Читать книгу The Desert Column - Ion Idriess - Страница 12

LEMNOS ISLAND,

S. S. FRANCONIA

June 5th—My little woes overwhelmed me. Dropped the diary with my tail picked it up again to kill time.

The A.M.C. men coming on night-shift washed me. You could not possibly imagine how I felt towards those men. Five days lying in a dugout without a wash, and sick.

Had a wretched night and only smiled when the bundle of bandages beside me turned his pain-dimmed eyes next morning and whispered: “I hope I did not keep you awake last night.”

My own moaning had troubled my conscience, too.

Breakfast came in, a bowl of hot porridge, a slice of bread and jam and a cup of tea with milk in it. Such a welcome meal! though we could eat so little.

Then our vessel steamed up against a towering ship. Iron doors clanged open in her side and into that black cavern they carried the badly hurt men. We others followed somehow. Someone shouted: “Go downstairs and have breakfast.” So we found ourselves huddling down a nice wide stairway emerging into a regal room where there were rows and rows of long tables and cushioned chairs. And such a quaint medley of voices, mostly Scotch and English mess orderlies.

Porridge, bread and butter, jam and coffee were put before us. We tried to eat but were too sick. Hard lines! Presently a few drifted away, but most of us lay down to rest just where we were: right in the way but there seemed to be nowhere to go and many of the chaps were very ill. My own leg became unbearable, so I dragged myself back up the stairs. No one seemed to know where the doctors were. A procession of bandaged cripples were dragging themselves up another lot of stairs. I followed, and we shuffled and crawled into a huge room. There were two doctors and a few A.M.C. orderlies. The doctors’ faces were heavy from want of sleep, their eyes had a starey look. They worked quietly and continuously and I saw at once that if there is an etiquette in a surgery then it was right out of place here. Instruments were picked up one after another and quickly used; if a man had to feel pain then he had to feel it; there was no time for any niceties that might alleviate pain in minor operations. There were so many waiting. All the boys took it as silently as they possibly could. They were stretched out in grotesque lines, all converging towards the doctors. As a man was treated, he would fall aside somehow and his line would wriggle, crawl, shuffle, or hop one up, then lie quietly until it was time to crawl up for the next man’s turn.

One doctor was a big, kind-hearted Frenchman. I could see that saturated with the misery around him as he must have been, still he did not like hurting the men. At long last my turn came and I quickly and thankfully found out that the French doctor knew his business. But it made me sick mentally to find out how bad my knee really was. It must have been rotting right down the leg. I crawled downstairs again and lay in absolute misery on the cold cement floor until long after the last bugle-call had blown. One man told me there were three thousand beds in this ship but you had to get a long thin steward in a blue uniform to get you one. Another said a sergeant was in charge.

No one of us know anything about it, of course. It is just simply a huge ship, pitiably under-staffed with doctors, crowded over and over again with sick and wounded men. Away in the ship somewhere are wards where the doctors are working day and night with the cot-cases, not curing them because they have no time, but just trying to keep life in as many as possible until we get to a hospital. Up our end of the ship are the men who can look after themselves.

I called out to a Red Cross sergeant major; he told me to stop the long thin steward if I should see him pass. I think it a crime that a man wearing his badges should see a feverish man lying on a dirty deck and pass him by. I am growling, of course, but then all men growl when they are sick, and I am only growling to my diary anyway. At last, a big English Tommy with a bandage over one eye lifted me on his shoulder and carried me downstairs. He put me on this little bunk with its straw mattress, and tucked me around with this blue blanket. What a relief! For the first time in days my leg has stopped throbbing, and how much easier it is lying in bunk. ... The first bugle-call for tea woke me from a half-sleep, with the burning feeling gone. Some good Samaritan let me lean on his shoulder while I climbed those weary stairs to the tea saloon. It hurts horribly to move about.

...One of my bunk companions lit a cigarette for me. He told me that the ladies of Athens had sent the wounded soldiers thousands of cigarettes. They are done up in very pretty little packets of twelve cigarettes each. If only those ladies of Athens could know how their gift has been appreciated by all these hurt men!

...Last night I only woke three times. Such a splendid rest after four nights’ sleeplessness. It hurt horribly to stumble to breakfast. Is it getting better or worse?

...Was only a little bit feverish to-day, and the knee does not hurt when I’m lying down, but it is awful when I’ve got to walk. ... Had a bad two hours before dinner. Got feverish and couldn’t walk. Yet a persistent idea of mine is that without decent tucker this leg won’t get right. I called out to a long-legged, homeless-looking Australian. He soon came hobbling back with a plate of beef and vegetables, a big pannikin of broth and an appetizing grin. You can just imagine what that hot soup tasted like. But I could only peck at the meat and vegetables, after all.

...Feel real good this afternoon and am going to tackle those stairs again for tea. But, my heavens, the bugs are awful.

Next day—I’m continuing this tale of woe. Why shouldn’t I! Nobody loves me! Anyway, if a man does get through this war, he’ll have something to give him a fit of the blues just by reading up these notes and remembering things. But I know this growl is justified. Here it is. From ten in the morning until five in the evening, all men (except the distant cot-cases) are supposed to be on deck. At ten o’clock a ship’s officer examines the ship, with a great flourish of trumpets. What ridiculous nonsense it is. Here are hundreds of men, not supposed to be seriously wounded, many of them limping about as I am myself, the majority, between them, hurt in almost every part of the human body; and yet they are debarred from the only thing this under staffed, overcrowded ship can give—rest. I got over the difficulty. On the mornings I can manage it I crawl up the stairs and get my leg dressed, then crawl back again. When the Tommy M.P.S. comes down to clear the ship for inspection I tell the sergeant to carry me up on deck if he wants to. He is nonplussed. You see, there are hundreds of us. Some just stare at him with fever-glazed eyes.

Why not have a good growl while I am about it? It is so wearisome lying here. Now, the Tommy doctor and the French one are working hard all day long dressing the wounds of those hundreds of men. My doctor has four assistants who undo the bandages, but three of them appear quite incapable of doing up a simple bandage. It is a shame the things that happen here daily. This might explain some of the things I am trying to tell. An assistant took the bandage off my leg and then started to pick hairs and fluff from the inflamed wound with a squat thumb-nail under which the dirt was thick.

The doctor can’t watch all and dress our wounds at the same time. I have seen him suddenly turn around and “go” for an assistant in a most fierce manner. But with all us men in the big room he is working at the very fever-pitch of mental and physical strength. And all of us, especially those whose wounds are paining, are quite willing to let anything be done to them if only the doctor will dress their wounds and give them ease. The poisoned pus accumulates and hurts like hell. We have got a very kindly feeling towards the big French doctor. The men who patronize the Tommy doctor, like him too, Both doctors are as gentle as they can he, but they have such a terrible lot of men to get through.

...I feel a little better this morning, so much so that I’m going to growl again. The lice are accursed things. I’ve broken out in a red rash all over the body from their bites. And it’s hell lying here feverish with the bugs biting a man, I suppose they go and bite some other poor devil and fill him with poisoned blood.

By Jove, writing these notes when I’m able passes away the time and helps a man.

There goes that accursed raucous-toned bugle for the first dinner sitting. And I can hobble up there to-day, it will be quite an adventure. This is the first day I’ve not been feverish for some days past.

...Here is another howl. We only had two small slices of bread and jam and half a pannikin of tea for the evening meal. I’ve been whispered that we can buy buns at 1d. a piece, and coffee at 2d. a pannikin, and so fill up that way. It seems to me like kicking a man when he’s down. Of course, I feel hungrier than I suppose I really am. If the blooming old leg would get better I wouldn’t care if they gave me bully-beef and biscuits, even if this is a hospital-ship.

...I wonder what this ship really is classed as. The lucky few who can hobble about say that she has no green band around her, and no red cross. They say she has been waiting to sail for Alexandria for these last twelve days, unload her wounded, then sail to England for troops. But it has been far too risky to sail. I suppose she will make a great dash for the sea one of these fine nights and if she gets through we will be very proud of the fact of having saved some green and white paint. But if she is torpedoed, what a cry there will be of a hospital ship with two thousand helpless men aboard having been sent to the bottom, “murderously” torpedoed, etc.

...This is a huge ship, but I am unable to look over it and can’t describe it. It is strangely quiet and subdued, very different to a troopship. With this number aboard a troopship she would he a hive of Babel many times multiplied. Our little squadron in their dining hut at Mahdi kicked up fifteen times more row than comes from all this great ship’s dining-halls.

...Mr McLaughlin came down and saw me this morning. I’m glad he is better, but he looks jolly miserable on it. ... I’m blest if the Tommy sergeant hasn’t been trying to urge me up on deck to get into a life-belt. It appears we are actually off to-night. The men are being shown their posts should anything happen. I pray we may truly leave for Alexandria, but I wouldn’t climb those stairs unnecessarily for all the life-belts in the world.

...Hurrah! I believe it is really, really true. If only we do go to Alexandria, my knee will have a chance. I have had grave doubts lately. All our wounds are only dressed. Nothing else can be done to them. A man would inevitably have to lose his leg.

...Thank God! We are off right enough, amidst frantic cheering. There are glad hearts aboard to-night, which may seem a strange thing to say of this ship of misery. But you see, many others besides me realize that our only hope is a hospital and attention. May we have a safe voyage, above all a swift one. I wish I could be on deck now while we are going out; all is excitement; they say there are many ships anchored around us.