Soon my wounded Tiadatha
Carefully labelled like a parcel
Started on his journey Baseward,
Fared upon that fearful journey,
Burning head and aching shoulder,
Fared upon a swaying dhuli
In an ambulance that shook him
As you shake a medicine bottle,
Seemed to shake his very soul out.
Rocking like a tiny dinghy
When a choppy sea is running.
One night in the Clearing Station,
Then by train to Salonica;
And throughout that weary journey,
In F.A. or Clearing Station,
Came those everlasting questions
Very dear to all the Ram Corps:
“Unit, age and length of service?”
“Rank and Christian name?” and what not,
Till it seemed to Tiadatha
That the whole Ram Corps was round him,
Armed with note-books, armed with pencils,
Perching everywhere about him,
Sometimes perching on his tummy,
Often climbing up the tent poles,
Thirsting for these silly details,
Reeling off these silly questions,
“Unit, rank and length of service?”
“Colour of your mother’s eyebrows?”
“Christian names of all your sisters?”
“Age of all your aunts and uncles?”
So it seemed to Tiadatha,
To my fevered Tiadatha,
Till he dropped to sleep and left them,
Those tormentors and their questions,
Left them as a railway carriage,
Gliding gently from the station,
Leaves the crowd upon the platform.
But at last the journey ended,
Tiadatha came to anchor
In a bed with snowy pillows,
Bed with snowy sheets and pillows
Cool and sweet as flowing water,
Soothing as a summer’s evening,
Comforting as cherry brandy
On a chilly winter morning.
He was tended by a sister,
Soft of voice and very gentle,
And she seemed to Tiadatha,
After all those months of warfare,
Like a little glimpse of England,
Made him think of English roses,
English lanes and English gardens;
And he looked at her and loved her,
Wondered vaguely what her name was,
If she ever lost her temper,
How she kept her hands so lovely,
How on earth she put her cap on.
Soon there came a solemn conclave
Round the bed of Tiadatha,
Which discussed if it should send him
To the X-Rays or the Theatre
(Ghastly irony “the Theatre”).
Starved him for a day and sent him
To the operating table.
There the luckless Tiadatha
Felt the world go slipping from him
Used the most appalling language,
Knew no more till all was over,
Came to, feeling sick and sorry,
Found himself a mass of bandage,
Found himself a lump of aching,
And beheld the shrapnel bullet
He had stopped that April evening.
Back they took him to his pillows,
And his gentle, soft-voiced sister
Laid her cool hand on his forehead,
And a peace came stealing o’er him
As a mist steals o’er the mountains.
Very soon my Tiadatha
Got to know the faces near him,
Got to know his brother patients;
They exchanged some lurid details
Of their wounds and operations,
Finding that a touch of shrapnel
Always makes the whole world kindred.
And he soon got fit to grumble,
Grouse and grumble at his diet,
Groused that it was mostly liquid,
Yet without a drop of whisky;
As an exile in the tropics
Pines to smell an English primrose,
So poor thirsty Tiadatha
Pined to smell a Scotch-and-Soda.
Gradually came convalescence,
Days made up of little trials,
Days made up of little pleasures,
Days of unaccustomed idling,
Pleasant days of doing nothing;
Every morning after breakfast
He would lie back on his pillows,
Read his Balkan News in comfort,
Spend his day in eating, sleeping,
Killing flies and reading novels,
Writing to his green-eyed Phyllis,
Taking very nasty medicine,
Listening to another’s snoring;
And sometimes a Dudshire brother
Came and saw him for a minute,
Brought some scandal from the trenches,
Did my Tiadatha’s heart good.
Then at last there came a morning
When his smiling sister told him,
“Yes, you may get up this morning,
Walk about a bit this morning.”
In his good time, Tiadatha
Washed and shaved and got some clothes on,
Tried to walk about a little,
Felt as though the bones were missing
From his knees and from his ankles,
Tottered as a baby totters
Staggering from chair to table,
Called his sympathetic sister,
Found her arm was very helpful.
Slowly like a tide his strength came,
Like a rising tide his strength came,
Like a rising wind his spirits.
And he sat out in the sunshine,
Pottered round the wards and compounds
Chatting to a wounded Tommy,
Chatting to a Dudshire brother,
Wrote more letters, read more novels,
Played the gramophone for ages,
Played a game of bridge and poker,
Went for picnics with his sister,
Sometimes by the sandy seashore,
Sometimes on a shady hillside,
Recking little of the matron.
Then one afternoon the General
Came into the ward to see him,
Pinned a ribbon on his tunic,
Pinned the M.C. ribbon on him,
Saying, “Well done, Tiadatha,
May you have long life to wear it!”
Whereupon my Tiadatha
Very nearly asked the General
What on earth he’d done to get it,
Done to earn that precious ribbon,
Having hazy recollections
Of that most unpleasant evening.
But was very bucked about it,
Sent a cable to his mother,
Sent one to his green-eyed Phyllis,
Held a little celebration
At the French Club on the quiet,
Did himself so very proudly
That his temperature went soaring
In the morning like a skylark.
Hospital, like work and whisky,
Is a taste to be acquired,
But it soon becomes a habit,
Very soon becomes a habit.
That was why my Tiadatha
Felt so very loth to leave it,
Loth to leave his bed and pillows,
Loth to leave those kindly people,
Cheery V.A.D.s and sisters,
Who had fed and dressed and nursed him
Just as if he’d been a baby;
And his heart was very heavy,
Fuller than a well-filled wine-glass,
As he thought of those brave people,
Brave as any soldier hero,
Working through the Balkan summer,
Working through the Balkan winter,
Working harder far than he did,
All for him and such as he was.
But at last the time of parting
Came, relentless as to-morrow,
And a sad-faced Tiadatha
Set off on a bumpy journey
To the wooded slopes of Hortiach,
Said good-bye to those good comrades,
To those V.A.D.s and sisters,
To those little scraps of England.