ST. OMER MEMORIES.

War Wit, Volume 1, Issue 8, 1 September 1941, Page 1

ST. OMER MEMORIES.

Old hands have hated to hear how St. Omer has been knocked about. It was much in the news of batterings when the Germans broke, into France, and now the R.A.F. has been bombing it. At St. Omer stood the casualty clearing station which gave us the ease and coolness of clean sheets, decent beds, and a certain serenity, even if we were suffering, after the mire and hardships of the line. It was at St. Omer, too, that our temperatures went up in a way that gives a chuckle still. There was a rush of cases from the line and in our ward a light-duty Digger, helping as orderly, was told in the flurry to take the thermometers round and register the readings on the cards. He admitted he didn’t know what to do and the bloke in No. 1 bed said we’d help him. ® . Patient read his own thermometer and gravely said: “Put down 110 degrees.” We all took up the joke and some extraordinary “temps” were registered. When the M.O. came round his face registered astonishment as he looked at the first medical chart. He turned quickly to the next and then passed along to several others. “A hundred and ten, a hundred and seventeen, a hundred and

twenty-five. Good heavens! Two hundred and fifty!” he exclaimed. “Sister! Every man in this ward is dead, and some of them must be roasting in the hottest parts of hell.” - Then the laughter came. Everybody enjoyed the joke except the pseudo orderly, who seemed to think we’d worked the dirty on him. St. Omer’s biggest laugh — started among nurses — happened over the tab attached to a new arrival from the front. Every case was tabbed at the first-aid station, M.O. dictating the wording to an orderly — “S.S.” (shell-shock). “Shrap. W.” (shrapnel wound), etc., with some of the rarer cases written out in full.. In this particular case the M.O. had dictated “Premature Burst,” but the orderly had not. caught the words properly. And so a big, rough Digger reached the hospital labelled “Premature Birth.” It took a little , time to wheedle the joke out of the giggling nurses, but when it got round we all laughed. ; ' ■■■ . ■? ■ * * ♦ , In these days of modern weapons, arrows on war maps seem a bit out of date.