Our Casualty, and Other Stories. George A. Birmingham
early—about 10.30 p.m.—and manned the trenches. The rest of us marched forth at midnight and relieved them.
The worst evening we had all winter was December 8th. It was blowing terrifically from the south-east The sea was tumbling in on the beach in enormous waves, fringing the whole line of the shore with a broad stretch of white foam. The rain swept over the country pitilessly. I came out of town by the 5.10 train, and called at the club on my way home. I found a notice posted up:
“Ballyhaine Veterans’ Corps.
“Tonight, December the 8th, trenches will be relieved at 12 midnight. No. 1 and No. 2 Platoons to parade at 10.30, march to north end of the strand, and occupy trenches.”
That meant a six-mile march for those platoons—three there and three back.
“No. 3 and No. 4 Platoons to parade at 11 p.m., march to cliffs, descend rocks, and relieve trenches as soon as possible after midnight.”
I am in No. 3 Platoon, and I confess I shuddered. The rocks at the north end of the beach are abominably slippery. A year ago I should have hesitated about climbing down in broad daylight in the finest weather. My military training had done a good deal for me physically, but I still shrank from those rocks at midnight with a tempest howling round me.
When I reached home I put a good face on the matter. I was not going to admit to my wife or Janet—particularly to Janet—that I was afraid of night operations in any weather.
“Please have my uniform left out for me,” I said, “I shall put it on before dinner.”
“Surely,” said my wife, “you’re not going out to-night? I don’t think you ought to.”
“Duty, my dear,” I said.
“Just fancy,” said Janet, “if the Germans came and father wasn’t there! We might be murdered in our beds!”
I am sometimes not quite sure whether Janet means to scoff or is in serious earnest On this occasion I was inclined to think that she was poking fun at the Veterans’ Corps. I frowned at her.
“You’ll get dreadfully wet,” said my wife.
“Not the least harm in that,” I said cheerily.
“It’ll give you another cold in your head,” said Janet
This time she was certainly sneering. I frowned again.
“Of course,” said my wife, “it won’t matter to you. You’re so strong and healthy. Nothing does you any harm.”
I suspected her of attempting a subtle form of flattery, but what she said was quite true. I am, for a man of fifty-three, extremely hardy.
“I’m thinking,” she said, “of poor old Mr. Cotter. I don’t think he ought to go. Mrs. Cotter was round here this afternoon. She says he’s suffering dreadfully from rheumatism, though he won’t admit it, and if he goes out to-night … But he’s so determined, poor old dear. And she simply can’t stop him.”
“Cotter,” I said, “must stay at home.”
“But he won’t,” said my wife.
“Military ardour is very strong in him,” said Janet.
“I’ll ring up Dr. Tompkins,” I said, “and tell him to forbid Cotter to go out. Tompkins is Medical Officer of the corps, and has a right to give orders of the kind. In fact, it’s his duty to see that the company’s not weakened by ill-health.”
“I’m afraid,” said my wife, “that Dr. Tompkins can do nothing. Mrs. Cotter was with him before she came here. The fact is that Mr. Cotter won’t give in even to the doctor’s orders.”
I rang up Tompkins and put the case very strongly to him.
“It will simply kill Cotter,” I said, “and we can’t have that. He may not be of any very great military value, but he’s a nice old boy, and we don’t want to lose him.”
Tompkins agreed with me thoroughly. He said he’d been thinking the matter over since Mrs. Cotter called on him in the afternoon, and had hit upon a plan which would meet the case.
“If only the C.O. will fall in with it,” he added.
Haines is in some ways a difficult man. He likes to manage things his own way, and resents any suggestions made to him, particularly by men in the ranks. However, Cotter’s life was at stake, so I undertook to tackle Haines, even at the risk of being snubbed. Tompkins explained his plan to me. I rang up Haines, and laid it before him. I put the matter very strongly to him. I even said that the War Office would probably deprive him of his command if it was discovered that he had been wasting the lives of his men unnecessarily.
“The country needs us all,” I said, “even Cotter. After all, Cotter is a non-commissioned officer and a most valuable man. Besides, it’ll do the Ambulance Brigade a lot of good.”
It was this last consideration which weighed most with Haines. He had felt for some time that our ambulance ladies were coming to have too good an opinion of themselves. I had the satisfaction of going back to the drawing-room and telling Janet that the stretcher bearers were to parade at eleven o’clock, and march in the rear of the column—Numbers 3 and 4 Platoons—which went to relieve trenches.
“Rot,” said Janet “We can’t possibly go out on a night like this.”
“C.O.‘s orders,” I said.
“The stretchers will be utterly ruined,” she said, “not to mention our hats.”
“C.O.‘s orders,” I said severely.
“If we must go,” said Janet, “we’ll take the ambulance waggon.
“No, you won’t,” I said. “You’ll take your stretchers and carry them. Yours not to reason why, Janet. And in any case you can’t take the ambulance waggon, because we’re marching along the beach, and you know perfectly well that the strand is simply scored with trenches. We can’t have the ambulance waggon smashed up. It’s the only one we have. If a few girls break their legs it doesn’t much matter. There are too many girls about the place.”
Platoons Numbers 1 and 2 marched off at 10.30 p.m. in a blinding downpour of rain. We watched them go from the porch of the golf pavilion, and promised to relieve them as quickly as we could. We paraded, according to orders, at 11 sharp, and I was glad to see that Janet and the other girls were wet and draggled long before we started.
Haines made us a short speech. He had to shout at the top of his voice because the storm was making a dreadful noise. But we heard what he said. The business of relieving trenches, he told us, would be carried out under strictly war conditions, precisely as if enemy submarines were shelling us from the sea. There would necessarily, supposing the submarines to be actually there, be casualties in our force. Haines told off four men to act as casualties. The first on the list—this was the way Tompkins’ plan worked out—was Corporal Cotter.
“Corporal Cotter,” said Haines, “will drop out of the ranks as the column passes the third bathing-box, numbering from the south end of the beach, Mrs. Tompkins’ bathing-box, which is painted bright green.”
Haines was, very properly, most particular about defining the bathing-box exactly.
“Corporal Cotter and the other casualties,” said Haines, “will take waterproof ground-sheets with them—two waterproof ground-sheets each—and keep as dry as possible. The stretcher bearers will follow the column at a distance of two hundred paces to pick up the casualties, affording first-aid on the spot, and, on reaching the field hospital, will apply restoratives under the directions of the Company’s Medical Officer. For the purposes of these manouvres. Corporal Cotter’s house will be regarded as the Field Hospital.”
The other three casualties, all elderly and rather delicate men, were ordered to drop out of the ranks at places further along