Dead in his Prime
his dressing station. He had inherited something of the old army superciliousness towards a "non-combatant" service, being unaware that in this war the battle casualties in the medical corps were to be higher than in any other arm of the service. From South Africa he wrote exactly fifteen years before: "I am glad that I am not 'a medical' out here. No 'R.A. M.C.' or any other 'M.C.' for me. There is a big breach, and the medicals are on the far side of it." On August 7th, 1915, he writes from his hospital post, "I expect to wish often that I had stuck by the artillery." But he had no choice.
Of this period of his service there is little written record. He merely did his work, and did it well, as he always did what his mind found to do. His health was failing. He suffered from the cold. A year before his death he writes on January 25th, 1917:
The cruel cold is still holding. Everyone is suffering, and the men in the wards in bed cannot keep warm. I know of nothing so absolutely pitiless as weather. Let one wish; let one pray; do what one will; still the same clear sky and no sign,—you know the cold brand of sunshine. For my own part I do not think I have ever been more uncomfortable. Everything is so cold that it hurts to pick it up. To go to bed is a nightmare and to get up a worse one. I have heard of cold weather in Europe, and how the poor suffer,—now I know!
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