i8
THE YPRES TIMES
TO be unwell in peace-time and at home is not pleasantto fall seedy in war-time
and abroad is very unpleasant, superimposed are the discomforts, the rigours,
the penalties of active service.
Fall in the sick This was the peremptory order shouted every morning by
the Camp Orderly after the battalion had marched off to duty.
Fall in the sick What a contradiction in terms. Such, however, are the
vicissitudes of active service that an ailing man must needs rise from his soldier's bed
however hard that couchand present himself before a doctor. Ah would he be
worthy the name of soldier if he didn't. Furthermore, it is not certain that he is unwell.
It is a law of our country that a prisoner is innocent until his trial finds him guilty
it is the view of the military that a man is free of ailment until the doctor finds the
contrary to be the case.
So that most undesirable of all parades is formedthe sick parade. Furthermore,
your Medical may not be in camp. It may necessitate a march of one or two miles
before he is found and some of the men may be additionally burdened with their
kit-bags slung over their shoulders. Why should that be as it is obvious they are
not doing it for fun It is because there is a probability of their being sent direct to
hospital and the Quartermaster must not be troubled with surplus kitsand probably
lousy ones at that.
I was unfortunate enough to take part in several of these excursions and to vary
the monotony of the marchif our progress may be so dignified by such a term
I turned on one occasion and asked the man at my side what he was going sick on
if it wasn't too intimate a question. It appeared he suffered from two complaints,
although even at that eleventh hour he hadn't made up his mind which to offer the
doctor as his reason for being off duty. An old ear sore was troubling him again and
varicose veins had got him elsewhere.
But," I suggested, why not state both complaints at once and have done
with it."
Not likely," he replied, a man doesn't take a trick with two cards one card
does it. I think I'll show him my ear this morning and let him see my leg next week."
Evidently there was the gentle art of going sick.
The medical tent having been reached the invalids are halted and are probably
given the impossible concession to stand easy. Presently they are allowed the further
liberty of walking about, but to keep within call. The doctor is engaged with other
patients. A couple of hours pass painfully away. The weather may be of arctic
severity or a tropical heat may possess the atmosphere. It is all one. It is another
phase of the soldier's lot, but oh, the dreariness of it all. At length the men are once
more paraded and conducted one by one before the doctor.
One can believe it to have been a rich experience for some of the doctors. Here
they encountered human nature in the raw. There were some poor fellows who probably
hadn't the clearest notion what was wrong with them even the simplest of complaints
would be difficult to explain and the impression conveyed wouldn't be favourable to
the invalid. Still, the men of healing showed wonderful patience with their clients
and it was only foreshortened under just provocation. The great staple complaint in
the battalion was diarrhoea or, if not that, its opposite, and it was with one of these
that a man could, in a way, hoodwink the doctoralthough a No. 9 might bring
