Here, as
soon as the soldiers were wounded, they could be brought for immediate
treatment. A young private had received a severe lip wound. Unskilful
army medical handling had left it gangrened, and it had swollen. His
face was on the way to being marred for life. Mrs. Knocker treated him
every few hours for ten days--and brought him back to normal. A man
came in with his hand a pulp from splintered shell. The glove he had
been wearing was driven into the red flesh. Mrs. Knocker worked over his
hand for half an hour, picking out the shredded glove bit by bit.
Except for a short walk in the early morning and another after dark,
these women lived immured in their dressing station, which they moved
from the cellar to a half-wrecked house. They lived in the smell of
straw, blood and antiseptic. The Germans have thrown shells into the
wrecked village almost every day. Some days shelling has been vigorous.
The churchyard is choked with dead. The fields are dotted with hummocks
where men and horses lie buried. Just as I was sailing for America in
March, 1915, the house where the women live and work was shelled. They
came to La Panne, but later Mrs. Knocker and Miss Chisholm returned to
Pervyse to go on with their work, which is famous throughout the Belgian
army.
As regiment after regiment serves its turn in the trenches of Pervyse it
passes under the hands of these women.
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