Chapter II: Of a Hospital Ship and Sick Leave

Three days after that picnic and its sad ending we weighed and returned to the winter anchorage. Of the weeks that followed there is little to tell, as of the few incidents which broke the monotony of ordinary routine discretion forbids mention.

Some time in November we proceeded to ——, which same, although a very one-horse place in ordinary circumstances, was a step beyond the more northerly district in point of civilization. But we had only been there about two weeks when I was knocked out by a chill which refused to yield to ordinary remedies. My previous winter, spent mainly in tropical climes, had rather unfitted me for the semi-arctic conditions obtaining in the North Sea.

After a couple of days spent in the dignified seclusion of a cabin, the Fleet Surgeon packed me off to the hospital ship _China_. This was real jam, for I was not so ill but that I was able to highly appreciate the comfort and luxury provided by a paternal Government for the sick N.O. Moreover, the Captain of the hospital ship proved to be an old acquaintance who had often entertained me and my former messmates on his ship when she and the _Goliath_ were lying together at Mombasa a year before. I was put into the officers' ward, which was empty at this time, and the nurses were most awfully kind and attentive. One does appreciate feminine ministrations after living for so long in the exclusive society of the mere man.

It was with great glee that from my luxurious idleness I watched the Fleet depart once more for the northern base, hugging the knowledge that the medical powers had decreed that I was to go south in a few days' time.

On December 2 I said "good-bye" to the staff of the _China_ and embarked in a drifter for the beach. On arrival I walked to the station and there waited for the ambulance with the doctor and the other patients. When they turned up, I strolled up and down with Dr. —— for about three-quarters of an hour until the hospital train came in. This train was magnificently appointed, with big coaches—rather like Pullman-cars, fitted up with swinging cots. The officers' sleeping compartment consisted of one of these cars divided by a curtain from the men's half, and containing about six cots. For some four hours—except when the two medical officers attached to the train staff came in to bear me company—I had this compartment to myself. When the train stopped at Queensferry I was joined by a Sub-Lieutenant R.N. and a Sub. of the R.N.R.—both "sitting cases," i.e. not very seriously ill. As soon as we got under way again, dinner was served, and about 9 P.M. we all turned in. Personally I slept very soundly, only waking up once at some station—York, I think—where a gunner who was a "stretcher case" was put aboard.

At eight next morning we arrived in London, where we stopped for some hours, and from whence we proceeded to Chatham. Here a Lieut.-Commander—also a "sitting case"—was added to our party, and at four o'clock in the afternoon we started back to London again, and there we once more spent a long time waiting for—Heaven knows what! On the following day we arrived at Devonport, where the Lieut.-Commander left us. By this time the journey had begun to assume the vague irresponsibility of a dream, and, as in a dream, there seemed to be no reason why it should ever come to an end. We seemed destined to just go on—and on—and on—wandering around the various railway systems of England and Scotland, and stopping aimlessly for an indefinite period at whatever spot caught the engine-driver's errant fancy! But it really did not matter, for it was very warm and comfortable in the train, so—let the dream go on!

However, it ended at Portsmouth at 6.30 P.M. on the third day of my journeying. Portsmouth was my final destination as well as that of all the other cases in the train. Large ambulance cars were in waiting, and these eventually deposited us at Haslar Hospital about seven o'clock. Here our first interview was with the matron, then we proceeded to the doctor on duty for the day, who took down particulars of our respective maladies. Dinner in the officers' mess followed, after which we again saw the matron, who then told us in which cabins we were billeted. Mine was situated in B Block, and a long way from the officers' mess, and so, as the R.N.R. Sub. who had been one of my fellow-travellers was also located in that block, as soon as I had settled my gear in my cabin I went along to his and smoked and chatted with him for about half an hour before turning in.

Next morning I had my breakfast in bed, and had to remain there until I had been visited by the doctor, after which I got up. By the time I was dressed my spirits had drooped to a very low ebb. The cabin was a most comfortless apartment, sparsely furnished and with its only window giving on to a gloomy enclosed courtyard where the rain pattered dismally down from a leaden square of sky. I felt as though I was in prison "doing time" for some sordid and wholly uninteresting crime.

However, about four o'clock came a joyful surprise in the shape of a telegram from my mother, saying that she was coming over to see me and would arrive next day. On the moment depression vanished, for I felt certain that she would devise some means to relieve the tedium of my confinement. Sure enough, as soon as she arrived she interviewed the doctor and soon persuaded him that I was quite well enough to go home, and after she had signed the requisite form undertaking to be responsible for any further medical treatment I might require, she returned to Portsmouth, where I joined her on the following day.

That night, December 8, we crossed over to our island, and I recollect a rather funny episode on that journey. Some swollen-headed Jack-in-office in the passport department at Southampton said he could not pass me because I had no document from the hospital authorities showing that I was on sick leave. The Lord only knows if the fool thought I was a deserter, or if he was merely a confirmed obstructionist making trouble for the fun of the thing. Anyway he was sullenly obstinate, entrenched in his "little brief authority," and declared that he could not and would not pass me! It looked like being a pretty muddle, for it was 10 P.M. and raining cats and dogs. Then mother came to the rescue with a perfectly gorgeous piece of "bluff." Declaring that she had not the smallest intention of remaining indefinitely at Southampton, or of going on without me, she calmly requested him to ring up the _Admiralty_, when she would get him orders from headquarters. He could not have looked more amazed if she had demanded a trunk call to Heaven. But she was as firm as if she knew she held a royal flush to his pair of knaves, and so he hurriedly climbed down, and said he would take the responsibility of passing me, and we proceeded in triumph aboard the L.S.W.R.'s steamer which was lying alongside the quay, and so reached home the next morning without further incident.

_I may here remark that I was perfectly certain that the man was wrong, for if any such document had been really required, the hospital authorities would have provided it. The Navy does not neglect detail._

I had been granted sick leave to extend over Christmas, which was a tremendous stroke of luck, but the time passed all too quickly, and on January 4, 1916, we went to London for my medical survey. I was passed fit on the 5th, and expected to have to rejoin at once. However, to my intense surprise and delight, I ran into one of our Snotties in Bond Street that afternoon, and he told me that our ship was in dock and they had all been granted ten days' leave, so I had that extra time in London, where we did some theatres and enjoyed ourselves royally.