One corner in
particular near Ypres had been shelled very heavily, and broken stone,
pave and bricks lay scattered about everywhere.
All the while the roar of guns and the whistle of flying shells had
increased. We reached the ambulance in Ypres between dusk and dark; it
was light enough to see that the front of the building, which had been
intact earlier in the afternoon, had been already scarred with pieces
of flying shells. The shutters which had been closed were torn and
splintered, and the brick work was pitted with shrapnel. We forced our
Turcos to descend and enter the ambulance, though from their protests
I judged they would have much preferred a continuous passage to the
country beyond Ypres.
As we entered the door Major Hardy (now Colonel Hardy, D.S.O.) was
found operating on one of his own men; the man had been blown off a
water cart down the street and his leg and side filled with shrapnel.
It was rather weird to see this surgeon coolly operating as if he was
in a hospital in Canada, and to hear the shells screaming overhead and
exploding not far away, any one of which might at any moment blow
building, operator and patient to pieces. That is one of the beauties
of the army system; each one in the army "carries on" and does his own
particular bit under all circumstances.
A terrific bang in the street outside, followed by the rattling and
crash of glass and falling of bricks, caused Rad to remark "there goes
the good old Lozier car.
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