2i6 sportsmen Parsons in Peace and War 



splendid surgeon, most quick and skilful, but greatly over- 

 worked. He is a sight to see when he comes in to wash before 

 luncheon or dinner, bespattered all over with blood and stuff 

 from face to feet. . . . Do not mind if you do not get many 

 letters. We are sometimes up day and night getting wounded 

 off by trains or taking them to camp. Our hospital and all 

 tents are full of them. It is cold out in the open at nights now. 

 I could do with some writing-paper and envelopes, I write so 

 many letters for the wounded." 

 Later : 



" Convalescent Camp, 



" Rouen. 

 " We are all under canvas here. It is really wonderful to 

 see what they have done in the way of fixing things up ; there 

 are literally miles of country rigged and being rigged up into 

 hospitals and camps." 



10 Stationary Hospital. 



November 4, 1914. — " We have moved again and are now 

 within six hours' journey of London (in peace times), but yet 

 how far away ! Travelling here is very slow, and we were 

 thirty-nine hours in the train, and having got here had to unload 

 twenty-six tons of luggage from the train, reload it and cart it 

 something over a mile to hospital, then unload it again and 

 arrange it all. The whole of this in four hours ! ! We were 

 awfully tired, but had to take over about one hundred cases 

 in hospital. We had just finished when the Major received an 

 urgent wire instructing him to receive one hundred and fifty bad 

 cases from a sick train, so we began again and were at it all 

 night, but managed to get all settled in by 7 next morning. 

 Some were in a dangerous condition and have since died. We 

 bury them in blankets in an enormous trench, side by side. 

 The French are very kind and decorate the trench with flowers 

 and flags. I have been busy to-day seeing off a hundred of our 

 patients by ambulance train for the Base, and from thence 

 home. I would not mind a trip with them. 



" I was out yesterday at the front about two hundred yards 

 behind the trenches. I went with our senior Chaplain. . . . 

 We took a motor-car full of cigarettes, tobacco, pipes, matches, 

 and soap. The men were so thankful. The artillery fire was 



