No 4, Casualty Clearing Station, Lillers

The Casualty Clearing Station (CCS) was part of the casualty evacuation chain, further back from the front line than the Aid Posts and Field Ambulances. They were the first properly equipped medical base that a wounded soldier would be taken to. It was the equivalent of the modern triage, identifying those who could be treated and returned to duty; and those who needed further more serious treatment who would either be kept, as they were unfit to travel, or evacuated.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The No. 4, Casualty Clearing Station at Lillers was established in an orphanage and school. The conditions in such clearing stations was described;

“During December, the work was, as the Sisters described it "terrible"; at Hazebrouck, Lillers and Merville, everywhere it was the same, patients pouring in in dreadful conditions. The stretchers were placed in rows on the floor, with barely room to stand between each. The admissions and evacuations were incessant and almost all that could be done in the time was to feed the patients, dress their wounds and bathe their feet. Only the most urgent operations were done; the others were sent to the Base as quickly as possible.”

 

Ref: The work of the nursing staff in connection with the Casualty Clearing Stations in 1914, early 1915 and at later date

CROWN COPYRIGHT: THE NATIONAL ARCHIVES WO222/2134

 

Duncan’s diary continues

 

Am just going on to far end of line, to see where it has got to and take up my position, when there comes a smack close to, and other Sergeant [Sparks] neighs like a horse and sits down suddenly. ‘It’s all right’, he says ’only in the leg.’ So wish him luck and carry on. Get the men to about two paces interval, and start digging. It is a very wet beet field, and the earth clings to the shovel so that one can’t throw it off. Have to heave it out with one’s hands. Beastly dirty job, and wet. Wrap rifle in waterproof sheet, and take off pack. Bullets come in at intervals, some unpleasantly near.

 

Somebody passes us to the left, going towards German lines, send one of the boys out after him, Light shell comes very close. Get down as much as possible into the shallow hole I have made, and go on digging as soon as it has died down.

 

Beastly things these fireworks, but glad they are not proper explosive shells.

 

Tell off one of the boys to answer the fire of the snipers, and am just starting to dig again, when feel a tremendous thump on my right side just under the arm, and on the shoulder. Feel something hot running down right side, but am not very badly hit, though knocked over for the moment. Rather like being smacked on the back by one of those boisterous people who will insist on squeezing your hand to pulp when they greet you. Find I can move my right arm all right, but consider that the neighbourhood is unhealthy for a wounded man, so make my way along the line, leaving my blessing with the boys. Hope they will be all right. Notice, however, that the poor old chap on my right is lying very still indeed....Find the Skipper and report to him. He tells me that a little further along I will find one of the Scouts [Worlock], who is going down with a message and will help me down to our dressing station.

 

Find him in due course, at the right of our line, and he gives me an arm across the fields, back towards our bit of road along which we have to go. We fall into numerous shell holes and over bits of wire, and have a tough time getting back. Find myself very short of breath and feeling feint, but chief anxiety is to get back into cover without being hit again. Come across wounded Cameron shot through both thighs, lying in gateway of field. We try to move him – at least the Scout does most of the trying – but it is no use. Scout takes bearings of place and promises to get a stretcher sent out for him as soon as possible. He had been there ever since mid-day.

 

Finally reach Coldstreamers’ head-quarters, last lap being over a narrow plank over a ditch. Feeling very wobbly, but realize it has got to be negotiated. At last reach road, and then there is the long open bit to get over. Scout tells bearers at Coldstreamers’ head-quarters the whereabouts of the wounded Cameron. Start off down the bit of road. Pull myself together and walk at a good quick step, with a halt for a light-bomb (disregarded the water in the ditch) and finally arrive at the corner, and comparative safety. Halt for a breather and feel very feint. Remember that there is still some rum in my water bottle, so we both take a pull at it, and it does us good. Not far to go now, about half a mile or so, perhaps a bit more. Road seems longer this time than it did coming up. Hear voices at canal bridge, and are challenged. Find other Sergeant [Sparks], also on his way down. He had stopped to have his leg dressed at the Coldstreamer’s station.

 

Have a job to find our dressing station, which is, we are told a cottage on the right, some way beyond our village where we rested. They have not being doing any business yet, and the front of the house in darkness, because the windows face the enemy more or less, and light is sure to attract fire. Am scientifically bound up, and made to lie down on the stretcher. Very uncomfortable, cannot breathe lying down, and cannot get coat on again over bandages. Other Sergeant comes in, and we go together – (I on a stretcher, all the fifteen stone of me, and he afoot, though with a game leg), to the corner of the main road. Very cold as to the right side and arm, shirt and sweater having been cut away, and coat over me slipping about. However, might be colder; anything is better than lying dead in a turnip field. As we go slowly along to the corner a bullet whistles high over head, as a sort of farewell.

 

Put into horse ambulance [No.9 Indian Field Ambulance] at corner of road; driver does not know when we shall start, must wait for Captain, may be one hour, may not be till morning. Chief anxiety now is to get out of shell fire; don’t want to be in these promiscuous parts in the daylight.

 

Other Sergeant suggests soup to while away the time, so produce Oxo cube from my haversack, he produces spiritine from his, and with the aid of my red pot and some water from his bottle we make some fine soup. He feeds me tenderly with a spoon. I am lying on one side of the wagon, he is sitting on the other. Can’t get my head up very high because of the stretcher above, and a lot of soup goes down my neck, only on the outside. Go to sleep after this, and wake up feeling very cold, and wondering where I am. Other Sergeant who has put his water-proof sheet and his scarf over me, says we are still there. Do not know, at the moment, where ‘there’ may be, and do not much care. Feeling rotten.

 

Hear voices outside, and driver comes and tells us we are off at last. We have been waiting nearly four hours. It is a bumpy road, and downhill for the first bit, very uncomfortable. Finally arrive at some place or other and are surrounded by Indian bearers who seem to have some difficulty with my fifteen stone. Medical officer in charge seems familiar to me 0- where have I seen him before? ‘Hello!’ he says ’it’s the Sergeant who was at Arques.’ Of course! Remember him now, and see likewise my old friend Hezekiah, who had so placidly smoked his hookah at the foot of my bed.

 

M O inspects my dressings, and says they will do all right – no need to shift them, as they were put on so recently. He then arms himself with an extra large size penny squirt, which he pushes into the front of what I am pleased to call my waist, to inoculate against tetanus. Am taken into another room and reposed near a stove, and other Sergeant comes along as well. It is now about 4 am. Bearer comes in with hot water and washes my hands – they wanted it. Intensely surprised when I point to my knees and get him to wash them as well. They are about half an inch thick in dried mud. Have exciting time coughing, finally get up on one elbow which relieves it. Put haversack under back, and get on better. Sleep a bit, but not much.

 

Tuesday December 22

Some cocoa for breakfast, cannot manage bread and jam, then into motor ambulance to a clearing hospital some miles off [Lillers No 4 Clearing Hospital]. Other Sergeant (Sparks) comes along as well, and we hope to be able to stick together, but as he is a ‘sitting up case’ and I am a liar – I mean a lying down case – we are parted; he is sent to another hospital and I see him no more. Sent off field post-cards as soon as possible. Got put in a real bed, but cannot lie down without coughing. This place is a school, and the stove is broken. Room very cold. Could not sleep at night; several very bad cases.

 

Wednesday December 23

A very restless night, many poor fellows, dying all round me. Do not like to think of this part of it. The Sisters are so good. They do not spare themselves. Always bright and cheerful, they do the noblest work of anyone in the war.

 

Some of the cases are quite humorous. One Sergeant, shot through he lungs, is great fun. He is getting all right, but has been wounded in such a way that the lungs pump air into the tissue of his body and he is swelled up all over, like a balloon. The doctor says if you touch him he crackles, and adds the comforting assurance that cases of this kind (don’t pretend to remember what it’s called) always recover.

 

Another man, brought in late at night, is wounded in the head. Doctor looks at him, raises his head, and says ‘It’s no use doing anything to him, poor fellow,’ and goes on to the next case. In the morning, when the doctor is going his rounds, a plaintive voice comes from the corner, ‘Ain’t nobody going to dress my ‘ead or nothink?’ Doctor goes over and examines him. ‘Why good gracious’ he says ‘when you came in last night I thought you were past mending. When I lifted your head, I heard the bones of your skull grating; thought you were all smashed to bits. You must have been grinding your teeth just at the moment. Let’s have those dressings here Sister.’

 

Letter of December 23 1914 France – wounded

 

Christmas Eve

Another rotten night, could not sleep, so thought out an idea for some verses to pass the time away. Try to be as lively and cheerful as possible because more chance of being thought well enough to be moved on. Sister comes in and starts boiling up some instruments over a spirit lamp to sterilize them. Ask her to do me an egg, and ask her how long it takes to hard boil a pair of scissors. Hurrah! Doctor says I can be moved today. Good business. Am taken out, collecting as many of my goods and chattels as possible, but where, oh where, are my boots and putties?

 

Told I shall not want them, so resign myself to my fate. Able to freeze onto haversack, German ammunition pouch, a souvenir of the trenches near ‘Wipers’, and my faithful red pot. Taken to the station and shoved in, stretcher and all, through the window of a first-class sleeping car on a Paris-Lyons-Mediterrean train, which has been converted to a hospital train. And it is very comfortable too. Nice nursing sisters give us chocolate and oranges.

 

Pass through St Omer and try and look out, to see if any of my friends of the French Territoriaux are still there, but the station is almost deserted, no troops seem to be about. Evident that the advanced base, or head-quarters, or whatever it was, has shifted from there.

Wonder how the boys are getting on. Seems mean to be in comparative luxury, somehow, while they are still roughing it.

 

Arrive at Boulogne about midnight. Shifted out into ambulance – getting the stretcher out of the window with me on it, is rather like shifting a piano. Big hospital on wharf, very comfortable. Washed by large RAMC orderly, who looks like a bishop, but isn’t. He is very astonished at some mud left on my knee, inadvertently. By Indian bearer, who performed the last operation of the link. Touches tender spot on my shoulder, ‘Mind my shoulder!’ ‘ That ain’t yer shoulder, that’s yer back’ says her, giving it a thump that jars me right through...Tell him what I think of him, and a certain coolness arises. However, he’s a good chap, and a joke soon puts things right again. Real clean sheets on the bed; haven’t seen such things for months.

 

Christmas Day

Woke up, wondering where I was. Remembered, and also remembered what day it was. Saw a nurse and wished her a happy Christmas. Doctor came round, a Canadian. One of the best. Sisters came round with parcels, also Princess Mary’s Christmas tobacco box and pipe, card form the King and Queen, and all sorts of things. Doctor ticketed me for home, the best Christmas present he could have given me. Real Christmas dinner, with a real bottle of English beer. Made a Christmas card for the nurses out of a  piece of notepaper. Lady Somebody and the Honourable Miss Somebody else came and talked for a bit. One of the Sisters told me who they were afterwards, but most ungratefully I promptly forgot their names. Some Sisters of St John’s Ambulance came round with a box of presents – one of them gave me a knife. Insisted on giving her a halfpenny for it (old superstition about cutting love if you don’t).

 

Must be something in that superstition, as I did not look at the blade of the knife until after she had gone. On it was stamped ‘Made in Germany’. Moved out in afternoon, into another motor ambulance, and onto the Hospital ship St Patrick, with holly at her (it ought to be his) mastheads, and a gangway so sloping that I nearly slid back off the stretcher head first into Boolong again, being carried up it.

 

Then down a lift, and put into a cot in a very draughty ‘tween decks gangway. Here regret to record the death of my faithful air pillow. Well and truly it has served me, in barn and byre, wagon and truck, on floor and bed. Now, at last, it gave up the ghost, having got punctured somehow; softly and silently it subsided, without a sigh or a murmur, gently letting me down, until its once soft buzzing was no more, and it became merely a very dirty and crumpled square or tartan silk. Resolve to keep it, and hang it up at home as a banner.

 

Little nurse form Scotland knew friends in Edinboro’ and I kent her faitherr, too. It’s a small world after all. Curtains in the doorway kept out the draught, and so had a good night. Smooth passage, but just enough of a ‘Shoogle’ to make some bad sailors unhappy.

 

Wakened by bump of pilot boat alongside, and lots of moons on the walls, caused by searchlights shining through the portholes. Hear the anchor go down in Southampton Water, where we are to lie off till morning, and go to sleep again.

 

Boxing Day

Here we are again, back again in old England. Shoved into hospital train for Manchester. Try to get to London, but have to go where put. Never mind, jolly lucky to be anywhere. Haven’t been to Manchester for about three years. Wonder if it is still raining there. It was when I left. On arrival after long train journey, found that it still is. Carried out of train by stalwart Constables and put in Police ambulance. Want to know if it is without the option of a fine, and plead first offence. Never been in hands of police before. Very good new hospital here, new central branch of the Infirmary. Suppose next stop is the workhouse. Never mind, only thing is to get fit again as soon as possible, and then, well we shall see.

 

All the same, cannot help thinking of beautiful chorus so popular with the knuts of the trenches:-

 

‘Don’t go to the front, Daddy,

Don’t risk your life,

Don’t go to the front, Daddy,

Think of your children and wife,

Don’t go to the front, Daddy,

Promise me dearie you won’t.

As I took off my bonnet and putties I said,

‘I’ll take jolly good care that I won’t!’

 

Hospital letters

 

 

Duncan finally returned home on 7th January. Soon after this he stops keeping his little day-to-day diary, although not before it records his return to a full social life and regular dining at his club.


 

 

Duncan was shot on the front line at Givenchy. His friend Sparks was shot a few moments before him. They withdrew from the front together and sat in the same ambulance, waiting for transport to a clearing station.

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