THE YPRES TIMES
49
could be taken off the operating table another was placed onand so on all
through the night. The surgeons had been at it the whole day.
As I went to bed in the morning, I met the orderlies carrying patients down
the stairs for evacuation by boat to England, while the doctors were helping to
carry in another convoy which had just arrived. We rested until midday, then
went to relieve other nurses who had not yet had a rest. Réveillé was being
sounded the following morning as I got into bed. At 7 a.m. I was awakened by
the Secretary to the Matron-in-Chief, who informed me that a car was at the door,
Photo] [Imperial War Museum, Crown Copyright.
No. 13 STATIONARY HOSPITAL.
and that I was to proceed, at once, to a hospital in the town. I hurriedly dressed
and drove down to the docks.
The sugar sheds on the Gare Maritime were to be converted into a hospital,
No. 13 Stationary Hospital.
What an indescribable sceneIn the first huge shed there were hundreds of
wounded walking cases (as long as a man could crawl he had to be a walking case).
All were caked with mud, in torn clothes, hardly any caps, and with blood-stained
bandages on arms, hands and legs; many were lying asleep on the straw that had
been left in the hastily cleaned sheds, looking weary to deathothers sitting on
