The Smell of "Wipers"
'THE YPRES TIMES
By Arthur Lambert (Author of Over the Top).
86
here was afterwards wrapped in mist. He remembered passing his companion in distress
lying in bed, and wishing him good luck, to which he received a cheery but weak reply
from a man who had only a few hours to live. He remembered the Sister putting hot
water bottles in bed with him, and he remembered asking her if she was an American,
and being told that she was a Canadian. He afterwards learned from his case-sheet
that he had undergone an operation here, but he knew nothing of it.
In a few days he left for Rouen, and said good-bye" to the Salient in war-time,
and farewell to the war as a fighting soldier. He arrived at Rouen in the middle of the
night, and did not forget the painful journey from the station to the hospital, or the smell
of petrol fumes which pervaded the ambulance. Dreary weeks followed, with both
legs suspended on splints at an angle of about forty-five degrees to the roof of what was
known as a Sinclair bed, a wooden framework fitted with pulleys which raised and lowered
him as required. The brightest spot in his stay at Rouen was a visit from H.R.H. The
Duke of Connaught,.with whom he had a pleasant chat which left behind a permanent
feeling of admiration for that fine old soldier.
On the last day of November he set sail for England, but his troubles were far from
over. More than once he was to lie at the point of death, but he refused to die, and a
fine constitution eventually pulled him through. After many operations, his left leg was
amputated on Armistice Day, and he was one of the few who did not celebrate that
memorable day in some way or other. In fact he knew nothing of the Armistice until
the following day.
This was his final operation, and it doubtless saved his life which may be said to
have been a happy ending to the war so far as John Brown was concerned.
J. B.
SURVIVORS of the long years in the Salient are now approaching the sere
and yellow. Bones are aching, teeth are beginning to decay, hair is begin
ning to go grey, and all the senses commencing to lose their youthful vigour.
Even the unforgettable memories of those battles in which we all wallowed in
indescribable filth and misery are becoming dim, as each year places them another
step away.
Our work and our homes are filling our minds just a modicum more, as each
month flits quickly by. The babies of twenty years ago have reached maturity
and are now supplying the daily details of the present to the exclusion of the past.
The back-fire of a motor engine in the High Street is replacing the memory of the
5'9 shells that kept trying to bury us in Jolting House Trench, and the fragrance
of our gardens, and the fresh green English fields are replacing the odours of
Ypres, the charnel house of Europe.
Did the smell of the Salient permeate your being during your martyrdom?
Was that sickly aroma always in your nostrils, affecting your breathing, and your
eating and smoking, and sleeping if you ever did any?
There was never anything quite like it, and many ruminations as to its source,
during those interminable hours in the dug-out or trench failed to produce a
reasonable theory as to its origin. Probably a combination of swampy earth,
rotting wood, dead animals, stagnant water, poison gas, high explosives,
phosphorus, and the dozens of natural gases rising from the shattered earth, com
bine to produce a pungent, slightly aromatic odour that was unique and omni
present. A trifling discomfort to one sense in a life of agony that outraged all
