6th July, 1916

The mud from the trenches sticking to their clothes...

Emma Duffin

VAD Nurse during the First and Second World Wars

[...] under the big arc lights in the station lay stretchers 4 deep so close one could scarcely fit one’s feet between all down to the platforms; at the end of the station were the walking cases;

They were part walking and the majority had been huddled together, their arms in slings and their heads bound up, the mud from the trenches sticking to their clothes and the blood still caked on them. […]

*Entry relating to influx of casualties from the Battle of the Somme, July 1st 1916.