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[Page 26]
out on a working transport, then four fresh men would take their place; this frequent changing was detrimental to the work, as it took some time to educate them in performing the necessary duties. I had always great trouble in procuring dressing material for my patients, and I was often given orders by the German N. C. O. not to use so much stuff in dressing them. God only knows what sort of a time the Englishmen would have had if I had depended entirely on the dressings supplied by the Germans. With a bit I received from the Germans, and what I got from the British Red Cross enabled me to keep the patients wounds clean until they were sent to England.
I am convinced that if it had not been for the thought of getting exchanged to England, that quite fifty per cent of these boys would have died, as many of them did, from want of heart.
Very often I found it necessary to perform minor operations. For instance, a man would be sent to the Exchange Barrack, and while waiting to be transferred to England his wound would give him trouble, and upon examination, I discovered perhaps, an abseess or a splinter of bone not far from the surface. I then suggested that the patient should see the doctor, but in the majority of these cases, the patient would beg of me to try and fix them up myself. I would only operate when I was sure that by taking the risk the patient would not miss his exchange: because if the doctor was called to a man in this condition he would not touch him until he went to the hospital, in which case he would miss his transport and then have to wait for months before getting away. It was through doing this class of surgical work being reported by one of