PALS." 186 The Ypres Times. I don't like hospitals at any time and I hate 'em especially when they are the kind where there isn't any hope and they're keeping a lot of poor devils sort of hanging over the edge and holding like grim death on to a thin rope to keep them from going smash into eternity. It seems just cruelty to me. If they are incurables," as the doc. calls 'em, why not let 'em go They look so tired even the most cheerful of them, and they've got a sort of wistful understanding look about them like a kiddie that's been kept up out of bed too long and doesn't know why. It always makes me want to curse, that look. However, the doc. was an old friend of mine and he was as keen as mustard on showing me round his place. Besides, he mended me on the top of Twenty-Ninth Avenue under machine guns and H.E., so I couldn't very well refuse. There weren't many terrible cases, or, at least, the terribleness was well hidden under the bedclothes and, though you felt that they all knew that sentence had been passed, they all looked pretty cheerful and didn't mind sitting up and taking notice of what was going on. I didn't know any of them but some of them had been in places I had been in and so we had a bit of a yarn here and there till the doc. dragged me off to see the private rooms. Some of them were pretty ghastly and I felt that sort of gassed feeling in the throat that I had the night old Bill Williams took a shell to himself and left me untouched and crying like a baby on the Menin road. I daresay the doc. saw I was a bit that way for, when he opened the next door, he said Nothing terrible in here, old man. Chap's spine's gone, but he's a bit off his rocker and he would keep talking all night long, so we shifted him in here." In we went. 'Most of the other fellows had books or flowers or cigarettes or some of the useless muck that friends always send you in hospital, but this fellow hadn't a thing on his table except a packet of Gold Flake, and something told me it was the nurse or the doc. who had put it there. He wasn't particularly old or particularly young, but that sort of wizened-up looking chap that used to drift back to the battalions in '16, and if it hadn't been for his stiffness and something funny about his eyes I'd have sworn he was a deal healthier than I was. He couldn't move hand or foot, poor devil, but when he saw us his face all lighted up and he sang out quite cheerfully in a sort of thicky voice Brought me a visitor, doc. Come and sit down, sir. What mob was you in I told him and of course that started it. A good crowd, sir lay with 'em at Le Sars and they relieved us twice at Givenchy and 'nother time above Bullecourt. Never saw 'em after that. Might have seen 'em at Kemmel if the old 'Un's gas would 'ave let you see anything." Then we got on to the Somme, and the doc. seeing the chap had me well fixed for a bit, cleared off. We went through most of it and I remembered a whole lot of things I hadn't remembered for months, till I saw I had a bit overstayed my visit and I rose up to go and look for the doc. Got to go, sir he says. Yes," says I, I'm sorry, but, look here, I'll look you up again. The doc. says you've no friends. That right No, the doc.'s got it wrong again," he answers. I 'aven't no visitors but I've friends a-plenty not but what I wouldn't t>e proud to see you round again, sir." I suppose I looked puzzled. How's that Friends, but no visitors Don't any of 'em come and see you He sort of laughed at me and it was an awfully plea$ant, contented sort of laugh. No, sir, I aven'J: no visitors. 'Aving had no father nor mother these lots o' years and me never being married, why, there ain't anybody, you see, sir, and the old lot they used

HISTORISCHE KRANTEN

The Ypres Times (1921-1936) | 1923 | | pagina 8