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 228
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[Page 228]
with guns in the firing position decks with sailors, all eagerly scanning us. The Destroyer would steam up close & then quickly disappear into the fog. They quickly came & quickly went all working silently but continually. No cheering or demonstration. Here she comes! By Jove! she looks like a fighter! There she goes!
At last Dover is in sight. The trip over only occupied one hour & a quarter. On board the VADs & orderlies were very kind & gave tea, biscuits & chocolate to all that wanted them.
Seeing a stretcher being placed in position to take him ashore the sentry said Oh! Dont mind doing that I can walk now. Oh! You can! but they still continued preparing the stretcher. To "show" them, he jumped down from the berth & waited till the stretcher had been placed on the "shoot" for going to the main deck. Come on! Now let us see how well you can walk! but the staggering show was so poor that the sentry would have fallen had they not been ready. The Sentry was much worse that he thought.
Taken on board the train, right alongside the vessel, we were able, while waiting to admire the splendid organization of every part of this work. Each man seemed to know just exactly what to do, no trouble no delay, no confusion, every stretcher was at once taken to the proper place on the train & the patients at once made comfortable. The train crew comprised orderlies, Doctors, Nurses, & VADs & the patients had almost everything they wanted. Food, tea, biscuits & fruit also cigarettes & tobacco.
The first sight of the docks at Dover seemed to show the strength of England Everything seemed solid substantial & on a "big" scale.
While here we were informed that a Zepplin raid had occurred the night before & a bomb was dropped on a field near a church without damaging anything & another had landed on the sea beach smashing one or two pulling boats but killing