5th May 1917 Saturday

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“I left the Gare Maritime (station) at 2am on May 5th for the Front once more. I got a great send-off from the hospital staff, and the Commanding Officer and Padre came down to the station to see me off. This train crawled into Rouen at 6am. I had a wash and breakfast at the Officers’ Club and reported to the D.A.D.R.T (Deputy Assistant Director of Railway Transport), who reconsigned me for Hazebrouck, the train leaving at 3pm, so I had lunch at the club, and a look around the old town. The Cathedral was a wonderful building. Lots of Hun prisoners were working about the place.

The train left at 4pm and there were five of us in a stuffy carriage – 2 Irishmen, a South African, 1 Englishman and myself!” 

Life at the seaside town of Le Havre, both as a patient and a working doctor now came to an end and the tedious train journey into the unknown began again.

http://www.searlecanada.org/volturno/volturno84.htm

German prisoners of war wait at the quayside in Rouen to unload an incoming ship.

A postcard of Rouen and Cathedral in 1917

Find out about our connection with Dr Page and an introduction to his diary here