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The sink was used as a wash-place by surgeons, chauffeurs, and stretcher-bearers. Nurses would come through with bloody rags from the ward, which was only an open door away. Lightly wounded men, covered with Yser mud, would sit at a side table, eating the remnants of other people's meals.
He was not popular in the village, and was well aware that the two rustics pressed into service as stretcher-bearers would joyfully retail the fact that he had been "set down a peg or two by Mr. Grant." "I'll do all that's necessary in that way, sir," he said stiffly. "I suppose you have no objection to my askin' if you noticed any strange footprints on the ground hereabouts?"
They had got the range, too, and the shrapnel was bursting right over the gallant Colonials. Casualties became very heavy, and the doctor and stretcher-bearers were kept busy the whole time. To make matters worse, another machine gun had been mounted on rising ground to the north and its fire was enfilading the trench.
The loud feet of the ambulance men on the stairs interrupted him. Mr. Baruch, dragging the partly unfolded rugs with him, moved away as the white clad doctor and his retinue of stretcher-bearers came in at the door, with exactly the manner of the mere spectator who makes room for people more directly concerned.
Prizes were even given to the men who carried a pail of water on a cot and reached a fixed point with the most liquid in the receptacle. By this means the best method of "stepping off" was evolved. There are hundreds of these stretcher-bearers volunteers without compensation who now perform the task so well that it attracts even the attention of the casual observer.
The stream of disorganized men flowing back from the thickets became wider and swifter every minute; every minute, too, the din of the conflict came closer; every minute the tide of battle rolled on to regiments lying nearer the pike. A Surgeon with a squad of stretcher-bearers came up to where Rachel was sitting.
She unlocked the gate, and let Vogt and the stretcher-bearers in. "Where is the other?" she then asked; and the soldier answered: "He will soon follow." The woman nodded silently. She locked the gate behind them, and then turned towards a wing of the building. The stretcher-bearer, walking close behind her, whispered: "This one won't be a burden to you long. The end must soon come."
The ranks of the infantry disappeared amid the smoke but their long-drawn shout and rapid musketry firing could still be heard. A few minutes later crowds of wounded men and stretcher-bearers came back from that direction. Projectiles began to fall still more frequently in the battery. Several men were lying about who had not been removed.
On all the roads I crossed there was a continual stream of wounded men limping along and stretcher-bearers carrying mutilated bodies. The heat had become tropical. It was nearly twelve o'clock. My head began to swim. My shako seemed gradually to get tighter and to press on my temples till they were ready to burst. I thought I should never find my regiment never....
We kept on, with heads aching intolerably. Winding round a curve, we came upon the effects of the shells. The sides of the trench had been blown in, while in the middle of the débris lay a dead or unconscious man, and farther on a man groaning faintly upon a stretcher. We scrambled over them, passed a few more wounded and stretcher-bearers, and arrived at the Reserve Line.
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