A Sister's Experience on a Hospital Ship.
The Ypres Times.
49
wise Captain hurriedly extricated himself and, rushing across, drags me out by the scruff
of the neck, bawling as he did so Run like hell to the left." And no sooner had we
gone to earth again when a shell bursts right over the spot I had vacated, wounding two
gunners sheltering in a trench behind.
The next occasion was
beside the Steenbeck,
near JYangemarck, dur
ing a creeping barrage
of a few hundred feet
in depth ending with
ten minutes' smoke
screen to enable our
infantry to consolidate
their hardly won gains.
It is the grey misty
dawn of an October
day, and suddenly there
is an uncanny discor
dant whine from the
impenetrable mist over-
head. Thought is
quicker than action, yet
instinct is to fly for
safetybut a gunner's
training counsels "stand
Imperial War Museum.] THE STEENBECK. [Crown Copyright. fast," for the chances
are equally in favour of
an invisible missile hitting a moving target. Then, with a parabolic swoop ending jn a
quivering thud, a huge shell lands a few paces behind me, almost knocking me off my
feet. At stand-to, I have the curiosity to dig out the still warm projectile with the help
of my No. i, and we find it to be a 10 in. naval shell intended for the back areas, its per
cussion fuse missingeither lost in transit, or what is more likelythat had not been
screwed home in the excitement of our barrage.
A few days later, our position, already map-spotted and bombed by day with eggs
dropped from enemy 'planes, is shelled each night until my dugout forms the centre of
a diagonal pattern of ever widening craters when, in a moment of weariness perhaps,
methodical Fritz deflects his dial sight by an bdirsbreadth and his next round lands on
top of my dugout, under which I am buried in the debris I wake to consciousness
of a rolling motion and the delirious babble of wounded men. I realise that t am on an
ambulance train. Cautiously moving my arms in front of my bandaged head, then down
to my legs, it is a relief to discover that I am at least intact. So I lie back and listen
to the jolting of the wheels over the track which leads to Blighty, back from the valley
of the shadow of death. G. A. N.
Of my many and varied experiences, at a General Hospital, at numerous Casualty
Clearing Stations, at a Stationary Hospital, and on board a Hospital Ship, the latter was,
to me, the most interesting, as it was the most exciting experience of my life.
I was posted to the Hospital Ship Anglia, in May, 1915, and served on board her till
November 17th, 1915, when she struck a mine while crossing the Channel on the way to
Dover, with a complement of wounded patients, and foundered.
