A surgeon in khaki

We knew that serious events must have happened when K. of K. had personally visited Le Havre and had ordered its evacuation. It was Napoleon who said that it was a disastrous thing to attempt to change an army’s base during the actual progress of a war. But in this war old maxims and trite sayings go by the board. Anyone having the most elementary knowledge of war, and what an army in the field signifies, will agree that even if changing a base may not lead to disaster, it is nevertheless a very formidable and a very risky move. Le Havre at this time was a huge base from which our army in the field was receiving its supplies. Transports conveying all the necessaries for a fighting army unloaded their cargoes on its wharves. From there the supplies were sent by train to the advanced base in the centre of France, and from there onward to the various refilling stations. The destruction of Le Havre, or its temporary loss as a base, would have been a calamity. The army would have ceased to receive food, waggons, ammunition and equipment, guns, horses, forage, reinforcements, hospital supplies, etc. An army without ammunition and food is no longer of any fighting value. Think also of the quantities of material necessary to supply an army of 70,000 men, and this will give some idea of the immense war dépôt Le Havre was at this time. Circumstances must have indeed been serious to have necessitated a change of base. It meant also that the railway arrangements so carefully thought out, and which had so far been in operation, would have to be suddenly changed. Supply trains would have to be sent to the front from some other base, and returning empty supply trains and hospital trains would have to be diverted from Le Havre to the place chosen as the future base. The task was a gigantic one, and was rendered more so because it had to be completed in a hurry.

We reached Le Havre from Harfleur in the late afternoon. A large convoy of Belgian ambulances full of wounded was moving through the streets towards the wharves, and a French Infantry Division passed us in full panoply of war going east. Six large transports with steam up were lying at the wharves. The wharves were a scene of unparalleled activity, and when one got right down amidst this activity and looked around, one could realise that things were very chaotic. Every one was shouting and cursing; contradictory orders were given; some stores which had just been loaded in one of the holds of one transport were being again unloaded. Through careless handling a huge crate of iron bedsteads for a military hospital fell into the sea between the ship and the wharf. But as the stores were Government property—therefore nobody’s property—no one seemed to mind very much. The stage between the ship and the big sheds was packed with all sorts of goods in inextricable confusion. Here were bales of hospital blankets dumped on kegs of butter, there boxes of biscuits lying packed in a corner, with a forgotten hose-pipe playing water on them. Inside the sheds were machine-guns, heavy field pieces, ammunition, some aeroplanes, crowds of ambulance waggons, London buses, heavy transport waggons, kitchens, beds, tents for a general hospital, stacks of rifles, bales of straw, mountainous bags of oats, flour, beef, potatoes, crates of bully beef, telephones and telegraphs, water carts, field kitchens, unending rolls of barbed wire, shovels, picks, and so on. All had been brought into the sheds and left there in a higgledy-piggledy fashion. An Army Service man was trying in despair to get some forage on board; a colonel of the Medical Staff was trying to get his Base Hospital on board. There was apparently no single brain in control, and the loading of the ships went on in the most extraordinary way. Things nearest the ship’s side were put in first. Part of a Base Hospital was put in with part of a Battery, followed by bundles of compressed straw fodder and boxes of soap.

The transport Turcoman was full of troops. There seemed to be thousands of them on board, and the decks were packed with men. On walking up the gangway I was met by the officer commanding the troops, and he told me that I could not be allowed on board with any men as the ship was already overcrowded. I told him that my orders were to embark on the Turcoman, but the reply, “Very sorry indeed, but it can’t be done,” settled the matter.

So I descended, and with difficulty picked my way along another wharf and found another transport, the Cestrian, also a centre of the same scene of bustle and activity as the Turcoman. The Cestrian was crowded with soldiers, and was being frantically loaded up with all sorts of goods, from aeroplanes to bandages.

I got my men on board and told them to make themselves as comfortable as they could on deck, and after some searching round at last found a corner of the smoking-room which would serve me for a bed for the night. Here my servant dumped down my valise.

I was unable to find out the destination of the Turcoman; nobody seemed to know, but there were rumours that it was to be “somewhere in the Bay of Biscay.” Nobody knew where the Cestrian was going. As my orders were to travel by the Turcoman, and as I was really on the Cestrian, I was anxious to find out if the destination of the two boats was to be the same port. But nobody could tell me, so I lit my pipe of tobacco, leaned over the ship’s side, and never troubled any more about my orders. I really did not know whether the Cestrian was going to England or another part of France, or the Black Sea for that matter.

The scene on the Cestrian was a strange one. It was now quite dark and the loading of the cargo was carried out under electric flares. There were on board 2600 soldiers and 600 horses. These unfortunate horses had been put on board twenty-four hours before the troops embarked, instead of the other way about, and the smell from the hot, stifling horse-boxes was overpowering. Why these poor beasts were not embarked last of all, was a mystery. Imagine 600 horses cooped up in narrow boxes during a long, hot, stifling summer day, when they could easily have been kept at the horse dépôt close by till the last minute!

One horse died before we started, and was slung out by ropes on to the wharf.

This horse episode was the occasion of much scathing comment amongst senior officers and old cavalry and artillery non-coms.

It is a pity that some of the higher command—those responsible—could not have heard the remarks of these knowing old non-commissioned officers.

At last the ship’s holds were full. Gangways were up and we dropped slowly down the locks to the Seine mouth, and so out into the Channel. We were met by a fierce, gusty head wind and welcomed it for the horses’ sakes. Large wind ventilators were arranged to allow the fresh air to reach the horse-boxes.

Our men slept on the decks, and there were so many of them that to step one’s way over them would have been almost impossible.

The dining-rooms, cabins, and smoking-rooms were full of sleeping or dozing officers. I managed to commandeer an old sofa cushion, and lay on that in the corner of the smoking-room and went to sleep, and dreamt of thousands of horses looking reproachfully at me out of boxes.

At break of day we were all up at bugle-call and soon washed. The ship’s cook was a man of some eminence in his profession, for he had provided porridge and milk, ham and eggs, bread and butter and tea for our breakfast, and, filled with amazement, we sat round to enjoy it. Generally of meals on a transport there are none. A big cruiser was seen after breakfast to be bearing rapidly down on us, and the usual “optimist” present, after carefully observing her through a telescope, pronounced her nationality as German, and that it was now a watery grave in the Bay of Biscay for 2600 men and 600 horses. As she came nearer we showed our flag, and she displayed the French ensign. We gave her our number and dipped our bit of bunting, and the great ironclad sheered off. It was a relief to know that she was about, and looking after our transports.

On the way out from Le Havre we passed the United States battleship Tennessee, and our men seeing some of her sailors standing in a group gazing at us, gave a cheer and the usual “Are we downhearted? No!” greeting. The American sailors gave a real good hearty cheer, and yells of “good luck”; but an officer then ran up to them and said something, and they became suddenly silent, and only waved their hands. They had probably been told by their officer that they were “neutrals,” and belonged to the battleship of a nation friendly to all the belligerents. But we knew that they were with us “inside,” and anyhow the Americans have not been neutral in their hearts. They are all “for us” and “for the Allies.”

Life on board our transport was uneventful. We smoked and slept and ate. There was no room to walk about. I never saw such a crowded ship.

We had on board the complete personnel of a Base Hospital, and the medical officer commanding told me that he had orders to pitch his hospital at once at Nantes in order to take in wounded, as there was a big demand for more beds. In spite of his utmost endeavours he could not get his hospital equipment on the Cestrian.

All the instruments, dressings, and X-ray apparatus had been left behind for another boat, and he thought that he might not be able to get them for another week, or perhaps longer.

This was but another example of the lack of control at Le Havre during the change of base; a hospital was badly wanted at Nantes; all the personnel and half the equipment were sent away, and the other half left on the wharves. We learned later that the holds of our boat the Cestrian were not full when she left Le Havre, but that she had been ordered to leave on account of the horses being in such a bad state from the hot, stifling atmosphere in their quarters below decks.

It was necessary to proceed to sea to get a current of cold air down the ventilating shafts to the horses’ cribs. This senseless blundering over the horses led to the death of several of the poor beasts, and besides crippled a Base Hospital at a time when it was urgently needed. Over and over again during this war one has met with instances of a want of reasoned judgment on the part of senior controlling officers. In certain emergencies they have been unable to “orientate” themselves—to use an Americanism—or to “envisage” a situation.

Blunders, slips, miscalculations, carelessness, in time of war mean the loss of valuable lives. We want alert, clear-brained, thinking men in all responsible posts. If a senior officer shows himself lacking in these essentials—then he must go. Many of the responsible French army officials at the beginning of the campaign proved themselves lacking in initiative and judgment. Joffre sent these officers to “Limoges.” We should send our incapables to “Stellenbosch.” Both places are indicative of a quiet retirement, where they can live without thinking, where there are quiet clubs, cigars and cocktails, and comfortable chairs for an afternoon nap. The good ship Cestrian was a very fine steamer, but a very dirty one at this epoch. She badly wanted a clean-up. The lavatories and water-closets were indescribably filthy and foul, and acrid ammoniacal fumes permeated the ship. No attempt was made at ordinary cleanliness, and no disinfectants were employed. Words could hardly describe the appallingly filthy state of the urinals and closets. It would have been so very simple to have made things cleaner. A sanitary squad could have been arranged in a few minutes to keep these places tidy and to maintain some control. But what was every one’s business was nobody’s business, and nothing was done during the three days and nights we were at sea.

As our ship approached the mouth of the Loire we saw three large transports ahead of us and four more were following up behind. We slowly steamed through the narrow lock entrance to St. Nazaire and, after the usual delay in getting alongside, finally tied up to the wharf. The day was stiflingly hot and dusty, and we were glad to leave our ship and get on shore. The horses were at once unloaded, and very bad the poor beasts looked. It was pleasant, however, to see them, once they were on land, looking round and neighing with evident pleasure.

The troops were marched out to a large field or a dry salt marsh some few miles out of town. A rest camp or camp for army details was being rapidly arranged, and areas were being marked out for the various units,—gunners, engineers, and infantry regiments, and there was considerable bustle. No tents had yet arrived and the camp was quite exposed. Fortunately, the weather was good and sleeping out was no hardship. I reported my arrival to the camp commandant, and he said that he did not know where I had to go or what I had to do. He told me to “wait round and see what turned up.” At this period one’s arrival was always unexpected. We always got a smile of welcome and were always told to “wait round.” There was never any demonstrative hurry. John Bull on the job doesn’t make much fuss. I think that he does not make enough. As there was nothing to do apparently, and as nobody seemed to want me, I strolled back to the city of St. Nazaire and had afternoon tea in a pleasant café.

As I was leaving the café I met the A.D.M.S. (Assistant Director of Medical Services). He asked me what duty I was on. I told him that I had just arrived and had reported my arrival, and was really wondering myself why I was at St. Nazaire. The A.D.M.S. said, “We are wanting medical officers urgently at the front. Would you please come with me.” On our way to the office he explained that “the medical service had received some losses—casualties and missing, that there were a lot of wounded and a lack of hospital necessaries.” He asked me if I had any “bandages, wool, or lint with me.” I had none, of course, and the A.D.M.S. said that he had none to spare for the front. I thought of the Base Hospital on the Cestrian landed with only half its equipment, and of what a wonderful nation we are, and what a magnificent organiser John Bull is when he is really “on the job.”

I received written orders from the A.D.M.S. to proceed by train at 4 a.m. next day to Le Mans, and report arrival and await orders there. Le Mans was the “advanced base” of the British army. I learned here also that our gallant army was retreating towards Paris, and fighting stubbornly against overwhelming numbers of Germans flushed with victory, and I was very glad to get orders to join up with my countrymen and get a chance of “doing my bit” also.