A surgeon in khaki

One afternoon a German aeroplane dropped a bomb at the hospital gate, and a second one on a house near the gate. They burst with a terrific crash, shook the building and rattled the glass and startled us all. The same voyaging Taube dropped another bomb in the square of the city, and an old woman, a man, and a baby were struck. The old lady had to have her leg amputated and died on the succeeding day; the man received a shell wound in the back of the head and he died a few days afterwards; the baby was injured in the stomach and also died next day. One of our Army Service Corps men was struck by a piece of shell on the leg and received a serious wound. A corporal of the Army Service ran upstairs to me in the ward where I was busy dressing some cases and excitedly told me that his back was broken and that he thought he would soon be paralysed. We undressed him and found that a small piece of shell had made a slight wound on the muscles of the back, but that he was otherwise all right. He was reassured about the paralysis and the broken back. Two days afterwards another German aeroplane—or it may have been the same beast that had visited us before—flew over the city and dropped some more bombs, killing some unfortunate people and injuring others.

On the following morning at three o’clock I was in one of the wards admitting some wounded men just in from the trenches, when the unmistakable burst of a Black Maria was heard close at hand. The shell had burst not far from the hospital, and was followed by two more, one near the railway station, and one near the college not far away. The Germans had the range perfectly, and we expected a big bombardment. The authorities decided that Bethune was no longer a safe place for our Clearing Hospitals, and we were ordered to prepare for the evacuation of our wounded as soon as possible. This was soon done, and all were conveyed by ambulance motors to the hospital trains, with the exception of seven men. These men were all dying from severe injuries to the brain, and no good would be served by sending them down to the Base. So the seven poor fellows were put in beds alongside each other in one ward, and in three days they were dead, and buried in the now well-filled cemetery at Bethune.

The two Clearing Hospitals in the city—British and Indian—were sent to Chocques, near Lillers.

It was with a little heartache that I left Bethune and its good sisters. We had passed through days and nights of racking work and worry, and we had the satisfaction of feeling that we had all done our best. It is mournful to leave a place associated with many stirring episodes and with many warm friendships, for in times like those at Bethune firm friendships were quickly made. In saying good-bye one seems to leave them behind for ever—and that is always sad.

The nuns at this hospital were simply splendid all through, and I can quite understand how the religious sisters have come to their own again in France.

From the earliest times and up till about eight years ago all the nursing in the French hospitals was done by sisters belonging to the various religious orders. Then came one of the big political upheavals for which France has been so noted in the past, and the nursing sisters gradually disappeared from the hospitals owing to the hostility of the State to the Church and all connected with it. The nursing sisters of these orders were at the time of this change well-trained medical and surgical nurses. As they were no longer able to exercise their professional skill, and no more of the younger nuns were trained in nursing, it followed that on the outbreak of war only the older nuns were capable of undertaking skilled nursing in the many hospitals. The demand for nurses was a clamant one, for from the very beginning of the war there were large casualties. It was said that the nursing by the lay sisters who succeeded the religious sisters was not of such a high order as in the old days owing to the absence of the strict and rigid discipline, the very fibre of the life of a sister in religion. I have heard this both from French surgeons and from visiting British surgeons.

When the war broke out France was as ill prepared in her military medical branch as we were, and she was suddenly confronted with the problem of handling and treating many thousands of wounded.

M. Clemenceau, an ex-Premier of France and a Doctor of Medicine, is also the editor of L’Homme Enchaîné. At the outbreak of war this journal was known as L’Homme Libre, and Clemenceau so violently attacked the medical disorganisation and lack of preparation that the paper was promptly suppressed. It, however, emerged next day under its new title, The Man in Chains, and under this title appears daily in Paris.

Clemenceau’s efforts, however, were continued, and France soon had everything in good going order. It was at this critical phase that the Franciscan sisters, and the sisters of other religious orders, quietly took their places beside the wounded French soldiers. Just as quietly they opened up their convents, churches, and buildings, warehouses, châteaux, cottages, railway waiting-rooms, and turned them into hospitals for the wounded and sick men. Working tirelessly night and day, knowing no fatigue and shrinking from no task or danger, and glorying in their mission, they performed marvels. The younger sisters were put to subordinate nursing duties, and so rigorously trained by the elder ones in the principles of nursing.

These juniors are now very competent nurses, for they learn quickly amongst the ample material that war provides. The wounded French soldier loves and idolises the nursing sister. He demands her presence, and makes her his confidante. The nun is supremely happy to be back in her old place, and pets and humours the wounded soldier, soothes his ardent soul, and, by her skill, heals his wounds.

I do not think that any future government of France will ever dare to oust the religious sisters from the hospitals. These quiet-voiced, simple-robed women, carrying help and compassionate pity in the welter of blood and slaughter, have come “to their own” again.

When writing of the religious orders one naturally thinks of the priests of France, and one of the many interesting and instructive evolutions taking place during this war is that of the changing relation of the people and State towards the Catholic Church.

One has only to be a little time with the French troops in the field to recognise and be impressed by their deep attachment to the Catholic Church. I visited many churches in France and Belgium during the earlier stages of the war, and at all hours, and have always found, sometimes few, sometimes many, Belgian and French soldiers on their knees and devoutly at prayer in the sacred buildings. Women, of course, were always to be seen there, but that was not surprising. It was surprising to see so many soldiers.

The French soldier takes his religion seriously in these days, and is not ashamed, whenever the opportunity occurs, to enter a church and pray. It was rare to see a khaki soldier praying in church; one often saw them there on visits of curiosity gazing at the old windows and old scroll-work of the churches. The British soldier will always attend a church parade, and he will be most reverent during a service, and will sing lustily and amen loudly; but a church parade is to him very often a drill, and Tommy cheerfully attends a drill parade because it is his duty to. In reading letters from British soldiers at the front and comparing them with those of French soldiers one cannot help being struck by the religious serious note pervading those of the latter, and its absence in the former. It may be that we are less emotional than the French, and as a nation are shy of writing of our inner selves. It was my duty once to censor the letters written by wounded men in a Clearing Hospital at the front. The letters were distinctly humorous at times; only two discussed matters of faith. In one a soldier was writing to his mother, and he said, “I pray every day as I promised you to. I pray standing up, and always time my prayer for three o’clock in the afternoon, for that is the time when the fellows over the way let off most of their big guns and rifles at us.” This man was either a wag and teasing his mother, or he really believed in the efficacy of surrounding himself with an atmosphere of prayer when the enemy fire was hottest. The other fervent letter was from a soldier who had received a slight shell wound of the scalp. His was a letter written to a clergyman near London. This warrior informed the clergyman that he prayed silently amongst his comrades, and daily read a passage out of his Testament. The letter ended up by asking the clergyman to send him some Woodbine cigarettes, as he, the writer, hadn’t had a smoke for a fortnight and saw no chance of getting one. I showed this letter to our field chaplain, who visited this Christian soldier in the ward. The chaplain told me afterwards that the man was absolutely destitute of any religious beliefs, and had never read a Testament in his life; and furthermore—that he had three packets of Woodbine cigarettes, and had also smoked a considerable number during the past fortnight.

French officers have told me that before the war it was considered bad form for a military officer to attend Mass, and that an officer who attended Mass regularly need not expect promotion in the Army. Attending Mass is not considered bad form to-day, and soldiers of all grades from general to grenadier attend the services in the field. Was the religious trait there all the time, and only held back by the conventional strictness, or has the seriousness of the war compelled a little self-analysis and a return to the faith of their fathers? My impression is that the priests and the nursing sisters of the religious orders have helped to stir up this present state amongst a people who have always been, deep down, much attached to their Church and its religious observances. Even the Reign of Terror could not stamp out the influence of the Church in France, although it turned churches into meat marts and blacksmiths’ forges, and plastered their walls with “Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité.” The French priest has no official status in the State. He is simply a citizen, and is liable, like all other citizens, to be mobilised for military duty. Over 20,000 French priests and brothers of various orders are serving with the French colours in this war. I have spoken to French priests about this law that compels them to serve as soldiers. They do not cavil at it, and, in fact, prefer to act the patriot’s part, for the priest is every bit a good Frenchman. Be the priest a simple soldier in the trenches, with battery, commissariat, ammunition, or brancardiers, he is nevertheless still a priest, and is at all times ready and eager to exercise his priestly duties. He has proved himself time and time again to be a cool, intrepid, and reliable soldier, and he has also proved himself in the hour of trial a comfort and spiritual help to those about to die. One has heard of hundreds of instances in this war when the priest, serving as soldier in the ranks, has conducted Mass in some broken-down cottage or barn in the firing zone, buried his dead comrades with the rites of the Church, and carried out the last offices to the dying. One of the ablest of the French artillery officers, now in charge of a battery, is a priest, and in times of peace is a well-known Abbé and writer on theology. Another learned Abbé and a great preacher was mobilised in July, and was badly wounded at Charleroi. When lying stricken on the ground he heard a mortally wounded soldier calling him. The Abbé painfully crawled to the dying soldier and administered the last office, and while doing so was again wounded. He was later on conveyed by hospital train to Paris. President Poincaré had heard the story, and met the train on its arrival in Paris. He went into the carriage where lay the badly wounded and apparently dying Abbé, and decorated him with the Legion d’Honneur. I am glad to say that the Abbé, although now a cripple, recovered from his wounds.

The Aumonier to the French Hospital at Bethune was a very fine priest. He was not mobilised as a soldier owing to defective vision, but he acted as priest and as a stretcher-bearer to the hospital. His lifelong friend, another priest and lecturer on Natural History at the College at Bethune, was fighting as a private in the Argonne. One day the Abbé told me that he had received a letter from his friend describing his life in the trenches, saying, “I live the life of a rabbit. I live in a hole in the ground. At night I come out to feed.”

A few days after this the Abbé heard that his friend was killed—shot dead through the head. When the Abbé told me of this I murmured the usual, “Hard luck.”

“No,” said the Abbé, becoming very serious. “It is not what you call the Hard Luck. It is the good luck. It is how a good priest would wish to die.”

It has been asked many times during this war, “What is Christianity doing after the past 1900 years?” and many have answered, “Crucified men and women. Mutilated prisoners of war. Outraged women and slaughtered children. Cities and towns in ashes. Misery, tears, and the moaning of millions.” If this is the indictment, it is not against Christianity, but against one people only, that of Lutheran Germany. But these hellish deeds of “Christian” Germany have but served to bring more clearly and brightly into view the Christian spirit of other peoples’ brotherliness, help for the distressed, and that

The Belgian and French soldiers fighting at first to defend their homes, their women, and their children and old men, and fighting now for vengeance to punish the bloody invaders, are examples of a good, healthy Christianity.

The open, warm welcome of France and England to the Belgian refugees, the colossal funds for the alleviation of distress, and helping of the wounded and the sick, show that the “greatest of these,” Charity, is not yet dead on the earth.

Our definition of “Christianity” depends upon the point of view. To me the Turco and the Gurkha are very good Christians and the German nation is infidel. Every General Order issued by the Kaiser ends not with an appeal to the Almighty, but with an affirmation that God is fighting for the German cause.

The Saxons and Bavarians will sack a town and inflict nameless horrors on helpless civilians, shoot old men for sport, kill children, torture women, commit sacrilege in the churches, smash altars and relics, destroy historic and beautiful windows and treasures of art, bayonet priests, violate shrieking nuns, and with hands smeared in blood they will at the word of command praise their German God.