One evening I walked into the Convent Hospital where the wounded lay so
thickly that I had to step over the stretcher loads. The beds were full,
the floor blocked, only one door open. There was a smell of foul blood,
medicines, the stench of trench clothes. It came on an empty stomach, at
the end of a tired day.
"Sister, will you hold this lamp?" a nurse said to me.
I held it over a man with a yawning hole in his abdomen. He lay
unmurmuring. When the doctor pressed, the muscles twitched. I asked some
one to hold the lamp. I went into the courtyard, and fainted. Hard work
would have saved me.
One other time, there had been a persistent fire all day. A boy of
nineteen was brought in screaming. He wanted water and he wanted his
mother. In our dressing station room were crowded two doctors, three
women, two stretcher bearers, a chauffeur, and ten soldiers. They cut
away his uniform and boots. His legs were jelly, with red mouths of
wounds. His leg gave at the knee, like a piece of limp twine. I went
into the next room, and recovered myself. Then I returned, and stayed
with the wounded. The greatest comfort was a doctor, who said it was a
matter of stomach, not of nerve. A sound woman doesn't faint at the
sight of blood any quicker than a man does. Those two experiences were
the only times when the horror was too much for me. I saw terrible
things and was able to see them.
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