'A large sign requests 'Quiet for the
Wounded' outside Charing Cross Hospital at Agar Street, London, in September
1914. Heavy traffic had been diverted to minimise noise in the street. '
Source: File: 'Quiet
for the Wounded'.jpg, 2015. The Long, Long Trail The British Army in the Great
War of 1914-1918 The military hospitals at home. [online] Available
at:<http://www.1914-1918.net/hospitals_uk.htm> [Accessed: 18 February
2015].
Source: File: 'Wounded
arrive at Hospital railway station in 1915'.jpg, 2015. The Long, Long Trail. Caledonian
Railway Association Forum. The
British Army in the Great War of 1914-1918. The military hospitals at home.
[online] Available at:<www.crassoc.org.uk> [Accessed: 18 February 2015].
In the tenth year since a station
roof collapse
Charing Cross rail station witnessed
another
Difficult event - Previously
in 1905, a tragedy
Having occurred, had killed six as
the curve
Of the roof being worked, cracked to
collapse.
Crushing four passenger trains - the
removal
Of the curved roof was replaced by a
utility
Structure, made of a furrow roof and
girders.
Under this very roof of a February
day in1915
Came sombre arrival of injured soldiers
of war.
For these passengers at the start of
the end
Of their journey, left from the
Netherlands
From the port of Flushing at Vlissingen,
To Britain and Folkstone - In a long
tiring
Journey. These ex-prisoners had
endured
A rainstorm at sea with a
south-westerly
Gale force wind making for rough
crossing,
Adding to the wounded soldier's
sufferings.
The bleak train with the large red
marks
Of crosses weaved in an English
countryside
Its time of arrival unknown - by
knowledge
Of the War Office, or each station
it passed.
The uncharted train had no timetable
but
Its own - its vague capital
arrival would be
Some time within the Wednesday
evening.
Perhaps the ghosts of a 1905 vendor
seller
And roof workmen watched, as the
black
Engine heaved its weary load of
carriages
Dimly into a waiting Charing Cross
Station -
A long shadow in a winter night with
stark
Slash of blood red marks that
decorated
Each side of each hospitalised
carriage.
The uncertain time of late evening
arrival
Had led to a few remaining people
waiting
To welcome the soldiers home - at
10.30 pm
Two hours later that expected the
smoking
Engine sighed, in the shed of
Charing Cross.
Moods of soldier’s departure, months
before,
In songs, flags, cheery waves of
hope, gone.
The halted carriages scarred by
their vivid
Red logos told of their containment
- men
Carefully selected by the German powers,
Exchanged for their own wounded soldiers.
Returned those, who no matter what
kind
Of treatment, could never again be
formed
Once more into an effective force of
fighters
Each carriage was filled with
attendants,
Nurses and their wounded convoy of men.
Without delay the process began to
move
These soldiers from the train to begin
them
On a final stage, to various
destinations
An operation by private motor and
rows
Of ambulances - the Scottish Red
Cross
Society awaited them on Villiers
Street.
They started to emerge most immobile
Reliant on stretchers and their
carriers.
With only official presence allowed within
The area of the platform those few
people
Of expectant friends or family were
unable
To make any claim to the men
conveyed
Across and out of the station - as
more
Crowds built to look, a police
presence
Prompted them back in respectful
silence,
As the serious conditions of the
injured
Passed before them, in evidence of
war.
With the class system being
maintained
Names of seven officers were
reported,
While the number of men numbering 93
-
A hundred men emerged pale and tired,
Yet as cheerful as many tried with
one
Man said he was 'delighted to be
home
Again’- In subdued cheer, out they
came
Under watchful civilians, who may
have
Had shown varied nervous expressions.
They had all come from various
centres
Of their captivity - spending most
of their
Time in enemy hospitals since gaining
Such wounds in the early months of
war
Little conversational effort was
made, yet
Some said that their medical
treatment
Had not lead to complaint from them
-
In contrast to ordinary prisoners of
war.
With most wounded men carried, only
A few men were able to walk, with
aid
From attendants, or stiff use of
crutches
Some soldiers seen had lost their legs,
Either one or both and some arms
gone.
For perhaps those that saw were
those
Men who had lost their sight of either
One or both eyes - their conditions
then
Emphasised by the sanitised bright white
Bandages about their limbs and heads.
Civilians in sad stares upon a
cavalcade
Of men in partial uniforms -
astonished
Looks of one side, as on the other
side
Expressions of efforts to carry
selves
Or to be carried from the dim night light
Of Charing Cross out onto dim
streets.
Yet within a raised spirit of being
amid
Their own country men was to keep a
lid
On sympathy and grief, for men
broken
By war to hide them away - perhaps
Into the arms of nurses to try and make
Them sound again like many broken
toys.
by Jamie Mann.
Anon.,1915. Charing Cross – A silent Greeting. The Daily Telegraph, [online] 18
Feb. P.9. Col.6. Available at: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/ww1-archive/11411756/Daily-Telegraph-February-18-1915.html
[Accessed: 18 February 2015].
Mann, J., 2015. 100 years Ago - Poems by Jamie Mann. [letter] (Personal
communication, 1 February 2015).
#WW1 #WW1centenary #GreatWar #WW1poem #GreatWar #ww1centenary
#worldwarone #worldwaroneremembered
No comments:
Post a Comment