FROM THE MOORS TO MAMETZ

 

 

Gwen brushed a strand of straggling hair away from her face. She was perspiring. Her long skirts were muddy and wet, clinging to her legs.  She’d been out on the bog for what seemed like hours. Her back ached. She could do with a cup of tea, but Mrs Read was a hard task mistress.

        ’ Get your backs into it girls,’ she’d shouted. ‘Our lads are doing their best in France. We don’t want to let them down, do we?’

       ‘It’s not as if I’m getting paid,’ she thought, and looked over at the forty women, pulling out clumps of soggy sphagnum moss from the bog. There were some elderly men, some who’d fought in the Boer War, now too old to fight, but willing volunteers in gathering moss for the war effort.

       It was mid summer, there was a weak drizzle and the light was fading. Gwen looked up at the Victorian towers of Princetown Prison rising out of the moor, and shuddered. ‘This place gives me the creeps,’ she said to herself. Then her thoughts turned as they often did to John, her fiancé. He’d been one of the first from the 8th Devonshire Regiment to be sent out to the battlefields. ‘I wonder what he’s doing at this moment? It can’t be any worse than this.’ ‘Silly girl!’ she heard him reply, and saw his smiling green eyes, just like in the photo he’d sent her of himself in uniform. ’I miss you, Gwen,’ they said. ‘I miss you, oh so much, John, ‘she muttered, and plunged her hand back into the slimy peat and pulled out a clump of gold sphagnum moss.  ‘I will write tonight, my love. Promise.’

        It was almost dusk by the time the volunteers had reached the prison officers’ lawn tennis court.  The drizzle had stopped and the air was steamy.

      ‘Empty your bags, and we’’ll rake the moss so it can dry,’ Mrs Read said.’ Well Done, girls. Good work. Your sweethearts would be proud of you.’

      It had been the Germans who had first thought of using sphagnum moss for wound dressings, although it had been used since ancient times. The Vikings are said to have used it for nappies and sanitary protection. Its antiseptic properties and ability to absorb fluids up to 20 times its weight made it a viable alternative to using cotton dressings, which were expensive and difficult to come by. It was estimated that 50 million sphagnum wound dressings would be needed during World War 1.

    ‘I need you to work inside today, Gwen,’ Mrs Read said the following morning, as she handed over a white uniform. ‘Heard anything from that fiancée of yours lately?’ she asked. Gwen’s anxious face gave Mrs Read her answer.

     ‘Tears aren’t going to help the war effort,’ she chided. Then more warmly, the older woman put her arm around Gwen’s shoulder. ‘We’re all in the same boat, dear. I haven’t heard from George or Harry for a while. We just have to believe-and pray- that God will look after them. Come on, work helps. And imagine, God forbid, if John was hurt or wounded, it could be one of your dressings that saves his life.’

     ‘Thanks, Mrs Read,’ Gwen said, as she twiddled her tiny diamond engagement ring around her finger, thinking ‘Bloody useless war.’

The moss had been moved into the house by some of the men, and was heated by the hot air from a furnace. The sphagnum was no longer green or gold. It was the colour of hay. It reminded Gwen of happier times, haymaking, when she and John had first met. She joined a group of women who had already started picking over the moss, removing twigs and bits of debris from its soft masses. It gave them a chance to gossip, share news of the war, and of loved ones.  Later it would be passed through a purifying solution by a worker wearing rubber gloves, squeezed through a mangle, and dried again. Dartmoor was the biggest centre in England for the collection and processing of sphagnum for wound dressings. The Prince of Wales himself would later visit and applaud their efforts. But now, was the part in the process that brought the reality of war home to Gwen, the making of the dressings themselves. Each dressing consisted of two ounces of moss, packed into a small flat muslin bag.  The bag would be folded and stitched.  Holding these little packages, she tried not to think of their consequent use. Later once perfected, dressings were made into packets of a dozen each, wrapped in papers for overseas, packed in bales of a hundred and covered in waterproof sheeting, ready for despatch.

       Gwen was forcing dried sphagnum into a muslin bag, her letter to John in the pocket of her white uniform, ready to post, when the news came through on the volunteers’ grapevine.  July 1st 1916. 163 men from 8^th and 9^th Devonshire Regiment killed, and many more injured in the battle for Mametz.  John’s name among the casualties.