The Tale of a Field Hospital Part 2

VI

INSIDE AN OPERATION-TENT

There were four operation-marquees pitched under the naval ridge on the day of Colenso, one connected with each of the field hospitals. There is little about these marquees or about the work done in the shadow of them that is of other than professional interest. They were crowded, and overcrowded, on December 15th, and the surgeons who worked in them worked until they were almost too tired to stand. Every preparation had been completed hours before the first wounded man arrived, and the equipment of each hospital was ample and excellent. To my thinking, a great surgical emergency, great beyond any expectation, was never more ably met than was this on the day of the first battle.

The marquee is small. It accommodates the operation-table in the centre between the two poles, while along the sides are ranged the field panniers which serve as tables for instruments and dressings.

It is needless to say that the operation-tent is very unlike an operating theatre in a London hospital, but then the open veldt is very unlike the Metropolis. The floor of the tent is much-trodden gra.s.s, and, indeed, much-stained gra.s.s, for what drips upon it cannot be wiped up. There are no bright bra.s.s water-taps, but there is a brave display of buckets and tin basins. Water is precious, more precious than any other necessity, for every drop has to be brought by train from Frere.

There is little room in the tent for others than the surgeon, his a.s.sistant, the anaesthetist, and a couple of orderlies. The surgeon is in his s.h.i.+rtsleeves, and his dress is probably completed by riding breeches and a helmet. The trim nurses, with their white caps and ap.r.o.ns, who form the gentlest element in the hospital theatre, are replaced by orderlies, men with burnt sienna complexions and unshaven chins, who are clad in the unpicturesque army s.h.i.+rt, in shorts, putties, and the inevitable helmet or "squasher" hat. They are, however, strong in the matter of belts, which vary from a leather strap or piece of string to an elaborate girdle, worked, no doubt, by the hands of some cherished maiden. From the belt will probably be hanging a big knife or a tin-opener, in place of the nurse's chatelaine, and from the breeches pocket may be projecting the bowl of a pipe. The orderly in a field hospital--who is for the most part a "good sort"--look's a little like one of the _dramatis personae_ of Bret Harte's tales, and is a curious subst.i.tute for the immaculate dresser and the dainty nurse.

Still, appearances do not count for much, and the officers and men of the Royal Army Medical Corps did as sterling good work on December 15th as any body of men could do, and they were certainly not hampered by the lack of a precise professional garb.

The wounded are brought into the marquee one by one. Not all are cases for operation, but all have to be examined, and an examination is more easily carried out on a table than on a stretcher or the bare ground.

Moreover, to make the examination painless, an anaesthetic is usually required. I wonder how much chloroform and morphia were used on that day, and on the night and day that followed! The drugs would fill one scale of a balance in the other scale of which would be found the dull weight of pain they were destined to obliterate. The horrors of war are to some small extent to be measured by the lists of the wounded and the dead, but a more graphic representation would be provided by the hideous total of the drops of chloroform and the grains of morphia which have come from the surgeon's store.

The flies of the operation-marquee are wide open, for the heat is intense, and access must be easy. As it is, there is much mopping of brows and many "pulls" of dirty lukewarm water from precious water-bottles. Unhappily the scenes within the shadow of the canvas cannot be quite hidden from those who are lying in the sun outside waiting their turn. As one man after another is carried in there is sure to be some comrade on the ground who will call out as the stretcher goes by: "Keep yer chivey up, Joe"; "Don't be down on your luck"; "They will do you a treat"; "Good luck to yer, old c.o.c.k, you won't feel nothing."

One instance of the limited capacity of the marquee I may be pardoned for recounting. The amputation of a leg was in progress when the pressure of work was at its height. Beneath the table at the time of the operation was the prostrate figure of a man. He had been shot through the face. His big moustache was clotted with blood, his features were obliterated by dust and blood, his eyes were shut, and his head generally was enveloped in bandages. I thought he was dead, and that in the hurry of events he was merely awaiting removal. The limb after amputation was unfortunately dropped upon this apparently inanimate figure when, to my horror, the head was raised and the eyes were opened to ascertain the nature of the falling body. This poor fellow was attended to as soon as the table was free. I was glad to see him some weeks after in the a.s.sembly Hotel at Pietermaritzburg hearty and well. He was a gallant officer in a Natal regiment, and when I recalled this gruesome incident to him, he owned that, feeble as he was at the time, it gave him a "shake up."

VII

THE SURGEONS OF THE FIELD HOSPITALS

Among the many officers of the R.A.M.C. I must confess that my strongest sympathies are with those who are in charge of the little field hospitals. These handy hospitals have their own transport, and move with the various brigades or divisions. The officers who command them have little comfort, little rest, the least luxurious mess, and the hardest of work. They bear the brunt of the campaign so far as the medical and surgical needs of the Army are concerned. They must be always ready, always at hand, prepared to be full of patients one day and empty the next; and those whose lives are spent with them can certainly claim that they have "no abiding city."

The officers in charge of these hospitals are picked men, but as sound experience is necessary they are often men who are no longer young, and who may claim that they have already had their share of roughing it.

They are, perhaps, more than any others, the most exposed to criticism.

If anything goes wrong at the front a large proportion of the blame falls upon them, and if all goes well their names appear in no roll of honour.

No surgeon who saw these men could be other than proud that he belonged to the same profession as they did. Of their work at Colenso, at Spearman's Farm, and before Pieters I can only say that it was, to my thinking, a credit to the medical department of any army.

VIII

A PROFESSIONAL VISIT BY RAIL

After a busy afternoon among the field hospitals under the naval ridge, I returned in the evening to Chieveley, in the hope, now that the bulk of the work was over, of getting something to eat. I had not been at Chieveley long when an orderly arrived with a letter to tell me that Lieutenant Roberts had been brought in wounded, and to ask me to go back to the naval hill at once. It was now dark, and I had at that time no horse. However, the hospital train was standing in the station, and to the fertile brain of Major Brazier-Creagh, who was in charge of the train, it occurred that we might detach the engine and go down on it to the ridge, since the field hospitals were close to the railway.

There was the difficulty, however, that the line was a single line, and a water train had already steamed down to the ridge, and was expected back at any moment. It was the simple problem of an engine on the one hand, and of a train on the other, proceeding in different directions at night on a single line of rail.

The case being urgent, the engine was detached and we started. Major Brazier-Creagh and Captain Symonds came with me. It so happened that we went tender first. The railway line appeared to us to go up and down with many undulations, and at the top of each rise we expected to meet the water train. Fortunately the moon was coming up, and the blackness which oppressed us was fading a little. We proceeded slowly, with much whistling and considerable waving of a red lamp. At last there was made out the dim outline of the water train coming towards us at a fair speed. We stopped, and there were redoubled efforts in the direction of whistling, lamp waving, and shouting. These exhibitions had an immediate effect upon the water train, which, after some hysterical whistling, stopped and backed promptly out of sight. The driver told us afterwards that he thought a whole train was coming down upon him at full speed, and that he might well have backed down into Colenso.

We got out some way above the ridge and walked on to the field hospital I had so lately left. The gallant officer I came to see was comfortably bestowed in a tent, was quite free from pain and anxiety, and was disposed to sleep. From a surgical point of view the case was hopeless, and had been hopeless from the first, and no idea of an operation could be entertained. Our examination and our discussion of the case with Major Hamilton, R.A.M.C., under whose care the patient was, occupied some time, and the engine had long since gone back to Chieveley. There was nothing to be done but to sleep on the ground in the open, and this we proceeded to do, lying down on the gra.s.s outside the tent we had just visited. There was no hards.h.i.+p in this, as it was a splendid night, and the full moon had risen and had flooded the whole country with a spectral light.

As if by magic the restless, hurrying, motley crowd of the earlier day had vanished. A cool breeze and pleasant shadows had replaced the heat and the glare of the sun; a gentle silence had blotted out the noise and the turmoil; and of the scene of the afternoon there was nothing left but the white tents gleaming in the moon, the open veldt, and the shadow of the ridge.

IX

THE HOSPITAL TRAIN AT COLENSO

The battle of Colenso was fought on Friday, December 15th, and on Sat.u.r.day, the 16th, an armistice was declared for the burying of the dead. Very early on Sat.u.r.day morning, while it was yet moonlight, the hospital train backed down from Chieveley and came to a stand as near the field hospitals as possible. As soon as it was daylight (and at this time of the summer the sun rose before five) the loading of the train commenced.

The filling up of a hospital train is no easy business, and affords a somewhat depressing sight.

The worst cases are dealt with first, and a long line of stretchers soon began to pour from the hospital tents to the railway. The stretchers are put down on the railroad close to the wheels of the train. On this particular morning it so happened that the carriages threw a shadow on the side of the line towards the hospital, so that the stretchers, if near the metals, were in the shade.

Many of the wounded had had no sleep, and many were developing some degree of fever. A few had become delirious, and were difficult to control. With the stretcher parties would come a certain number of such of the wounded as could walk, and very soon a not inconsiderable crowd was gathered in the shade of the train.

But what a crowd! The same sunburnt men with blistered faces, but now even a more motley gathering than filled the field hospitals the day before--a gathering made piteously picturesque by khaki rags, blue bandages, casual splints, arm slings, eye bandages, slit-up trousers, and dressings of all kinds. Here they came crowding to the train, some limping, some hopping, some helped along between two stronger comrades, some staggering on alone. A man with a damaged arm a.s.sisting a man with a bullet through his leg. A man stopping on the way to be sick, cheered up by another with a bandaged eye.

An untidy, sorrowful crowd, with unb.u.t.toned tunics and slovenly legs, with unlaced boots, with blood on their khaki jackets and on their blue s.h.i.+rts and on their stiffening dressings. The gentle hand of the nurse had not as yet busied itself with this unkempt and unwashed throng.

There had been no time for was.h.i.+ng nor for changing of garments, and if the surgeon has had to cut the coat and the s.h.i.+rt into rags, the wearer must wear the rags or nothing; and as for was.h.i.+ng, it is a sin to wash when water is priceless.

The greater number of those who come to the railway line are carried there on stretchers, but all who are well enough to take any interest in the journey are eager not to miss a place in the train.

The business of getting the "lying down" cases into the carriages is considerable, and everybody lends a hand, the surgeons being the most active of any. The berths in the train are placed one above the other, and the room for manipulating stretchers is small. The equipment of the train was very complete, and every luxury was at hand, from hot soup to iced "lemon-squash," and even to champagne. Many generous ladies in the Colony had seen that the train should want for nothing, and Major Brazier-Creagh took as much pride in his travelling hospital as if he had built it himself.

Innumerable instances came under my notice of the unselfishness of the soldier, and of his solicitude for his friends in distress. It was by the side of this hospital train that occurred an episode I have recorded elsewhere, and which may well be described again. An orderly was bringing some water to a wounded man lying on the ground near me. He was shot through the abdomen, and he could hardly speak owing to the dryness of his mouth, but he said: "Take it to my pal first, he is worse hit than me." This generous lad died next morning, but his pal got through and is doing well.

Another poor fellow, who was much troubled with vomiting, and who was indeed dying, said, as he was being hoisted into the train, "Put me in the lower berth, because I keep throwing up." How many people troubled merely with sea-sickness would be as thoughtful as he was? He died not long before we reached Chieveley.

Lieutenant Roberts, whom I had visited at intervals, went up by this train, and was placed in No. 4 Field Hospital at Chieveley. Here a bedstead, with a comfortable mattress and white sheets, was waiting ready for him.

As the train moved off it was sad to note that a few who had been brought down to the rail in the hope of a place being found for them, had to be left behind, and had to be carried back to the tents to await some other means of transport.

X

THE NURSES AT CHIEVELEY

The train which brought up No. 4 Field Hospital from Frere was stopped, as I have already said, at Chieveley. The tents and baggage were thrown out, and with as much haste as possible the hospital was pitched on the open ground, close to the station. Before, however, more than a few tents could be put up the wounded began to arrive. They came in all Friday evening, and all Sat.u.r.day, and all Sat.u.r.day evening. The field hospitals by the naval hill had soon been filled, and all cases that could be sent on to Chieveley were sent there, while as many as could go at once to the base were taken down by the hospital train.

Sat.u.r.day was a day of truce, but at sundown on Sat.u.r.day not only had all the wounded to be cleared out from the field hospitals, but those hospitals themselves had to move, as, with the renewal of hostilities, they would be in a place of danger. Chieveley was therefore soon filled to overflowing.