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Page 19
We annexed all the pans and boilers and made good use of them for our
own Ambulance. Then, proceeding further up the gully, we found it
almost impassable by reason of dead Ghurkas and mules; a gun on a
ridge had the range of this place to a nicety, and the ammunition
train was held up for a time. I never saw such a mess of entangled
mules; they were kicking and squealing, many of them were wounded, and
through it all the Indian drivers were endeavouring to restore some
kind of order. One had to keep close under the banks to escape the
shells. Not far from here was the emplacement of our old friend "Windy
Annie," but alas! Annie was constant to Abdul, and they had taken her
with them. It was a great pity we did not get the gun. No wonder our
guns never found the place. The ground had been dug out to some depth
and then roofed over with great logs and covered with earth and
sandbags; the ammunition--plenty of it--was in deep pits on either
side; artillery quarters were in close proximity, and the tracks of
the gun were clearly seen.
The shelling was far too heavy to let us pitch a dressing station
anywhere here, so we retired to the beach to find a place more
sheltered under the hills; the bearers meanwhile followed the troops.
Soon scores of casualties began to arrive, and we selected a position
in a dry creek about six yards wide, with high banks on either side.
The operating tent was used as a protection from the sun and stretched
from bank to bank, the centre being upheld by rifles lashed together;
the panniers were used to form the operating table, and our drugs were
placed round the banks. We were, however, much handicapped by not
having any transport, as our donkeys had been requisitioned by the
Army Service Corps. Everything had to be carried from a distance, and
water was exceedingly scarce. All day we were treating cases and
operating until late at night. Major Meikle and I divided the night,
and we were kept going. From one until four in the morning I slept in
a hole in a trench like a tomb.
At daylight we could see our men righting their way through the scrub
over Sari Bair, the warships firing just ahead of them to clear the
scrub of the Turkish Infantry. The foremost men carried flags, which
denoted the farthest point reached and the extent of the two flanks,
as a direction to the ship. With the glasses one could see that the
bayonet was being used pretty freely; the Turks were making a great
stand, and we were losing a lot of men. They could be seen falling
everywhere.
AMBULANCE WORK
Our bearers were doing splendid work; it was a long and dangerous
carry, and a lot of them were wounded themselves. The miserable part
of the affair was that the Casualty Clearing Station on the beach
broke down and could not evacuate our wounded. This caused a block,
and we had numbers of wounded on our hands. A block of a few hours can
be dealt with, but when it is impossible to get cases away for forty
hours the condition of the men is very miserable. However, we got the
cooks going, and had plenty of Bovril and Oxo, which we boiled up with
biscuits broken small. It made a very sustaining meal, but caused
thirst, which was troublesome, as it was particularly difficult to
obtain water. Shelter from the sun, too, was hard to get; the day was
exceedingly hot, and there were only a few trees about. As many as
could be got into the shade were put there, but we had to keep moving
them round to avoid the sun. Many of the cases were desperate, but
they uttered not a word of complaint--they all seemed to understand
that it was not our fault that they were kept here.
As the cases were treated by us, they were taken down towards the
beach and kept under cover as much as possible. At one time we had
nearly four hundred waiting for removal to the ship. Then came a
message asking for more stretchers to be sent to the firing line, and
none were to be obtained; so we just had to remove the wounded from
those we had, lay them on the ground, and send the stretchers up.
Thank goodness, we had plenty of morphia, and the hypodermic syringe
relieved many who would otherwise have suffered great agony.
Going through the cases, I found one man who had his arm shattered and
a large wound in his chest. Amputation at the shoulder-joint was the
only way of saving his life. Major Clayton gave the anaesthetic, and
we got him through.
Quite a number of Ghurkas and Sikhs were amongst the wounded, and they
all seemed to think that it was part of the game; patience loomed
large among their virtues. Turkish wounded were also on our hands,
and, though they could not speak our language, still they expressed
gratitude with their eyes. One of the Turks was interrogated, first by
the Turkish interpreter with no result; the Frenchman then had a go at
him, and still nothing could be got out of him. After these two had
finished, Captain Jefferies went over to the man and said, "Would you
like a drink of water?" "Yes, please," was the reply.
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