Private Hale does
not appear in Nurse Oliver’s album but his tragic story warrants a paragraph in the Sussex Express edition of 4th February 1916. Private Hale’s is the only case I have come across of a critically
ill soldier being resident at Hickwells. For the most part the Auxiliary Home
Hospitals like Hickwells and Beechland House, took in men who were less seriously injured.
Private Hale obviously does not fall into that category and it appears probable that he died later as a result of his
wounds.
The article reads:
BULLET IN THE BRAIN - A pathetic
story is that connected with Private Hale, who is now at Hickwells Convalescent Home and who has a bullet lodged in his brain. The bullet lies in such a vital part that the doctors, up to the present, deem it
unwise to operate. When Private Hale, who is only 22 years of age, was leaving
by train for the seat of war, his sweetheart was seeing him away at the station. As
the train was moving out, however, the unfortunate girl, before her soldier lover’s eyes, was somehow caught by the
train and mangled between the footboard and the platform. To crown his ill-fortune,
however, he was notified, while fighting at the Front, that his father and mother were both dead.
Sources and Acknowledgements
