The Silent House of Sleep by Allan Gaw

Author:Allan Gaw [Gaw, Allan]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2023-11-30T00:00:00+00:00

TEN

North of Ypres: 15th June 1916

Cuthbert heard the first stretcher bearers shouting before he saw them. Although there was a moon and it caught the wet outlines of the men as they trudged across the yard in front of the Dressing Station, it was only as they approached that he could make out there were around 15 casualties arriving. Some of the stretchers were being carried by pairs of bearers, while others had been placed on two-wheeled carts. The bearers were all in khaki, only distinguishable from the men they were carrying by the Red Cross arm bands they were wearing.

All the wounded had been picked up from the nearest field. Already the yard was filled with activity and the painful cries of several of those they carried. It was nearly midnight, and another busy night was expected. These were the first to arrive and were carefully laid on straw next to the operations tent. Their bearers then collected new stretchers and returned to the front line trenches to retrieve the next group of casualties.

The operations tent had been erected and equipped earlier in the day to supplement the dressing bays in the old stables. The large acetylene lamp inside the tent was now lit. By its light through the canvas, Cuthbert was able to undertake the preliminary assessment of the men outside. Tied to each was a buff card — the Field Medical Card — that carried the bare minimum of information. The soldier’s name, rank, unit and his wound. If any treatment had already been given by either his comrades or the R.M.O. or even the stretcher bearers, this was pencilled on the reverse. The ones Cuthbert had to look out for were those with red-edged cards. They were the men with the most serious and potentially life-threatening injuries. Cuthbert’s job was to work out the order for the men to be seen, to alert the surgeon if there were any critical cases and to assist with their care in any way he could.

Inside the tent, an operating table was fixed in the centre and along each side were the instruments, basins and dressings laid out on the lids of panniers, which served as make-shift sidetables. One surgeon stood on one side of the table, another stood opposite him, and a third at the head was ready to assist or to give an anaesthetic, if necessary.

Quietly and methodically, one wounded man after another was lifted on to the table. His wounds were assessed and speedily dressed, and he was again carried out and laid on the straw. Cuthbert would make each man comfortable by placing one blanket under him and another over him. Morphine was given to all those with the most painful wounds, and any who were able to take nourishment were given tea, bread and jam and even hot soup when it was available.

In this first group, the wounds, as expected, were mostly from shrapnel, and only one case required an anaesthetic. That man had a bad compound fracture of the thigh and was in terrible pain.

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