The Tale of a Field Hospital Part 1

THE TALE OF A FIELD HOSPITAL.

by Frederick Treves.

Preface to New Edition

The South African War, of which this Tale is told, is already near to be forgotten, although there are many to whom it still remains the most tragic memory of their lives.

War is ever the same: an arena, aglare with pomp and pageant, for the display of that most elemental and most savage of human pa.s.sions, the l.u.s.t to kill, as well as a dumb torture place where are put to the test man's fort.i.tude and his capacity for the endurance of pain.

This brief narrative is concerned not with shouting hosts in defiant array, but with the moaning and distorted forms of men who have been "scorched by the flames of war." It deals with the grey hours after the great, world-echoing display is over, with the night that ends the gladiator's show, when the arena is occupied only by the maimed, the dying and the dead.

It is admitted that in the South African War the medical needs of the Army were efficiently and promptly supplied. This account serves to show of what kind is the work of the Red Cross in the field. It may serve further to bring home to the reader the appalling condition of the wounded in war when--as in the present campaign in the Near East--the provision for the care of the sick is utterly inadequate, if not actually lacking.

FREDERICK TREVES.

THATCHED HOUSE LODGE, RICHMOND PARK, SURREY.

_November_, 1912.

Preface to the First Edition

In this little book some account is given of a field hospital which followed for three months the Ladysmith Relief Column, from the time, in fact, that that column left Frere until it entered the long-beleaguered town. The fragmentary record is based upon notes written day by day on the spot. Some of the incidents related have been already recounted in a series of letters published in the _British Medical Journal_, and certain fragments of those letters are reproduced in these pages, or have been amplified under circ.u.mstances of greater leisure.

The account, such as it is, is true.

It may be that the story is a little sombre, and possibly on occasions gruesome; but war, as viewed from the standpoint of a field hospital, presents little that is cheery.

It appears that some interest might attach to an account of the manner in which our wounded faced their troubles, and of the way in which they fared, and under the influence of that impression this imperfect sketch has been written.

I

THE FIELD HOSPITAL

The Field Hospital, of which some account is given in these pages, was known as "No. 4 Stationary Field Hospital." The term "stationary" is hardly appropriate, since the Hospital moved with the column, and, until at least the relief of Ladysmith, it followed the Headquarters' camp.

The term, however, serves to distinguish "No. 4" from the smaller field hospitals which were attached to the various brigades, and which were much more mobile and more restless.

At the commencement of the campaign the capacity of the Hospital was comparatively small. The officers in charge were Major Kirkpatrick, Major Mallins, and Lieutenant Simson, all of the Royal Army Medical Corps. These able officers--and none could have been more efficient--were, I regret to say, all invalided as the campaign progressed.

Before the move was made to Spearman's Farm the Hospital was enlarged, and the staff was increased by the addition of eight civil surgeons. It is sad to report that of these two died in the camp and others were invalided. No men could have worked better together than did the army surgeons and their civilian colleagues.

The greatest capacity of the Hospital was reached after the battle of Spion Kop, when we had in our tents about 800 wounded.

Some account of the nurses who accompanied the Hospital is given in a section which follows.

The Hospital was well equipped, and the supplies were ample. We carried with us a large number of iron bedsteads complete with mattresses, blankets, and sheets. These were all presented to the Hospital by Mr.

Acutt, a generous merchant at Durban. It is needless to say that they proved an inexpressible boon, and even when the Hospital had to trust only to ox transport, all the bedsteads went with it.

The ladies of the colony, moreover, worked without ceasing to supply the wounded with comforts, and "No. 4" had reason to be grateful for their well-organised kindness.

The precise number of patients who were treated in the Hospital is no doubt recorded in the proper quarter, but some idea of the work accomplished may be gained from the fact that practically all the wounded in the Natal campaign--from the battle of Colenso to the relief of Ladysmith--pa.s.sed through No. 4 Stationary Field Hospital. The exceptions were represented by the few cases sent down direct by train or ambulance from the smaller field hospitals.

II

FRERE CAMP

It was from Frere Camp that the army under General Buller started for the Tugela River, and the Hospital pitched its tents in that camp on the evening of Monday, December 11th, 1899. We went up from Pietermaritzburg by train. The contents were soon emptied out on the line, some little way outside Frere Station, and close to the railway the Hospital was put up. That night we all slept under canvas--many for the first time--and all were well pleased that we had at last arrived at the front.

Frere is merely a station on the line of rail which traverses Natal, and as it consists only of some three or four houses and a few trees it can hardly be dignified by the name of hamlet. Frere is simply a speck--a corrugated iron oasis--on the vast undulating plains of the veldt.

These plains roll away to the horizon, and are broken only by kopjes and dongas and the everlasting ant-hills.

On the way towards Ladysmith are a few kopjes of large size, from any one of which the line of the Tugela can be seen, with the hills beyond, occupied by the Boer entrenchments, and over them again the hills which dominate Ladysmith. On the way towards Estcourt winds a brown road, along which an endless train of ox-wagons rumble and are lost in the wilderness of the camp.

The river which is reputed to "run" through Frere has long since ceased to run. The water is retained by certain dams, and the pools thus formed are uninviting. The water is the colour of pea-soup, and when in a gla.s.s is semi-opaque and of a faint brownish colour. The facetious soldier, as he drinks it, calls it "khaki and water."

In the lowest pool, immediately above the iron railway bridge which has been blown up by the Boers, Tommy Atkins bathes with gusto in what is seemingly a light-coloured mud. Here also he washes his socks and his s.h.i.+rts.

The centre of the camp is the railway station, and that of Frere is the smallest and most unpretending that any hamlet could pretend to. It is, however, crowded out of all reason, and its platform of hard earth is covered with boxes and baggage and sacks and saddles in as much disorder as if they had been thrown in panic from a burning train. Between the little goods shed and the little booking-office are several stands of rifles. A sentry, proud apparently in his covering of dust, is parading one end of the platform, while at the other end a motley crowd of perspiring soldiers are filling water-bottles at the tank which supplies the engine. In the waiting-room a tumbled ma.s.s of men are asleep on the floor, while on a bench in front of it two men-of-war's men are discussing an English paper six weeks old.

Outside the station are ramparts of provision boxes and cases of ammunition, and iron water cisterns and mealie bags, and to the fragments of a railing which surrounds the station horses, of all kinds and in all stages of weariness, are tied.

A ragged time-table on the wall, dealing with the train service to Pretoria, and with the precise hour of the arrival of the trains there, seems but a sorry jest. The stationmaster's house has been looted, and the little garden in front of it has been trampled out of being, save for two or three red geraniums which still bloom amidst the dirt. This house is, for the time, the general's headquarters, and before it waves the Union Jack.

When we reached the camp it was stated that 30,000 men were under canvas. A camp of this size must of necessity present an endless scene of bustle and movement. Nothing seemed at rest but the interminable array of white tents and the rows of baggage wagons. Cavalry would be moving in one direction and infantry in another. Here a mounted patrol would be riding out or a couple of scouts coming in. There would be a long line of Kaffirs carrying bales and boxes to a temporary depot, and here a troop of eager horses hurrying to the river to drink. Gallopers would be seen in all directions, and everywhere would be struggling teams of oxen or of mules enveloped in clouds of dust and urged on by sweating men and strange oaths, and by the shrill yells of the Kaffir drivers, whose dust-dried throats gave out noises like the shrieks of parrots.

There was no shade of any kind, and the camp during the day lay dry, dusty, parched and restless under a blazing sun, but at night there was a cool wind and cheery camp fires, and a darkness which blotted out the dusty roads, the dried-up river, the dismal piles of stores, and the general picture of a camp in a desert of baked earth.

Every night a search-light was at work sending dispatches to Ladysmith, and almost every morning could be heard the Boer guns thundering over that unhappy place.

The British soldier looked very smart in his khaki suit when embarking at Southampton, but at Frere he showed the effects of wear, and his tunic, his belt, his pouches, his boots and his face, had all toned down to one uniform tint of dirt colour. He was of the earth earthy. He was unshaven. His clothes had that abject look of want of "fit" that is common to clothes which have been slept in, which have been more than once soaked through, and which have more than once dried upon the body of the owner.

III

THE HOSPITAL DOG

Prominent among the _personnel_ of the Hospital should be placed "Durban," the Hospital dog. He was a brindled bull terrier of exceptional physique and intelligence, and the story about him was that he was a refugee dog who had attached himself to "No. 4" at Durban, and that for want of a better name he had been called after that pleasant town.