Had a grand night last night. Woke up at Béthune. Went out after breakfast and saw over No.— Cl. H., which has only been there 48 hours, in a huge Girls’ College, partly smashed by big shell holes, an awful mess, but the whole parts are being turned into a splendid hospital. Several houses shelled, and big guns shaking the train this morning.
The M.O.’s went to the Orderlies’ Concert last night, when we went to bed. It was excellent, and nobody was drunk! We are taking on a full load of lying-downs straight from three Field Ambulances, so we shall be very busy; not arrived yet.
6 p.m.—Nearing Boulogne.
I have one little badly wounded Gurkha (who keeps ejaculating “Gerrman”), and all the rest British, some very badly frost-bitten. The trenches are in a frightful state. One man said, “There’s almost as many men drowned as killed: when they’re wounded they fall into the water.” Of three officers (one of whom is on the train and tells the story) in a deep-water trench for two days, one was drowned, the other had to have his clothes cut off him (stuck fast to the mud) and be pulled out naked, and the other is invalided with rheumatism.
Two men were telling me how they caught a sniper established in a tree, with a thousand rounds of ammunition and provisions. He asked for mercy, but he didn’t get it, they said. He had just shot two stretcher-bearers.
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