THE YPRES TIMES
149
somewhat hurriedly ordered to move forward and open up at once to receive casual
ties Festubert and Givenchy). The fighting of this day, which continued into early
hours of the 24th, is graphically described in official despatches; how trenches lost
on the previous day had to be recovered; how the Indian Divisions advanced twice
by day across the snow only to be repulsed; and how eventually they succeeded in
a third assault after nightfall. The casualties were heavy, especially in officers,
but those of the enemy were heavier still, and we took over 100 prisoners,
including three officers.
Essars. We had barely reached our appointed place, which was a small village
school, when the wounded started coming in, and, early realizing that our accommo
dation was inadequate, we had to expand into neighbouring houses. This night we
received 90 wounded, and were able to evacuate all but three in the course of the
next day to Clearing Hospital. The following night was heavier still, for, though
the numbers were less, the cases were more severe, being the more seriously wounded
of the night of the 23rd, and we were short of a medical officer, as one of ours had
been sent forward to a regiment which had lost its doctor, a shell having burst in
his aid post *Captlnderjit Singh, I.M.S.).
I noticed on' this night several cases in which the application of the first field
dressing had become dangerously tight through effusion, and many a limb was
pulseless from a combination of this cause and frostbite, for the weather was still
bitterly cold, and several of these men had lain out for a night and a day before
removal to the regimental aid posts. The next morning we cleared our hospital of
58 patients, including five German wounded, and moved forward to a more suitable
site nearer to the firing line. Here we found an almost ideal place for a field
ambulance Gorrea beautiful and spacious chateau with electric light, which had
served as a hospital to various Divisions during the past six weeks, and had a
melancholy record of the fact in a graveyard in the grounds. The only draw
back was the close proximity of a battery, which was inclined to draw the German
shell-fire.
The patients were accommodated in the salons on the ground floor, and
ourselves most comfortably housed in delightful rooms upstairs, while our personnel
were in barns and coach houses, and our transport was parked within the square
of the building.
Wounded came in, in reasonable numbers, during the next few days, but the
sick rate was rather high; the men's feet had suffered terribly during the frosty days
in the trenches, and it was at this time that we got our worst cases of frostbite;
there was very little other, sickness.
Though there was a lull in the fighting, there was no truce, and regimental
medical officers put in some gallant work in rescuing wounded men who had been
lying out between the trenches since the night of the 23rd-24th.
Two such Indians were brought in as late as the 29th. They had had their
first field-dressings applied by a humane German (there are some), and though in a
low condition from hunger and cold, they did well. Anothera Tommy in the
Leicestershad lain out for forty-eight hours after a wound in the right hock, but
the poor chap had both his feet frost-bitten by the time he reached us, and we had
not succeeded in restoring the circulation before he left for clearing hospital, so I
fear he did badly.
Here we had some experience of treating British soldiers, and started a ward
for Tommies, and I never wish to treat more grateful, big-hearted men. Our
Mercenary Army is a wonderful production of the British nation, and the
This gallant young Indian Doctor was given a posthumous Military Cross at the inception of the
decoration on January 1st, 1915.
