Secrets of the Frontline Nurses by Holly Green

Author:Holly Green
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Ebury Publishing

Chapter 14

Tom had come to the conclusion that, if the Somme represented Dante’s Seventh Circle of hell, with its plain of fire, Ypres in October with its unending cold and mud was the last and lowest circle. All through September the weather had been fine and the sodden ground had dried out again. That had allowed new roads to be laid across the swamp. They were constructed of planks of wood placed side by side and were quickly nicknamed ‘corduroy roads’. The German shelling continued unabated and very soon these roads were lined with the bodies of dead mules and overturned wagons, but slowly the necessary supplies and ammunition were brought forward, to support the new advance. Once again, all had gone well to start with, in spite of the fact that on the dry ground the troops were blinded by the dust raised by the shelling. The Anzac forces took and held the Gravenstal spur and pushed forwards to the edge of the salient. And then the rain started again.

By the time Tom and his company were ordered forward no-man’s-land was once again an impassable morass, except for the narrow duckboard tracks that wandered this way and that across it. To add to the misery, the Germans had deployed a new weapon. At first it had stolen up on them without being noticed, an almost odourless miasma creeping along the ground, until men’s eyes began to sting and they started to retch and cough. It burnt through the soles of boots and blistered skin and clung to clothes so that a man who had been exposed to it could kill the comrades he shared a dugout with simply by proximity. It was some time before the British chemists could work out what it was. It was called mustard gas.

This new hazard meant that as they were deployed the order went out: ‘gas masks on!’ The heavy masks had an eyepiece of thick, greenish glass, which made everything appear as if seen through water, and which very quickly misted up from the wearer’s breath. To negotiate the narrow paths while sight was so restricted was fraught with danger. One false step could send a man sliding into the mud, and once in there was no hope of rescue. Men and even horses disappeared without trace within minutes. Tom, like many of his men, found that prospect more terrifying than the constant shelling.

On October 12th, 2nd Battalion of the Coldstream Guards was ordered to attack the Bellevue spur, east of Poelcappel. They went forward behind a creeping barrage, which had proved successful in destroying German resistance on previous occasions. This time it did not seem to be having the same effect. Tom could hear the shells going over his head, but there seemed to be comparatively few explosions.

‘I reckon they’re dropping onto soft ground and just disappearing into the mud without exploding,’ his sergeant remarked grimly.

It was a two-and-a-half-mile trudge from the reserve lines to the forward trenches, encumbered with gas masks and other impedimenta.

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