n
had been working in the wet and the mud for weeks past. Their
clothes were stiff with it, and such a thing as a clean wound was
not to be thought of. Simple cases at Antwerp were here tedious
and dangerous, and they required all the resources of nursing
and of surgery that we could bring to bear upon them. Still,
it was extraordinary what good results followed on common-sense
lines of treatment, and we soon learnt to give up no case as
hopeless. But each involved a great amount of work, first in
operating and trying to reduce chaos to reason, and then in
dressing and nursing. For everyone all round--surgeons,
dressers, and nurses--it was real hard physical labour.

Our rapid turnover of patients involved a large amount of
manual labour in stretcher work, clearing up wards, and so on,
but all this was done for us by our brancardiers, or stretcher-bearers.
These were Belgians who for one reason or another could not
serve with the army, and who were therefore utilized by the
Government for purposes such as these. We had some eight
of them attached to our hospital, and they were of the greatest
use to us, acting as hospital orderlies. They were mostly
educated men--schoolmasters and University teachers--but
they were quite ready to do any work we might require at
any hour of the day or night. They carried the patients to the
theatre and to the wards, they cleaned the stretchers--a very
difficult and unpleasant job--they tidied up the wards and scrubbed
the floors, and they carried away all the soiled dressings and
burned them. They were a fine set of men, and I do not know
what we should have done without them.

Work began at an early hour, for every case in the hospital
required dressing, and, as we never knew what we should have
to deal with at night, we always tried to get through the routine
before lunch. At ten o'clock Colonel Maestrio arrived, with two of
his medical officers, and made a complete round of the hospital
with the surgeons in charge of the various cases. They took the
greatest interest in the patients, and in our attempts to cure
them. They would constantly spend an hour with me in the
operating theatre, and after any exceptional operation they
would follow the progress of the patient with the keenest
interest. Many of the cases with which we had to deal required
a certain amount of ingenuity in the reconstruction of what had
been destroyed, so that surgery had often to be on rather
original lines