A surgeon in khaki

Early in October, and at night, the Ambulance again took the road—we turned our back on the Aisne and with the 2nd Army Corps began the famous move across the French lines of communication to the Belgian frontier and into Flanders. This change of position will be written up in the future as one of the most masterly episodes of the war. It was a formidable task to move the British Army and its supplies across the French lines and bring them into an entirely new position on the front. It had to be carried out with the utmost secrecy. None of us knew where we were going. Each day the secret orders were issued and the various brigades and columns carried out the indicated programme, while the French took up our positions and trenches as we retired from them. This was done also with great secrecy. I can imagine the perturbation of the Saxons and Wurtemburgers on our front on seeing French képis and uniforms where for weeks they had seen the khaki. The 2nd Corps moved off first. The 1st Corps left a week later.

On the first night we marched through Nampteuil and reached Droszy about midnight. It was a beautiful starlight night with a biting frost. We billeted in a spacious château, with plenty of cover for the ambulance waggons and with stables for the horses. The men slept in stable lofts and the officers on the floor of the marble hall. The hall was a beautiful room, containing some valuable old furniture. The walls were covered with relics of the chase of the days of Louis XIV., and old hunting horns, knives, and boar spears. Part of the château was modern, and part consisting of a wonderful old tower, loopholed for arrows, was evidently all that was left of the keep of a strong feudal castle. The proprietor was an old rear-admiral of the French Navy and he received us with the greatest courtesy; the Norfolks arrived an hour after us and quartered in a big house and yard close by. Our brigadier, Count Gleichen, arrived early in the morning and slept in our château.

A Taube was seen approaching in the morning and every one was ordered to get under cover or stand stock-still. This Taube was evidently trying to find out the reason for the absence of British in the old trenches and the presence of the French in their place. We surmised correctly that the Teutonic curiosity was considerably aroused. A few hours afterwards another Taube appeared—or it may have been our first visitor—and flying very fast, for a French airman was in hot pursuit. Both soon disappeared into the upper blue, but we laid our odds on the Frenchman.

At 6.30 that night we again got under way and had a magnificent night march to Longpont, arriving there at 10.30 p.m. Longpont is a wonderful old place. The Château Longpont dates back to very early times and contains some marvellous old tapestry. It is the home of the Comte and Comtesse M——, and they were in residence at this time and entertained as their guests on this day General Sir Charles Ferguson and his staff. Sir Charles was the Commander of the 5th Division of the 2nd Army Corps. The Comte and Comtesse had as guests, some weeks previously, General von Kluck, Commander of the right wing of the German Army, and had some interesting anecdotes to tell of this hard-fighting General and his staff.

Abutting on the château were the famous ruins of the abbey of Longpont. The remains of the old abbey are so historic that they are known in France as “Les Ruines.” It was built by the Cistercian monks in the twelfth century, and in the adjoining priory over three hundred monks were accommodated in the days when the Church was omnipotent in France. During the Reign of Terror the beautiful old abbey was destroyed by the revolutionaries, but the massive character of the pillars and walls proved too much even for these iconoclasts, and stand to-day, clothed in ivy and moss, the monuments of a glorious past. The venerable and stately majesty of these ruins, where every stone seemed to speak of the grandeur of other days, impressed the imagination of all who gazed upon them.

The day following our arrival at Longpont was a Sunday. Divine service was conducted at 10 a.m. round the old broken altar by our Church of England chaplain, and Sir Charles Ferguson, the Divisional General, read the lessons. Monsignor conducted the Catholic service at 11.30. Both services were largely attended by our own men and by French soldiers occupying the village. In imagination one could see the princely abbots and the cowled monks who, during a period of six hundred years, had chanted their litanies and passed in procession inside the beautiful abbey, gazing wonderingly at the simple military services held round the tumbled masonry of the ancient altar.

After the services we spent the day wandering through the old-fashioned village of Longpont, examining its ancient gateways adorned with the crests of the kings of France, or strolling through the fine woods bordering the lake. Heavy artillery fire from the French batteries could be heard all the day. We were now right behind the French lines.

I cannot pass from Longpont without describing our sleeping quarters on the night of our arrival. The officers of the ambulance had to sleep on the straw of an old stone stable. The stable looked comfortable and inviting, and it was not till we had crawled into our valises that the “fun” commenced. We had just lain down and blown out the candles when we felt curious obscure movements under our valises. Then a rustling of straw and a scampering of some objects over our beds. One doctor at once yelled out, “Good Lord, the place is full of rats.” He turned on his electric torch and immediately there was a wild scurry and stampede to cover of hundreds of rats. The torch was turned off, and after a little while the scampering and squeaking started again. The rats were either enjoying a game or were upset by our occupation of their stable. At one end of the stable was a feeding trough, and sitting in a row on the edge of the trough were innumerable rats. Conspicuous amongst them was one enormous fellow, about the size of a cat—some one said he was as big as a calf—with huge grey moustaches and very knowing eyes. This was undoubtedly the leader. We christened him Von Hindenberg. Somebody threw a bottle at him, but the cunning old rascal dodged it by making a tremendous leap into the middle of the stable and disappeared. One young doctor then said that he would rather sleep out in the open than amongst the rats, and he carried his valise outside. The rest of us decided to stop where we were, but we all pulled our blankets well over our heads. Our childhood horror of rats still remained, and we were just a little bit afraid of them—especially of Von Hindenberg.

From Longpont we had a hard gruelling march of fifteen to eighteen miles through the night, and arrived at Lieux Ristaures at 6 a.m. We were stopped a long time on the road at the little village of Corcy by hundreds of motor vans, waggons, and buses containing French troops. We realised on this night what “crossing a line of communication” actually means. The French were hurrying up heavy reinforcements to strengthen a part of their front which at that moment was withstanding a most resolute German attack, our Brigade was moving as quickly as possible to another point of the front. The roads of the two armies crossed at Corcy, and of course one had to wait till the way was clear. It all looked very confusing and chaotic, but it was really very cleverly managed. Our road at first led through a forest, and anyone who knows the forests of France knows the beauty and charm of the tall trees. Little could be seen, however; high overhead one could make out a few stars, but the track itself was in Cimmerian darkness. About 2 a.m. we reached Villars Cotterets and marched through the old cobbled streets without a pause. This old town looked interesting, and one would have liked to have explored the birthplace of Dumas. After Villars Cotterets our road lay through more open country and a grey dawn made things clearer. We were all dog-tired with the long march and the constant halts; marching at night was more monotonous and fatiguing than day marching.

On the way from Villars Cotterets to our next bivouac, Lieux Ristaures, at night time, when we were all feeling very done up, a most surprising rumour reached us. Far ahead on the long column we suddenly heard distant cheering which grew in intensity as it travelled quickly down to us preceded by a message shouted from one to another, “The Kaiser is dead. Killed yesterday morning. Pass it on.” When the message reached us we laughed, and did not pass it on. Cries came out of the darkness in front, “Pass the message on. It’s official. The Kaiser’s dead.” So we passed it on, and the cheering travelled back across country to the marching men far behind. It cheered the men up wonderfully; they were delighted. It of course turned out to be a fake, cleverly engineered by some wags at the head of the column. Of rumours there was no end. The Crown Prince had been buried in Flanders, in the Argonne, at Soissons. But he always got out of his grave. We buried Von Kluck, Hindenburg, and Bulow, and each burial was related with a wealth of detail that left nothing to the imagination. The most accepted rumour of all, and one which is still believed by many, was the harrowing story of the Prince with the velvet mask. This story had a distinctly Dumas flavour, and it had a great vogue. It was related to me first on the Aisne by a doctor in a Scottish regiment, who had had it from the Colonel, who had received it from somebody higher up. I, of course, passed it on lower down the social scale, and our Division knew it that afternoon. The Crown Prince at this time was said to be living in a richly furnished cave opposite Reims. On dull days he would sit on a chair outside and order the shelling of Reims Cathedral, while he gazed through a powerful glass at the falling masonry. One day the Prussian Nero was missing from his cave, and the story then shifts to Strasburg, whither in the dead of night a wounded officer of apparently august rank was conveyed in a motor-car. Two powerful Limousines accompanied this car, one before and one behind, and these were full of highly placed army officers. A special train with steam up was awaiting the arrival of the cars, and as the wounded officer was carried across the platform on a stretcher, closely surrounded by Generals, it was noticed that a velvet mask covered his face. The mask fell off as the body was lifted into the train and the Crown Prince’s face was exposed to view. I believe that this story was afterwards circulated in the French press. We certainly did not hear of His Imperial Highness for many months afterwards.

Another rumour circumstantially related by a field chaplain and duly passed on with the imprimatur of the Church, was that Prince Albrecht of Prussia, son of the War Lord himself, had been wounded and taken prisoner into Antwerp by the Belgians. He was operated upon by Belgian surgeons in the presence of two German medical officers, and a bullet was extracted from his spine. The bullet was a Mauser—a German one. The Prince died and his body was handed back to the Germans.

On the way to our next bivouac we also heard that Arras was being bombarded by the Germans and that they were investing Antwerp. We had quite a lot of war news to discuss for the remainder of our road, and until we pulled our waggons under the trees round an old mill at Lieux Ristaures. The men were billeted in out-houses and wood sheds belonging to the mill, and the officers were cordially welcomed by the hospitable miller and his kind-hearted womenfolk. They prepared coffee, bread and butter, and eggs for us, and we had the use of two bedrooms and a small office. A rapid mill race ran through the garden and under the kitchen floor of the house to the orchard beyond. When the miller’s wife wanted fresh water, all she had to do was to lift up a trap on the kitchen floor and dip the bucket into the tumbling water below. Lieux Ristaures has a fine old ruined church all to itself, but it is disfigured by some modern attempts to restore it to its ancient grandeur, and these attempts have spoiled completely the beauty of the ruins. At Lieux I received my first mail since leaving England. It was now October, and I had left England in August. This will give an idea of the marvellous work of our Army Post Office, but as no department has received such abuse as this one, I will spare its feelings and say no more.

A fine contingent of French cavalry passed by on this day. The men and horses looked splendid. The brass helmets, plumes, and cuirasses caught the sun’s rays, and we described the passing as a “gorgeous cavalcade.” The helmets and cuirasses, however, seem to belong to old-world armies, and look stagey amongst the simpler uniforms of this age.

We stopped two nights at the quaint old farm of Lieux with its rushing mill race, and at three o’clock on the second day marched to Bethisy St. Martin, where we had an excellent tea at a cosy house in the town—butter, eggs, bread, cold beef, and pickles. We sat round a table with a tablecloth! our first since August. The good woman who prepared the meal made us very welcome. We slept on the floor of the Mairie in the centre of the town till 5 a.m., when we again took the road to Santines and Verberie, passing near Senlis. Verberie showed many evidences of the Prussian sign manual—shelled houses and smashed walls. We reached the river Oise at 10 a.m. and crossed by a pontoon bridge, as the fine old stone bridge had been blown up; marched through Rivecourt and bivouacked for three hours by the wayside. It was a glorious morning, the going was good, and everybody was cheerful and looked very hard and fit. At Halte de Meux, where was a railway siding with troop trains, we received orders to embark on one of the trains for a destination unknown.

The train by which we were to travel had to carry the Norfolk Regiment also. When the Norfolks were all on board we found that there was not room enough left for the Field Ambulance, with its ambulance waggons, supply waggons, horses, and men. C section, with its waggons and equipment, had to be left behind, and get on as best it could by some other train; so we of C section took the road to Compiègne. We reached this charming and historic city in the dark, and found that there was no train for us. We crossed the Oise again on a bridge of moored barges, as the magnificent stone bridge spanning the Oise here was in ruins, destroyed by the French during the German advance. The night was desperately cold; we slept, or tried to sleep, on the boulevard alongside the river bank, but had to get up and march about to keep up the circulation. The men lit a fire under the trees of the boulevard and sat round it all night. There was no reason really why we should have slept out on the open boulevard, for there was a large, half-empty infantry barracks about 20 yards away and the French offered us the use of it for the night. Our commanding officer, however, decided otherwise, and consequently we passed a most miserable night.

Compiègne, situated on the Oise, is one of the most charming and fascinating cities in France. In the palace, Napoleon Bonaparte and the Empress Marie Louise, Louis Philippe, and Napoleon III. frequently resided. The tower where Joan of Arc was imprisoned, the sixteenth-century Hôtel de Ville with its belfry tower, and the old church of St. Jacques well repay a visit. The city appeared on the surface to be leading a normal life except for the large number of French soldiers and the many Red Cross Hospitals. Compiègne was at this time a favourite afternoon call for the Taubes, and they frequently dropped bombs, meant no doubt for the old palace. Old historic châteaux, cathedrals, and churches have a strange fascination for German artillerists and bomb-droppers.

I must now relate an episode of some interest that occurred on the march up to Compiègne—nothing less than seeing General Joffre, the Commander-in-Chief of the Allied Armies. I had dropped behind from my ambulance, and had given my horse to my groom to lead behind my section on the march. A marching regiment was coming up behind us, and as I knew the doctor I waited till the regiment came up, and then joined in and walked alongside my medical friend. A large château was situated on the side of the road some distance on, and as we came up we saw a large group of French officers standing at the old gateway. A whisper travelled rapidly down the line that this was the French Headquarters Staff and that Joffre himself was there. At once the subalterns “tightened up” the marching men, heads were lifted, shoulders squared, the step became smarter and rhythmic. Low muttered commands snapped out: “Smartly there,” “By your right,” “Keep your distance, men.” As we came abreast of the group at the gateway, the sharp, clear command rang out from each platoon officer, “Eyes right!” the officers saluted smartly, and with a parade swing the fine regiment marched past. I gazed long and interestedly at the officer at the gateway who took our salute. He was easily distinguishable as Joffre, for he was exactly like the pictures seen of him in every shop window in France, or rather the pictures were faithful representations of Joffre. When I got past, I stepped out of the company I was marching with on to the far side of the road, and while the remainder of the regiment was still passing by I had a good long look at the man who means so much to France, and in whom France is so sublimely confident. He was dressed in a well-fitting but easy blue tunic, with stars on the sleeves near the cuff indicating his rank of General, and with a gold band on the shoulders, the familiar red French trousers, and black polished cavalry jack-boots. On his head he had a gold-braided képi. Joffre is of middle height, strong and sturdily made, broad-shouldered and with a figure stout and heavy. His face is full, genial, and attractive, browned like the faces of men who have lived and worked in the tropics, and with a white moustache which gave a somewhat benevolent air. He was evidently interested in the march past of our regiment, for he walked three or four paces forward from his staff and towards us, and seemed to take in all the details of men and equipment as his eye scanned up and down. His salute was given with the careful exactness and ceremony always bestowed by the French upon this act, which the British officer goes through so casually.

Joffre did not look the dazzling military leader of romance, but he looked very business-like. Here was not the lean figure and the hawk nose of a Wellington, the glittering swagger of a Murat, or the inscrutable pose of the little Grey Man of Destiny. Yet this broad, homely, comfortable, and democratic figure standing by the roadside and carefully observing us, is the most powerful man in France to-day—the man against whom no political criticism is levelled, the idol of the soldiers, and in whom the people of France have such a simple faith. He is called “Our Joffre,” and the possessive phrase indicates the pride the people and army feel in him. The French will tell the following story, which has gone the rounds, with great gusto. After a big battle in Poland, Von Hindenberg’s Chief of Staff contracted a “political illness” and was sent to Berlin to recover his health. The Kaiser wired to Hindenberg, “Whom do you nominate for your new Chief of Staff?” The reply came back, “Would like Joffre.”

French officers at the front will tell you that Joffre is an Aristides the Just; that he ordered the shooting of four French Generals early in the war because they were traitors to France, and that he has “retired” all the old Generals who are slow to think and too fond of cocktails to be good campaigners; that he speedily rewards ability and initiative by promotions on the field, and is merciless on an officer—no matter of what rank—who shows incompetence.

Joffre was met early in the War of the Trenches by an old friend, who greeted him with, “Well, how are things going?” The General’s eyes twinkled humorously as he replied, “Laissez-moi faire, je les grignotte” (“Leave me alone, I am nibbling them”). A French surgeon who knows Joffre, told me that he is a good sleeper, and that during the worst days he never missed one night’s sleep. It was Shakespeare’s Cæsar who said, I think, to Mark Antony:

Joffre has never interested himself in politics, and he is one of the few great Frenchmen who have avoided the glamour of the political stage on which so many ephemeral reputations have been made and so many good ones blasted. Joffre, like most men who “do” things, is a silent man. I am glad that I have seen “Joffre le taciturne,” and been privileged to salute him.

Joffre and French are both over sixty years of age. Pau, the one-armed French General, known as the “Thruster,” is a veteran of the War of 1870. Gallieni, the “rock of Paris,” the General destined to hold Paris when Von Kluck was bearing so hastily down on the capital, is an old man. Von Hindenberg, the pride of Germany, is sixty-seven. Von Kluck, the Commander of the right wing of the German Army, who so furiously hacked his way almost to the gates of Paris, and was rolled back in a crushing defeat, is over seventy years of age. Napoleon and Wellington were forty-six at Waterloo. Nelson died at forty-seven. Ney was thirty-five when he was shot. Von Roon, the German Minister of War in the Franco-Prussian War, was sixty-seven when the campaign began. Bismarck was then about fifty-five, and Von Moltke was an old man—a septuagenarian. Are we too old at forty? No. I knew a chaplain at the front who was fifty-eight years of age. In times of peace he took very little physical exercise; he was a student, a scholar, and an author. I have seen this chaplain march mile after mile in rain and mud, and under a broiling sun on dusty roads, and he was then fitter than he ever had been before, and could eat bully beef and hard biscuits like the hungriest youngster. He had the face and eyes and voice of a young man, and he laughed like a merry boy.

We left Compiègne at 3 p.m.; our horses and waggons were entrained and officers and men got into an old and evil-looking “100th” class carriage and again set off for a destination unknown. No one seemed to know where we were off to, but the entraining and route were really well carried out by the staff of the railway. At Amiens we received orders to get off at Abbeville, and after a tiring journey we reached the mouth of the Somme at 2 a.m. The waggons and horses were quickly taken out, and in the dark we trekked through Abbeville across open country to Gapennes, nine miles away. Here we met the 13th Field Ambulance, temporarily quartered in a most luxurious château. Our little party was dead beat for want of sleep, and some of us lay down on the floor of the village schoolhouse and slept heavily for three hours. The school was not “in” that day, otherwise I am sure the children would have been highly entertained to see three weary doctors in khaki soundly slumbering on the floor.

Still sleepy, we again had to take the road and tramp the weary miles. A large number of French ambulances passed us going back to Abbeville, and we heard that there had been some very hard fighting on the French left wing.

The 13th British Infantry Brigade caught up with us, and we pulled aside to let them pass. The officers told us that they were in a hurry—that the French had moved up a lot of troops to the south of Lille and that the whole British Army was to form up on the left of the French, and that terrific fighting was going on round Lille and Arras, and French and German cavalry screens had met farther west.

At 5 p.m. we found the headquarters of our ambulance located in a pig-sty of a farmhouse and were told that it was to move off shortly and march through the night. All the romance of night marching had gone for us, and we wanted to sleep. We were tired of walking, tired of everything, tired of the war, and vaguely wondered why we had been so foolish as to leave England.

So at nine o’clock on the same evening off we marched again into the outer darkness of a depressing, gloomy night, and we were on our feet through the whole of it. Most of the time we were standing by the roadside waiting for the congestion of the long columns in front to ease off. Sometimes we would sit in a ditch by the roadside and go off to sleep, only to be wakened a minute after by the cry, “Forward!”

About 6 a.m. we reached Croisette. The name sounds attractive, but it really was a mean-looking farmhouse at a cross-road; however, we got a very good breakfast of coffee, bread and fresh butter, and eggs. The farmer’s wife was anxious to know how the war was going on. She rarely got news, but heard lots of rumours. Everybody appeared to be hearing rumours as well as the British Army. We told her that we had killed thousands of Germans and were on the way to slaughter those that were still left; and as this appealed to the patriotic instincts of the farm lady, she was very satisfied with our latest war bulletin.

In three nights and three days I had had only three hours’ sleep, and had got to a stage when I marched, rode, and ate my food in a sort of subconscious state of reflex animation. In the late afternoon we rumbled into Thielyce, and tried fruitlessly to find some billets for our officers and men. The place was full of small cottages, and the cottagers eagerly offered each to take in one or two men; but we could not allow this, as in the event of sudden orders through the night we might not be able to get all our men together. We always lived in one large party or habitation like gipsies. One old woman of the village was extremely anxious to have some khaki soldiers stop at her house. She was curious to observe the English at close quarters, as she had never seen one before and had heard that they were such terrible fighting men. Our looks belied our reputation; we looked harmless, very dirty and dusty, but very tame.

The ambulance was parked in a field off the village street and inside a delightful clump of trees. Too tired to eat, I lay down as I was, armed cap-à-pie, at the foot of a tall umbrageous tree and slept a dreamless sleep.

At five o’clock next morning the sharp call of our O.C., “Field Ambulance, turn out!” aroused me again to a world of marching men and war; but I was my own man again and optimistic, and no longer wondered why I had left England.

We had a picnic breakfast sitting on the grass in the field, and at seven o’clock received orders to move off: we were to follow the 13th and 14th Brigades into Bethune and on to La Bassée, and be prepared for big casualties, as a stern battle was expected and the two brigades would probably be in action before midday. There was a feeling of expectancy in the air that morning. All the rumours about a big battle and all our quick movements and marchings by night seemed to presage a clash at arms. We hoped for old England’s sake that we would do well; our pulses were stirred and we were all very much alive.

We moved off smartly down a fine old tree-lined road towards the sound of heavy guns which had been in action from daybreak. On our way we passed thousands of hurrying refugees going towards St. Pol. Without stopping, our ambulances growled their way through the ancient cobble-stoned town on to the big high road leading to Bethune. Here again we met thousands of refugees, nearly all young men of military age. We were curious to know why these men were not in the French Army, and a French officer told us that they belonged to Lille and the surrounding districts, and had been ordered out by the French authorities to report at military dépôts farther south for training and active service. These “mobilisables” would have been good captures for the Germans and a considerable loss to the French Army. Amongst them I counted twenty-seven priests in black caps and cassocks; they, too, were on their way to shoulder a French rifle. One young man I noticed carrying a white rabbit in a bird-cage in one hand and a bundle of clothes and boots in the other; he was saving his rabbit from a German pie. Another fellow was walking along the road in carpet slippers and with a pair of heavy boots suspended round his neck.

The poor refugees looked tired, disappointed, and depressed, and no wonder. It is hard suddenly to have to leave your home, your friends, your wife and children, and to go away with a gnawing fear that they will be in the power of an arrogant and brutal enemy who knows no mercy. We pitied them all.

After all, there was no battle that day. We halted on the way some time, and then were rapidly marched forward towards Bethune. We were now passing through coal-mining towns and villages, and they recalled very much the villages and houses round coal areas of Scotland like Falkirk. The type of coal-miner and the coal-miner’s cottage are very much the same all over the world. These people did not seem very curious or interested in our passage through their villages or towns—simply gave us a glance at passing.

That night we bivouacked in a château near Bethune and on the main road. We could not get any farther forward, for the road in front was blocked up by big guns and little guns, ammunition columns, engineer battalions, and infantry. We saw a number of waggons loaded up with big pontoon boats, and speculated that we must be near water. So we were. We were near the famous canal, but the boats were intended for farther west.

After tea in the kitchen of the big château, some of us got on our horses and rode into the city of Bethune, now full of troops, and the bustle of warlike preparations. There were all nationalities in the streets of Bethune that night. Arabs in flowing robes were on horseback in the square, looking strangely out of place in this old western city. Spahis, French Grenadiers, French gunners, Alpine Chasseurs in round cloth caps, Belgian, French, and British officers, and, of course, Mr. Thomas Atkins, quite at home, smoking a Woodbine cigarette and being petted and openly admired by the women and the girls. We heard here that Antwerp had fallen, and thought the news very serious. It was quite unexpected, as we had not known that it had been strongly besieged.

At five o’clock next morning we were on the road in a dense fog, and after going forward about half a mile were told to bivouac in a field near the road till some ammunition columns and guns got past us. This we did, but Monsignor wandered off alone farther down the road. We missed him for a long time, and when he did turn up he told us that he had been arrested as a spy by the French. Two or three French sentries with fixed bayonets surrounded him, and I don’t know what arguments Monsignor used to convince them that he was an Englishman. But he came back smiling, and was evidently much tickled over the whole affair. He was the only officer in the British Army, and in fact the only member of the Expeditionary Force, who was not in khaki uniform, and it is no wonder that the French thought it odd that he should be strolling about “on his own,” looking at British guns and equipment. We were all delighted, of course, at Monsignor’s arrest, and regretted that we had not been there with our cameras. We were quite determined, if he were again arrested, to disown all knowledge of him, just to see what the French would do next.

After some hours’ wait in the field we pushed on again through Bethune towards the canal. This canal was to us then simply a canal and nothing more, but along this belt of slowly flowing water was to be waged very soon one of the most terrific and sanguinary struggles recorded in history.

As we approached the canal the Norfolk Regiment came up, and we drew to the side of the road to give them the right of way. I sat on a heap of stones by the roadside and watched this fine regiment marching smartly past, and I remember thinking curiously that probably that same day, perhaps within a few hours, many of these fine fellows would have fallen and many would be maimed.

It is an impressive thing to see a regiment going into action. The Norfolks knew that they would very soon be in the thick of things, as they were marching on the sound of the heavy guns, but they looked perfectly cheerful and unconcerned. That night several of them passed under my hands on the operating table, and many more were lying very still on the wet earth not far away.

The King’s Own Scottish Borderers passed us earlier in the morning, and with them was Dr. D—— as regimental surgeon. D—— was one of the first medical officers over the Aisne, and he put through some splendid service for the wounded under a heavy fire, and was mentioned in dispatches. Four days afterwards poor D—— and his stretcher-bearers were captured and sent as prisoners to Germany.

At 11 a.m. we crossed the narrow bridge spanning the now famous canal leading up towards La Bassée, and installed our ambulance headquarters in the Château Gorre on the road to Festubert. The château had up till that day been the headquarters of a French cavalry general, and it was a most palatially fitted-up place.

Our long journey was over. We had left the Aisne and taken up a new position near La Bassée in the north of France. We were now in a countryside destined soon to become the theatre of an intense and sanguinary struggle. It was here that our men withstood the shock of the most determined and relentless head-on attacks of the enemy. This was one of the roads to Calais, and we held the gate.