The building we were in had been a day-school, and the top floor was
made up of large airy schoolrooms that were quite suitable for wards.
But the shelling recommenced so violently that the wounded all had to be
moved down to the ground floor and into the cellars. The place was an
absolute inferno. I could never have imagined anything worse. It was
fearfully cold, and the hospital was not heated at all, for there was no
wood or coal in Lodz, and for the same reason the gas-jets gave out only
the faintest glimmer of light. There was no clean linen, and the poor
fellows were lying there still in their verminous, blood-soaked shirts,
shivering with cold, as we had only one small blanket each for them.
They were lucky if they had a bed at all, for many were lying with only
a little straw between them and the cold stone floor. There were no
basins or towels or anything to wash up with, and no spittoons, so the
men were spitting all over the already filthy floor. In the largest ward
where there were seventy or eighty men lying, there was a lavatory
adjoining which had got blocked up, and a thin stream of dirty water
trickled under the door and meandered in little rivulets all over the
room.
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