Brewster 'A Glimpse of War through a Private's Eyes', a retrospective account of experiences in World War I, 1915-1917 / John James Brewster - Page 198
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[Page 198]
his label tied on to his tunic, each "case" took his seat in the Ambulance, & was given a large bowl of beef tea which tasted Oh! So good!! and then feeling really good, started for an hour's (or two) journey to the "Clearing Station"
Arriving there each man was given soup & biscuits & after being inoculated (against tetanus) awaited till his turn came to be sent to the Emergency Hospital, where his wound would be properly examined and operated on. While waiting here all those who could walk would seek amongst the men to find any friends "lucky enough" to "get out". In this Clearing Station, out of one Section of 12, five of them were here together, yet strange to say although every one was sent to England they never met again till reaching France the second time (One returned to Australia)
From the Clearing Station at Sailly the Emergency Hospital at Estaires was reached, that same afternoon. While here each case was taken in turn & each wound carefully examined, operated on, dressed, and classified for future treatment.
While waiting in the Yard we were very much surprised to see eleven Stretchers brought in, containing Huns, who appeared to have been most frightfully knocked about, one an officer looked so sullen & surly, that one man remarked it was a pity he was brought in. Another man remarked how grand it was that we should bring in Huns & treat them, but the response to that was, Why were not all the thousands of our own wounded lying "out there" brought in before a single Hun.
That instinctive desire to obtain a souvenir showed up plainly for some of our fellows immediately darted forward & examined the Huns tunics for badges or buttons but found that the "rule" had already been "run over them". While this was being done, one of the Huns said he had got an "Australian Souvenir"