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Authors: Charles Todd
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time to the tiny village of La Fleurette, so destroyed by war and armies that I could find nothing to show me what it might have looked like, once upon a time.
There was a pitted street, half buried in piles of rubble, only the west wall of the little church still forlornly standing, and miraculously, a stone barn that had somehow escaped damage. It was whole, even its roof intact.
“Praise God,” Sister Benning said, looking up at it. “Now to see if we can do anything about the inside.”
The lane into the barn’s forecourt was no more than a muddy and rutted track. The barnyard was already jammed with lorries and ambulances jostling for room, and we had orderlies clearing up the interior as fast as they could, so that we had a space in which to work.
The walking wounded were already sitting on benches, shoulders drooping, bloody bandaging around heads, torsos, or limbs. Sometimes all three. Stretchers with the worst cases were being set across frames made from mangers, and a surgeon was already at work, calling for us to hurry and bring him what he needed. The first ofthe dead had been taken away, out of sight in what had been the milking shed.
It was chaos, and we were accustomed to it, having packed in such a fashion that we could find anything we wanted immediately.
Ambulances were coming in now in twos and threes, and I was meeting them, trying to sort the wounded into those who could wait, those who needed immediate attention, and sometimes, offering up a brief prayer as I came across a soldier who had died on the way to us.
We worked almost thirty-six hours without respite on one broken body after another. Someone had managed to brew tea, and we drank gallons of it without milk or sugar, to stay awake. I took my turn at the tables where Dr. Buckley was operating, my eyes on his hands and the wound. Ellen Benning, on the other side, was constantly mopping his brow, and as I looked up, I realized he was flushed, perspiration rolling down his face, and I wondered if he were ill. At a break while the patients were being shifted, I led him outside and asked, “Sir, what’s wrong?”
He looked at me, his eyes so tired that they seemed sunk in his head, lined and puffy with lack of sleep.
“I’m well,” he told me irritably. “Don’t hover.”
I said nothing more, letting him go back to work without protest.
And then as suddenly as the flood had begun, it started to taper off.
I saw Dr. Buckley huddled with one of the ambulance drivers, their faces grim.
We had reached a point where we could actually catch our collective breath when Dr. Buckley began to load the wounded, ambulatory and stretcher cases, into whatever vehicles we had, sending them back down the line. The empty vehicles were returning for their next load when I quietly asked what was happening.
“The Germans are about to break through along the Front.We’re moving out as quickly as possible. The Army is trying to hold them, but I don’t think there’s much of a chance now. Best to be prepared.”
It was the story of this war—a few yards gained at horrendous cost, then lost again with even more casualties from trying to hold on against all odds. A retreat today, an advance tomorrow, and then retreat again before the next advance, like a bloody tug of war.
I nodded, and went about helping him, smiling and offering comfort where I could, assuring the soldiers we’d just patched up that this was too exposed a location and they’d be better off in one of the trench hospitals down the line.
One of the Scots officers agreed. “This wasn’t supposed to happen. We’d won the ground, HQ told us we could hold on to it. But their intelligence was wrong.”
We were down to the last half dozen walking wounded, who were being handed into ambulances, and the staff was packing one with what was left of our stock of supplies. A lorry was filled with the dead.
I looked around in the pale morning light, feeling rather exposed here in this
There was a pitted street, half buried in piles of rubble, only the west wall of the little church still forlornly standing, and miraculously, a stone barn that had somehow escaped damage. It was whole, even its roof intact.
“Praise God,” Sister Benning said, looking up at it. “Now to see if we can do anything about the inside.”
The lane into the barn’s forecourt was no more than a muddy and rutted track. The barnyard was already jammed with lorries and ambulances jostling for room, and we had orderlies clearing up the interior as fast as they could, so that we had a space in which to work.
The walking wounded were already sitting on benches, shoulders drooping, bloody bandaging around heads, torsos, or limbs. Sometimes all three. Stretchers with the worst cases were being set across frames made from mangers, and a surgeon was already at work, calling for us to hurry and bring him what he needed. The first ofthe dead had been taken away, out of sight in what had been the milking shed.
It was chaos, and we were accustomed to it, having packed in such a fashion that we could find anything we wanted immediately.
Ambulances were coming in now in twos and threes, and I was meeting them, trying to sort the wounded into those who could wait, those who needed immediate attention, and sometimes, offering up a brief prayer as I came across a soldier who had died on the way to us.
We worked almost thirty-six hours without respite on one broken body after another. Someone had managed to brew tea, and we drank gallons of it without milk or sugar, to stay awake. I took my turn at the tables where Dr. Buckley was operating, my eyes on his hands and the wound. Ellen Benning, on the other side, was constantly mopping his brow, and as I looked up, I realized he was flushed, perspiration rolling down his face, and I wondered if he were ill. At a break while the patients were being shifted, I led him outside and asked, “Sir, what’s wrong?”
He looked at me, his eyes so tired that they seemed sunk in his head, lined and puffy with lack of sleep.
“I’m well,” he told me irritably. “Don’t hover.”
I said nothing more, letting him go back to work without protest.
And then as suddenly as the flood had begun, it started to taper off.
I saw Dr. Buckley huddled with one of the ambulance drivers, their faces grim.
We had reached a point where we could actually catch our collective breath when Dr. Buckley began to load the wounded, ambulatory and stretcher cases, into whatever vehicles we had, sending them back down the line. The empty vehicles were returning for their next load when I quietly asked what was happening.
“The Germans are about to break through along the Front.We’re moving out as quickly as possible. The Army is trying to hold them, but I don’t think there’s much of a chance now. Best to be prepared.”
It was the story of this war—a few yards gained at horrendous cost, then lost again with even more casualties from trying to hold on against all odds. A retreat today, an advance tomorrow, and then retreat again before the next advance, like a bloody tug of war.
I nodded, and went about helping him, smiling and offering comfort where I could, assuring the soldiers we’d just patched up that this was too exposed a location and they’d be better off in one of the trench hospitals down the line.
One of the Scots officers agreed. “This wasn’t supposed to happen. We’d won the ground, HQ told us we could hold on to it. But their intelligence was wrong.”
We were down to the last half dozen walking wounded, who were being handed into ambulances, and the staff was packing one with what was left of our stock of supplies. A lorry was filled with the dead.
I looked around in the pale morning light, feeling rather exposed here in this
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