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[Page 59]
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field, and they appeared not to take the slightest notice of the guns. From their imperfect English, and my more imperfect French, I gathered that it was not unusual, only that in contrast to the quietude of the Valley did it sound so alarming.
PART 14.
From the 16th May to the 23rd., my diary records being disturbed every night, sometimes twice and once three times. All around suffered badly, Calais, Dunkirk, Hazeruck, [Hazebrouck] and nearer to us Le Portel, where a school was shattered, and many children killed.
On the night of the 20th was that awful raid, more diabolical than any, when bombs were dropped on to the hospitals at Etaples, and there were at least eight hundred casualties, and would have been more but for the presence of mind of some of the nurses, who got as many patients as possible out of bed and took them to the woods near at hand, where they scattered as much as possible.
There can be no possible excuse for that onslaught. It was a brilliantly moonlit night. The red crosses on the white tents showed out clearly. Messages were sent all the evening that they were bombing the hospitals, and yet they continued. Even those who had to take shelter outside were cut down by machine guns flying low.
The reports of their hideous night's work were too awful, men even blinded as they lay helpless. Limbs were severed, and indescribable agony prevailed.
Women of the Q.M.A.A.C. [Queen Mary's Army Auxiliary Corps] in this area had a narrow escape. The ordinary dug-outs proved inadequate, and they were only removed to a well, that had previously served to store munitions, when their dug-out was completely wrecked. It was a nerve trying experience to get them to this refuge, for owing to its depth, and the ladder entirely perpendicular, one at a time only could descend backwards, while those at the top had to lie prone, separated as much as possible until their turn.