The Arrival of reinforcements only capable of seated work

And Douglas nabs a spy!

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“On October 9^th a sergeant, a corporal and six other ranks R.A.M.C. arrived from Archangel by tug for duty with me. They were all B. 111 category and looked it too!

On Oct. 11^th I had to make more room for convalescent patients so took over another empty house of four good-sized rooms just opposite No. 1 Convalescent House. The Americans have christened the former Hickey’s Hotel, and the latter is already named Myersville – Hickey and Myers being the American orderlies in charge.

I assisted at the capture of an alleged spy in the forenoon. He was a released Russian prisoner of war, and had been in Frankfurt for the last two years. Since he arrived in the village we noticed that he disappeared for a day or two at times, and nobody knew where he went to. When arrested he could not give a satisfactory explanation. We were led to believe that he had been given money by the Germans, when they released him, to spy on us for the Bolsheviks. He was an accomplished water-colour artist, and showed us some excellent paintings done by himself whilst at Frankfurt.

A batch of twenty Americans arrived from ‘up the line’ in the afternoon suffering from so-called ‘trench feet’. I diagnosed the complaint as ‘cold feet’ and ticked them off. On the ‘phone Little said that he thought there was a yellow streak in them.”

Medical officers classified the condition of men as they were examined on enlisting. General Ironside made much of the poor category of soldier that had been sent to Northern Russia and below is a chart of those categories.

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