipped over the embankment, and one of the horses was killed. We could not get the waggon up again, so abandoned it and pushed on with our remaining four waggons, water cart, and supply waggon. The loss of this waggon was a serious blow to us, as events will show.

As we entered the forest we were challenged by a sentry of the Cameron regiment, who passed us on. A Cameron officer met us here and told us that we were going into a bad place, as late that afternoon he had lost some men from shrapnel at the very spot where we then were. Progress was very slow for the next 500 yards, as the road was barricaded with felled trees, and trenches had been dug alongside. After negotiating this nasty corner we got on quickly to Venizel.

We reached Venizel right on the banks of the Aisne, and learned to our chagrin that the fine stone bridge had been destroyed by the German artillery that day. The engineers with superhuman energy had just about completed a pontoon bridge. We were kept waiting here for an hour. Then, one waggon at a time, we got across. The bridge was very doubtfully lit at either end by darkened lanterns, and one seemed to be very close to the swift current of the Aisne, already in flood. At the far side of the bridge our progress was again very slow for some time, as we had to meander gingerly between the trenches dug for the men who were holding the bridge-end. As we left the pontoon an optimistic engineer lieutenant, in clothes dripping with water, cheerfully called out “Good luck. Hope you get back all right.” In reply we warned him that he would get pneumonia if he didn’t change his clothes, and that it was foolish to take baths in the Aisne with a uniform on.

Our road lay now along a flat plain, curving to the right. The night was very dark and ominously silent. Our men were forbidden to talk or smoke cigarettes, as we were approaching the enemy lines. Reaching Bucy le Long, we inquired the way from a Scottish officer who was standing near a stone well on the village street. All his men were alert and under arms and expecting an attack at any moment. The officer, speaking with the good Doric accent, indicated our way and told us to hurry on and get under cover, as Missy was very “nasty” just then and they expected a German attack.

We realised by this time that we might get into Missy in the dark, but by no possibility could we bring the wounded out in the dark; and by the serious preparations for repelling an attack in the village street we knew that we could not get out in daylight. It looked as if we were soon to be in the thick of that most sanguinary of all forms of war—street fighting.

So on we went, and after taking another wrong turn and losing another half-hour we got on to a straight road leading direct to Missy. It was extraordinarily difficult to find one’s way, as the night was dark and everything was strange and unfamiliar. There seemed to be hundreds of roads, and the greatest care had to be exercised; for a wrong turning would land us very speedily in the German lines, and none of us wished our expedition to end in an inglorious pilgrimage to Germany.

As the first doubtful streaks of dawn appeared we reached Missy.

The main street of the village was full of men of the Norfolks and Cheshires, all up and armed, and awaiting the Germans. There had been a very hot skirmish outside the village on the previous afternoon, and the Norfolks and Cheshires had lost heavily. It was the wounded from this mêlée that we were to get to. A cheery Norfolk sergeant directed us down a small lane to the right of the street, telling us that there were a lot of badly hit men somewhere at the bottom of the lane. The lane was too narrow to admit of our ambulances, so they were parked in front of a baker’s shop and the horses were taken out. We hurried down the lane and found the wounded men.

Dawn was breaking and shafts of grey light and shadow were thrusting through the darkness. Then, like a clap of thunder, the German batteries opened up, and from that moment till nightfall we lived through one of the most hellish artillery duels that any mortal man could imagine. A tornado of shot and shell swept across that beautiful Aisne valley. It seemed as if all the fiends of hell were let loose. The noise was deafening, ear-splitting, the bursting of the shells, the mighty upheavals of earth where the shells struck, the falling trees, falling masonry, crashing church steeples, the rolling and bounding of stones from walls struck by these titanic masses of iron travelling at lightning speed, the concussion of the air, the screeching, whisking, and sighing of the projectiles in their flight, made an awful scene of destruction and force. Add to all this the snarling, typewriter note of the Maxims, the angry phut of the Mauser bullet as it struck a house or a gate, and the crackling roars from our Lee-Metfords—truly it was the devil’s orchestra, and the devil himself was whirling the fiery baton. The steeple of the village church was struck fairly by a German shell, and with a mighty crash the stones were hurled madly on to the road down which we had but just passed, and killed one of our horses. Another shell plunged right into the old church and sent its roof in a clattering hail over the surrounding houses. A stone house at the top of our alley-way got another shell and was levelled to the ground, killing two women who were inside. The corner of the building in which we were located was struck by a passing shell and a huge hole was ripped out of the solid masonry. Shrapnel burst over the house, in the garden in front, on the doors of the house, on the roof, and down the alley. Our red cross flag and Union Jack were badly holed with shrapnel. At the kitchen door a large piece of shell fell, sending mud and gravel against the windows and into the room. A railway line ran past the foot of our garden, and stretching from this railway line to the banks of the Aisne in the distance was a wide grassy meadow on which some cows were grazing. A thicket of tall trees, surrounding a small farmhouse, was situated to the right of the meadow. This house was the headquarters of Count Gleichen, the commander of the 15th Brigade. The Germans evidently were aware of this fact, for the first shots they fired at break of day were at this house. We could plainly see one shot fall short of the house, but in a straight line for it. The second shot we thought had really got the house, but fortunately this was not so. It landed near the door, as we learned later. After this shot the headquarters galloped off as hard as they could go, and the enemy tried to reach them with shrapnel, but without success. Alongside the railway line there was a line of trenches, and every inch of that line seemed to have been covered during the day by the German fire. Their artillery practice was perfect, and at this period of the war the enemy artillery mightily outclassed ours. Our guns from the ridge on the other side of the Aisne made but a feeble reply to the terrific German bombardment.

Now for the story of our wounded at Missy. When we got down our alley at dawn on this eventful morning we found eighty-four grievously wounded men. In a little stone fowlhouse to the left of the alley, fourteen men were lying packed close together. There was no place to put one’s foot in trying to walk over them. To the right of the alley a gate opened into a gravel yard of a fine two-storied stone house, a very old and solidly built building. The house formed three sides of a square; a beautiful flower garden with a rose pergola formed the fourth side. The gravel yard was in the centre. The lower story of this building, with the exception of the kitchen and an adjoining room, consisted of stables, granaries, saddlery rooms, and coachhouse. Lying on the floors of the stable, kitchen, etc., were wounded men. They had all been wounded the previous evening in an attack on the enemy concealed in a wood. The wounded in the small fowlhouse were carried, under shrapnel fire, across the alley to the big house and placed in the room adjoining the kitchen and in the saddlery room. The cooks made up a big fire and soon had hot water boiling. The three medical officers were soon rapidly at work. The first case attended to was that of a young soldier of the Norfolks who had been struck by a shell in the abdomen. His intestines were lying outside the body, and loops were inside the upper part of his trousers. Under chloroform we did what we could. He died painlessly four hours afterwards. There were many bad shell wounds of the head; one necessitating a trephining operation. One poor fellow had his tongue half blown off. The loose bit was stitched on. The compound fractures were numerous and of a very bad type, associated with much shattering of the bone. Four men died during the day, but our arrival and timely help undoubtedly saved many men. We made the poor fellows as comfortable as we could, and we were incessantly busy from the moment we entered this blood-stained place. I personally shall never forget the sight of these poor, maimed, bleeding, dying and dead men crowded together in those out-houses, with not a soul near them to help, and I am more than thankful that I was privileged to be of service and to employ my professional skill to help them in their dire hour of need. We knew that we were in a tight corner. We expected that at any moment we would be all blown to pieces; we did not know how we were to get these men back to our own lines; but we knew also that whatever happened we would stand by our helpless countrymen to the last, and if we failed to get them safely back it would not be our fault. I mentioned previously that when our ambulance got orders to go to Missy, Monsignor, the Roman Catholic chaplain, volunteered to come with us. It is difficult to attempt to write of our brave Monsignor. He was the bravest of the brave. When the three medical officers were working hard with the wounded—dressing, operating, anæsthetising—Monsignor was very busy too. He made hot soups, hot coffee, prepared stimulating drinks, set orderlies to work to see that every man who could take nourishment got it. One man injured in the mouth could swallow only with the greatest difficulty. Monsignor patiently sat by this man, and one way or another with a spoon managed to give him a pint of hot Oxo soup and a good stiff nip of brandy. This splendid prelate carried straw with his own hands and made pillows and beds for our men. He took off boots and cut off bloody coats and trousers in order to help the work of the surgeons. He rummaged in a cellar in the house and discovered a box of apples. These he cut into slices for our men. He stood by our dying men and spoke words of cheer and comfort to the poor helpless fellows. He was absolutely reckless about himself. Exposed to shrapnel and shell fire many times during the day, he was too busy attending to the wounded to think about anything else. Towards dusk, when our work eased off, we collected some pieces of shell which fell near him—as souvenirs. I looked at Monsignor many times during the day, and was struck with his expression of content and his happy smile. He was exalted and proud and happy to be where a good priest,—and what a good priest he was!—could be of such great service. I am not a Catholic, but I honour the Church that can produce such a man as Monsignor, and I very greatly honour Monsignor.

As darkness came on the hellish artillery fire quietened down and then ceased altogether. The rifle-firing continued intermittently for a little while longer and then it too ceased. We were now “up against” the last and greatest trial of all—the evacuation of our wounded. During the day some more wounded men had crawled into us, and we had now 102 men to bring back to our lines. We managed in the darkness to get two large French country carts to act as ambulances. Our four ambulance waggons were, of course, not enough, and even with the help of the country carts we could not accommodate 102 wounded men. Every man wounded in the head or arms who could walk, was told off to march with our stretcher-bearers. We packed the wounded lying-down cases into the ambulance waggons and on to the country carts. Plenty of straw had previously been placed in these latter. We were compelled to load up our waggons and carts far too heavily, but our position was a serious one; we had to get the wounded out somehow, and we had no one to help us. Our troops had retired from Missy during the day and we were left all alone in front of the Germans and quite at the mercy of their guns. The via dolorosa of our sorely wounded was on this night a very pitiable one. Exposed to rain, lying in the utmost discomfort, compelled to keep for hours a cramped position, they deserved our pity. The wounded men who had to march were also in a sorry plight. These poor fellows were not fit to march; weak with shock, pain, and loss of blood, they ought all to have been in bed; yet they had to march, for we could not leave them behind.

At last all was ready to start. Strict orders were given against lights and cigarettes. No talking was allowed, for the Germans were just “over the way,” and they are people with “long ears.”

Before setting out we buried four officers and five men in a grave by the railway, near the bottom of the garden. This mournful duty over, the ambulance moved off.

This time we anticipated no delay, as we knew the road—vain hope. The night was again very dark, and a drizzle of rain was falling. We had just emerged from the silent village on the road to Bucy le Long when the inky blackness of the night was cut through by the powerful beam of a searchlight played from the German lines. The light swept slowly up and down our column in a zig-zag wave once, and then a second time, this time more slowly still. Every detail was illuminated with the brilliant glare. The light was then fixed ominously on our front waggon, which had a big red cross painted on its canvas sides. The column kept moving slowly on, but for ten minutes that sinister, baleful light played all round the first ambulance. We all thought that our last hour had come—that after going through such a hellish day in the farmhouse at Missy we were to be finally scuppered on the muddy road. We knew that the Germans were only about 800 yards away. With strained nerves we waited, expecting them to turn a machine-gun on us. The searchlight played up and down the column once more and then was turned in another direction. My impression is that the Germans made out the red cross on the leading waggon and so let us pass. If they wished they could have destroyed us easily. We all breathed again and continued on our way. After passing through Bucy le Long, where we again saw our soldiers, we came across some returning-empty motor lorries. We placed all our marching wounded on to these and eased off the pressure in the country carts by taking off a few men. At Venizel we were held up for five hours. The pontoon bridge had given way during the day under the weight of a piece of heavy French artillery. The gun had been fished out from the bottom of the Aisne with great difficulty, but the horses were drowned. The Engineers were straining every nerve to repair the bridge. It was vitally important to hurry, as this bridge was the only artery of communication between our advanced troops and the ammunition supplies. At last we got across and reached Mont de Soissons, our ambulance headquarters, at nine in the morning. The wounded were handed over to the other medical officers. Men and officers were completely done up. We had been marching during two anxious, harassing nights, and had lived through a bad day, but—we got out our wounded.