The journey had seemed long enough in spite of its many incidents, as day by day we watched the pretty though uninteresting fields slip by, or restlessly paced the stations during the interminable halts, with little food for thought, save vague surmises as to the future, and little to eat save the slightly bitter bread of the people and apples, the only things obtainable at wayside stations already ransacked by the hordes of hungry soldiers who had passed through earlier; and oftentimes we had been glad enough to descend from the carriages to refresh ourselves at the station pumps, marked "drinkable" or "non-drinkable," as the case might be.
We had formed an odd trio. The tall, bent figure of the clergyman, with his dreamy demeanour and utter obliviousness of all things practical; my commandant, a young woman who, having spent most of her life at hospital work, hailed every diversion from the same gleefully. Everything to her was new, for she had never been out of England before, and to a veteran traveller her joy at the ways of this new country was extraordinarily interesting. Thirdly, there was myself, fresh from the salutary discipline of the wards of a London hospital.
And now it is all over, that journey. The destination is reached. The Unknown will soon be revealed.
The Commissioner to whom we were directed received us with open arms.
"Nurses—thank God!" was the exclamation as we were turned over to the mercies of the billeting officer, who designated an airy room overlooking the quayside, on the third floor of the Red Cross headquarters, for our use.
Yet it appears that in spite of the dearth of nurses there are many formalities to be gone through before we can begin work; and as only nurses who have had three years' training in a big London hospital are to be accepted (for is anything but the best good enough for our fighting men?), there may be some difficulty for probationers.
Thus, having deposited our bundles in our billets, we were sent to see Lady —— at the hotel, where she combines the duties of lady-in-waiting to Queen Amélie of Portugal and organiser-in-chief of the Red Cross nurses.
Here we learned for the first time of the confusion that arises out of the fact that both qualified nurses and members of the Voluntary Aid Detachment are wearing the same uniform; we heard, too, of the difficulties experienced by the authorities to prevent unlicensed people organising hospitals which they are unfitted to run.
As we wended our way back wearily through the lighted, crowded streets teeming with life (Miss A—— having signed a year's contract as a trained nurse), something told me that this is to be the scene of my activities too; that so long as my betrothed is in France, Providence will let me play my part.
On returning to headquarters we learned for the first time the unpleasant function of the Censor. All letters have to be left open, posted in the military box, and, if they are to pass the Censor, must contain no mention or description of places, troops, ships, people we have met on our journey, etc.
This is not merely a precaution against spies, we are told, but a measure of prudence in regard to false rumours; for men who have never got farther than Boulogne, and never been within gunshot, have been known to write home long tirades about the bloody trenches in which they stand all day, dodging fragments of shells and killing Germans by the score!
October 28th. After breakfast this morning we set out to see whether there were any letters from home at the Consulate. On our way up the hill a funeral overtook us. There were four hearses and seven coffins, each covered with a Union Jack, which contrasted strangely with the weird-shaped French funeral carriages and the drivers in costumes like beadles with large three-cornered hats.
We followed the cortège a quarter of an hour up the hill to the cemetery, where the newly consecrated ground was full of freshly covered graves.
The coffins were soon lowered, and as they lay there in a row not an eye of the little group of onlookers was dry.
The R.A.M.C. pall-bearers, the chaplain who went through the service with a rapidity that showed his familiarity with the job, a handful of French peasants—that was all. And they laid them to rest at the top of the hill, and only two English nurses who never saw them could bear the message of their last resting-place to their homes. God! that such wanton destruction should be.
Opposite our window, as I write, the ambulance men are deftly unloading a train and carrying their sad, still burdens aboard the hospital ship on which Miss A—— crossed from Ostend. All day long, all night long, the wagons come and go. Funerals pass, not one, but three, four, five at a time, followed by orderlies; turbaned Sikhs and Gurkhas, looking quaintly odd with their unaccustomed shirts (gifts, no doubt, from some willing helpers at home) hanging loose below their coats, like a flounced skirt, and creating a perfect sensation whenever they pass the simple peasant folk.
Later, we walked into Wimereux and took snapshots of the wounded Tommies who thronged the beach. They were mostly arm and leg cases, and a cheery, if rough-looking, lot too, in their bedraggled khaki, which, from the distance, was scarcely distinguishable from the sands.
The Reverend E—— N—— has found plenty to do, and is already taking work out of the overtaxed Bishop's hands. I, in the meantime, am making the best of my leisure and enjoying every hour of the sunshine. "Father N.," as we call the padre, got into conversation with an Army veteran to-day at lunch, whose views were interesting.
"Do you think the Germans will get to Calais?" he asked.
"Probably not; but if they do, they'll make for here. This is the place they're after—as a post for their submarines. And Heaven knows what we shall do with our stores. It won't be possible to get them away in time!"
About a mile along the quay we came upon the debris of a camp with the fire still burning; piles of reaping machines, traction engines and carts, all bearing the names of English firms from Manchester to Crouch End, lay alongside; and, finally, in the distance there hove in sight the French refugee ship which was blown up in the Channel yesterday between here and Folkestone.
In the evening we joined a group of nurses round the fire. They are pleasant girls just down from Paris, where they did relieving work at some of the hotel hospitals.
The Astoria in particular they describe as a maze. "You go to get a drink of milk for a patient, and when you've found the milk you've lost your man and may hunt for hours, only to find in the end that his need has already been supplied," they say. Their assistants were culled from the French nobility, whose unflagging efforts to help are typical of France's indomitable spirit. Amusing incidents often occur.
One doctor, on being much pressed, accepted an invitation to tea with a well-known aristocratic family, who assured him they were inviting people who would be of especial interest to him. His amusement on arriving may be pictured when he found that the other guests consisted of a roomful of wounded Tommies.
Another doctor, overwhelmed by the amount of titles to whom he had been introduced, meeting a nurse in the corridor, began wearily with:
"Look here, I say, now, are you a blooming princess?" before he gave his orders!
In spite of the wonderful dirt and bad drainage that reigns in the nurses' quarters, we must be grateful, they say, for our accommodation. Nurses aren't expected to require much, it seems. Someone quoted the old chestnut from Punch of the lady who, on being asked by the newly arrived nurse in which room she was to sleep, exclaimed in blank amazement:
"Oh, but I thought you were a trained hospital nurse!"
October 29th. Let me tell the tale of No. —— Stationary Hospital. It should go down to posterity as a memorial of what British resourcefulness may achieve, even if its existence was the outcome of the proverbial British state of unpreparedness. For what in the annals of History has equalled the holocaust and chaos of modern warfare, of which there was no precedent, of which everything has had to be learned by the bitterest experience?
Three days before we left England, at the beginning of the fight for Calais, which continues to grow more violent daily, a certain Major N—— found himself in charge of the wounded who were being brought down by the thousand in trains, and left helpless on their stretchers by the quayside to await the arrival of the ever-busy hospital ships.
Already the C—— and I—— Hotels were choc-à-bloc with wounded, who lay so close together in the corridors that it was necessary to climb over one stretcher to reach the next patient, and often stand astride the pallets to dress the wounds.
The Casino was opened, but in less time than it takes to tell was as crowded as the others.
A disused sugar shed, a vast wooden barn whose cracked cement floor is piled high with dust, whose smashed glass roofing is besmirched with dirt, is hardly an ideal site for a hospital, but it is the best thing to hand, and the Major commandeered it, and here, before the lumber had been cleared, before the glass had been repaired or the walls whitewashed, the wounded began to tumble in. It wasn't much of a place, but it was out of the torrential rain which had set in and bade fair to continue, and it was less cold than the open air.
By day and night the orderlies worked, alternately preparing the place and attending to the wounded. A solitary English girl who happened to be on the spot had volunteered her services, and was doing her best single-handed in the wards. One day the Major, walking on the quay, saw some Red Cross nurses. They were the identical ones we had met on their arrival from Paris. On hearing they were waiting for their orders, and that they were all qualified women, he commandeered them, even as he had commandeered his barn. Back they came to Headquarters to fetch more assistance.
"Why don't you come too? It's a case of all hands aboard!" said one. It was thus I came to work at the first clearing station at the base. Such was the stationary hospital when, laden with all the loaves we could carry to supplement the ration biscuits, we set to work in the "casualty ward" this afternoon.
For the thousand wounded likely to come through daily there are six fully-trained nurses and myself, besides the male staff of R.A.M.C. doctors and orderlies, and two or three Red Cross surgeons and lady doctors.
Ten beds and a number of sacks of straw form the main equipment. Planks, supported by two packing-cases, are the dressing-table. At one end men are engaged in putting in three extemporary baths, others whitewashing the walls.
A boatload had just left for England as I came in, and we proceeded to get a meal for those who remained. But it was a struggle to get sufficient tea out of the orderlies, who had been working all night and were dead beat. The men's delight at the bread and old newspapers we had brought in was incredible.
Those who were able to, clustered round the solitary stove in the centre. Great rough, bearded fellows, covered with mud from the trenches in which they have lived for weeks, how different they look from those who set out! The worst cases lay on their stretchers as they had arrived. One said simply, as I took him his tea, "This is heaven, Sister."
A tall, dark man entered—the C.O., someone said. "Take those two Germans down to the boat," I heard him order. Then, turning to us, "You'd better come to our mess-room and get some tea yourselves," he said. "Four trainloads are expected in shortly."
We trooped into the small sanctum dignified by the name of "mess-room," where the Major's orderly was busy preparing tea on a Primus stove. There was no milk, but the bitter black beverage out of the large tin mugs was welcome none the less. Someone had secured a cake that we cut with a sword as the cleanest thing present.
Next to the mess-room are the officers' quarters (into which we were privileged to take one glance)—small whitewashed cubicles furnished with a camp bed, a shaving-glass about three inches by six inches in size, and an old sugar-box converted into a washstand.
Tea finished, we set to work to get "beds" ready for the next batch, the first of the four trainloads expected. Ten bedsteads for a thousand men! It sounds almost incredible, but it is nevertheless true; and although we are told that more are expected at any moment, we have only wooden pallets at present and a limited supply of blankets. One to lie on, two for cover, a coat for a pillow was the order of the day until a pile of mattresses came in.
October 30th. We worked till midnight and were on duty again by 7.30 this morning. From our billets to the hospital is nearly half an hour's walk, which, over the rough cobblestones in the blinding rain, is hardly attractive. At any rate, it has the advantage of clearing the haunting smell of the gas-gangrene out of our nostrils. As we came on duty this morning, laden with every old journal we could find, a huge, burly Scotsman let himself down from the ambulance train. We gave him a newspaper, but he was inclined to talk. He is the first man I've met so far who has signified his longing to get back to the firing-line.
"While I've a limb left," he said, "I should like to have a pot at the Germans. And I can fire my machine as well with two fingers as with five—if they'll let me."
The cause of his indignation was the mutilated corpse of a Red Cross nurse they had found in a little village where the Germans had been.
"God knows how far they'd dragged her round with them, but she was horribly mutilated," he said with a shiver. "I'm a big man, but our major was bigger, yet neither of us could help choking. And can ye wonder we want to get at 'em again?"
The worst part of the wounds is the fearful sepsis and the impossibility of getting them anything like clean.
"First time I've had my boots off for seven weeks!" is the kind of exclamation that recurs all day, as we literally cut them off. Hardly any of the boots have been off for three weeks, with the result that they seem glued on, whilst the feet are like iron, the nails like claws.
Some of the men have not had their wounds dressed since the first field dressing was applied, for the simple reason that the rush on the hospital trains makes it impossible to attend to any but the worst cases, many of whom, as it is, are dying of hæmorrhage, accelerated by the jolting on the journey.
There is no time to do anything but the dressings, and if we did want to wash the patients there is nothing but the red handkerchiefs we hang round the lights for shades by night, for towels by day.
Water, especially boiling water, is at a premium, as it all has to be fetched from outside where the veteran cook stokes hard all day in the driving rain, ladling us out a modicum into each bowl from his cauldrons.
"I never thought to see such sights," exclaimed a nurse of thirty years' experience as a new trainload came in. But we have no time to think of our own sensations.
Fingerless hands, lungs pierced, arms and legs pretty well gangrenous, others already threatening tetanus (against which they are now beginning to inoculate patients), mouths swollen beyond all recognition with bullet shots, fractured femurs, shattered jaws, sightless eyes, ugly scalp wounds; yet never a murmur, never a groan except in sleep. As the men come in they fall on their pallets and doze until roused for food.
A few are enraged to madness at the sight of a German.
"They fired on our Red Cross!" they cry. "Burnt every man alive! Why do we treat them so well?"
Quite a number of prisoners who had been taken near Lille were brought into the clearing station this morning. Being the only linguist present, I was installed as interpreter. They were in a horrible state of nerves, and asked when they were likely to be killed.
One of them was nastily peppered about the heart with shrapnel and asked: "When shall we be shot?" I explained whilst dressing his wounds that Britain is a civilised country, and, in contrast to the Huns, does not hit a man when he is down. Never shall I forget the look of relief on the man's face.
"They told us we'd be tortured if you got us!" he exclaimed.
Later on I was asked to send a card to his mother. It was difficult to know what to say, but "Your son, though a prisoner and wounded, is safe and being well cared for," seemed to meet the occasion. Suddenly without a word he seized the scissors from my belt. Recalling tales of vindictive prisoners, I stepped back. The precaution was unnecessary, for the little Hun was only cutting a button off his coat pocket.
"Hier, Sie haben ja nichts genommen" ("Here, you have not taken anything"), he exclaimed, Teuton boorishness veiling the kindliness as he handed me the "souvenir."
A strangely human incident occurred a little later.
A group of Tommies were watching a Boche having a bayoneted hand dressed. He spoke quite good English, but was apparently too frightened to answer any of their sallies. Presently, however, he turned to me with a request that he might be allowed to send a line to his wife to say he was alive.
"'E's young to 'ave a wife, Sister," suggested a lame man, the maintenance of whose large family apparently proved a burden to him.
"'Ow old are yer? You?" he added, addressing the prisoner.
The Hun pulled out an old letter-case and abstracted the portrait of a pretty English-looking girl in a garden arbour.
"My vife," he exclaimed. "She has seventeen years, I nineteen. Ve was married two days when I come away!"
In a moment the hostile crowd round him was turned to one of sympathisers. "Poor beggar! After all, he probably doesn't want to fight any more than we do," said the lame man.
"No," replied the prisoner, and all the racial antagonism of Saxon versus Prussian showed itself in his words, "Ve Saxons not want war—ve want peace—but they not ask us!"
October 31st. Who could believe, had they not seen for themselves, the manifold horrors of war? The vermin, against which there is no coping, vermin that in ordinary times one never saw. The men are alive with them, so are we, a fact which necessitates a tremendous "search" at every available opportunity. Even amputated limbs are found to be crawling.
The girl who was working single-handed in this barn until we arrived was walking along the quay yesterday when a feeble voice called her from a stretcher. It was her brother. He died in the night, but she is on duty all the same.
All day long the rush continues. The question "Shrapnel or bullet?" rings incessantly in our ears as each man comes up to get his dressing done.
One boy of nineteen had no fewer than six bullet wounds in one arm and two in each leg. It took two of us an hour to dress his wounds, and afterwards, as I washed his beardless face in response to a gentle request, I could scarce refrain from sending up a prayer of gratitude that my own brothers are dead and not mutilated like these boys.
Towards sunset I was called to the side of a youthful Saxon already rigid with tetanus.
Through his clenched teeth he could still groan to the orderly's command to lie still: "Ich kann nicht still liegen" ("I can't lie still").
At seven o'clock (after nearly twelve hours' work) we went home to dinner, and, it being our turn to take night shift, were back again at our posts, with clean aprons and a satisfied inner man, two hours later. The orderly officer called for any who had not yet had their second anti-typhoid injection, and I, being one of them, was injected on the spot.
During the long night, as we hurried from patient to patient in the darkened cry-haunted ward, covering the restless sleeping figures, moving them into more comfortable positions, with a prayer for each one's mother, I could screw up no feeling of resentment towards the dying Saxon boy, in spite of the cries of our men, but only against that vile Prussianism that brought up its children to regard rapine and slaughter as a divine necessity. By midnight things were quiet enough to allow us to cut up dressings as best we might. By this time, owing to there not being a chair in the place, I confess my legs were almost giving way. Moreover, the injection took speedy effect, and a stiffening arm and rising temperature do not facilitate work of this kind. Frankly, I do not think any of us will ever be as busy again, and our one prayer was for strength to "carry on." Many of the men were tormented by coughs that kept the others awake. All we had to give them was lukewarm water and the rinsings of a condensed milk tin. (For euphony we called it "milk.")
Those who could not sleep for vermin lit cigarette after cigarette until their supply ran out. At 2 A.M. we retired to the nurses' "bunk"—a whitewashed, rat-ridden, ill-smelling partitioned compartment, whose sole furniture consisted of two shelves—until someone was inspired to fetch the "dressing-table" (two empty boxes—oh, joy of joys! upon which we took it in turns to sit)—and a coke fire, on which we boiled eggs for our midnight meal. Half-way through my egg the orderly called me: "The prisoner can't last much longer. Will you come and speak to him, Sister?" It seemed as if the ward were one huge battlefield, for cries greeted me on all sides. "Get at 'em, lads!" shouted the burly Scot in the corner as he urged forward his comrades in his sleep. "Christ help us!" groaned an armless dragoon, coming round from the anæsthetic.
I soothed the dying German as best I could when the awful spasms came, and through his clenched teeth he signified the pain in the "kreuz" (small of the back). What could I say but "Guter Junge—bleib still. Es dauert nicht mehr lange!" ("Good boy—lie still. It will not last long now!") With his remaining hand he pressed mine as I wiped the pouring sweat from his brow. After all, suffering is a great leveller.
The orderly, an old South African campaigner, looked at the light that began to flood the sky.
"They usually go West at this hour," he remarked grimly, with a shudder. I shuddered too; the place was alive with spirits.
For a moment we seemed to hear the sigh of the departing, feel the rushing of many wings as they brushed past. Then a gaunt, muffled figure appeared at the door bearing a lantern, for all the world like a hoary figure of "Time," and we awoke to reality.
"I've brought down a trainload," he said. "A round dozen of them are urgent cases and must have beds."
Perforce we had to shift the sleeping forms on to the concrete floor, all bruised and torn and bleeding though they were, cutting shorter their all too short rest.
An officer was brought in wounded in the abdomen, but cheerfully talking of getting home. He, too, passed away before eight o'clock.
From the nursing point of view the work is most unsatisfactory, as disinfectants, to say nothing of dressings, are continually at low ebb. To-day the iodine ran out. One of the surgeons came round and signified his intention to dress a bad femur case. I had got together what things I could when he called for iodine. There being none to be had, he sighed resignedly, and with "Then we will leave the dressings for the present," walked off, only to return an hour later with a quantity he had found in the town.
Of course there can be no attempt at asepsis in a place so ill ventilated, or, rather, not ventilated at all, for there are no side windows, and, although the skylight is sufficient for lighting purposes, the ventilation is effected by means of the excessively draughty entrances.
It is distinctly unhealthy, and the odours in the place are indescribable and never to be forgotten. There is no lavatory accommodation—although latrines are situated along the quay, whither the blind are led by the armless, the lame carried on orderlies' backs.
Refuse of all sorts that cannot be burned in the incinerator is disposed of in the sea, and it is good to note that the sacks of straw are being gradually replaced by real beds and the supply of blankets is greatly augmented.
Unsatisfactory, too, from the nursing point of view is the fact that the men pass through the clearing station so rapidly that we seldom do the same dressing twice; and though there are days when, owing to rough seas or overladen boats, we are able to watch the progress of the patients, for the most part it is only the immovable cases that remain, and the rest are hurried through, leaving one wondering how they will get on.
Did I say hurried through? There is no need to hurry the men who are to go home, for no sooner is a boat announced than a general scramble ensues, and they will leave their breakfast, clothing, even their treasured trophies behind, in order not to be late.
"Just a bit of 'ome, and we'll be twice as strong for the next bit o' fightin'," they say.
There follows the inspection of labels (for each man is labelled for his destination: blue for England, yellow for Havre, white for a convalescent depot), and sad indeed are the faces of those to whom the medical officer has not vouchsafed the coveted blue ticket.
Just as day dawned, with a last spasm, more awful than the others, the little Saxon prisoner died. As his close-clenched jaws relaxed the orderly remarked: "Not bad-looking for a corpse, Sister; must have been a pretty child!"
I asked for his corpse number, but it was not to be found. In my heart I wished the boy's mother could have known he died well cared for.
It is all very primitive; we have no screens to hide what once was mortal from the others.
We came off duty at 10 A.M., just as another batch of 1,100 men began to arrive, and on our way home caught a glimpse of K. of K., who is paying an incognito visit, as he stepped from a destroyer.
November 1st. It is impossible to keep note of the daily occurrences. Things move too quickly out here—besides, if the spirit is willing the flesh is very exhausted. Nevertheless, not for a moment do our spirits flag; on the contrary, the worse things grow the more cheerful do we become, the more determined to make the best of things. It is strange that all the years we worked hard to amuse ourselves at home not one brought an eighth of the satisfaction of this.
There is a wonderful dearth of utensils, though the store grows larger daily. It is no infrequent occurrence to have to sally out to the nearest chemist to buy air cushions, eye baths, etc., as they are required.
Night, and the wards are full. Another train disgorges its burden. The stretcher cases have to remain on stretchers. The walking cases are huddled round the stove, extended on the concrete, their blood-stained, bug-ridden greatcoats for coverings.
Without, for a moment the rain has ceased, and in the clear night the moon smiles peacefully over the silver, gleaming sea.
What a contrast to the scene within! The restless figures of the wounded—the busy nurses.
Everyone is exhausted, for it is an almost superhuman task for seven women to tackle by day and by night; but they say the Army Nursing Service will be here in sufficient numbers soon. The lady doctors have been invaluable, their zeal unflagging. They are splendid operators, and in the midst of the worst rushes never careless. Besides their work here they spend much time at the "Women's Hospital" at a château some three miles out of Boulogne, where everything is run by volunteer women workers, who act as doctors, nurses, orderlies and quartermasters.
The theatre looks quite smart, with the large sterilisers that have been installed and the operating table. What tales those whitewashed walls could tell!
Will those who are knitting away at home ever realise the value of their own handiwork, I wonder?
If they could but see the eager faces of the men as the meagre stores are issued, and they receive those ill-fitting coats, and socks, and card-board-footed shoes (the nightingales they one and all disdain); could they for a single moment glance at the contented expression of the "movable cases" as they wriggle out of their creeping shirts, so torn, so stiff with congealed blood and stained with Flanders mud, into garments that are both soft and warm, all those hours of patient knitting would be well rewarded; they would know they are not labouring in vain.
In spite of the so-called "Red Cross Store Room" that is being replenished daily by stock drawn from all sources, of course there aren't enough things to go round, and although we grouse at the wise quartermaster's inquiries as to whether each article we need is an imperative necessity or not, in our heart of hearts we know him to be in the right.
A strange thing happened to-day. A man came in with a badly shattered forearm. I dressed it myself, and can vouch for the fact that in other respects he seemed fit enough.
Not long afterwards one of his companions disengaged himself from the group by the stove and came to me, saying: "Sister, that man has gone blind suddenly."
I remarked it must be nonsense, and told him to go to sleep. Nevertheless, on passing a light before the other man's eyes there was never a flicker. He was blind, as the medical officer can vouch; whether it is temporary or not we shall never know, for the cases pass through so quickly.
November 2nd. Someone has been asked to volunteer to run the military baths. I, being the one whose work in hospital must be of least value, naturally did so, and was accepted.
November 3rd. Most of the men are very subdued, and either loath to talk of what they have been through or ultra-full of reminiscences, many of which have to be taken with a grain of salt.
A large percentage of them stammer or have developed a nervous impediment in their speech, owing, no doubt, to the strain of the past months; and this is very often the case in Territorial regiments, whose members were accustomed to a more or less easy life in peace time.
Quite a number of the London Scottish—whose "charge" has been so boomed by the daily papers as a proof of the efficiency of the Territorial Army—are coming down now. They are very annoyed and very ashamed of the fuss that has been made of them.
"We only did what is done by one regiment or another every day," they said, "and now we hardly like to show our faces for the ridicule that must be cast upon us by the Regulars, who have seen ten times as much fighting and never been mentioned at all."
The "dum-dum" lie is no lie at all. Anyone who has seen the strangely mutilated limbs can vouch for that. In one case the bullet passed clean through one leg and exploded in the other. Bah! the smell of the gas gangrene—shall we ever forget it?
We hear many tales about the Germans from the men. Devoid of honour, they train machine-guns on ambulances, and accredit us with the same devilish tricks. One French civilian ambulance unit was totally destroyed a few days back, and wounded, surgeons, stretcher-bearers and nurses alike were blown to atoms.
November 7th. I am now installed as "Lady Superintendent of Military Baths," an entirely new post!
The scene of my activities is the public baths in the Rue des Vieillards, that have been rented from the old proprietress. With six orderlies to do the rough work—the washing of towels, the cleaning of the twenty baths, and my own spacious office in which to do the men's dressings—things are cheerful enough.
About 100 men come through each day—the convalescents in the morning, so that the whole forenoon is taken up with dressings.
The difficulties at first were many, a fact which considerably enhanced the joy of the work.
1. To get the place clean was a veritable chef-d'œuvre.
2. Drawing things from the Ordnance is no easy matter. One must not buy what may be drawn; and as I have no notion of what can be drawn there is often considerable delay.
3. Persuading the orderlies that water for dressings must be boiled, and not lukewarm, is likewise far from easy.
The days are no longer so strenuous. I arrive at eight to see that the men are getting on with their work, cut up dressings, leave out and mark towels until ten o'clock, when the convalescents begin to arrive.
By 3.30 I am able to go down to the clearing station to write letters for the helpless.
To-day a man who was brought in with a badly fractured pelvis dictated one to his brother. It ran:
"Dear George,—After going through all the big battles of Mons, the Marne and the Aisne, I am sad to say I've got hit at last, but hope soon to be home with you all. I'm glad to know you've joined to be a soldier, and hope soon to hear you're helping in the fight."
"It isn't true, Sister," he added; "but perhaps it will help him through, poor fellow—if I die!"
Needless to say, none of the hospital personnel have time to sandwich letter-writing for the men in between their medical work, and civilian help is welcome in this matter.
No one who has not seen the intricacies of the office work of a large military hospital can have the least conception what an amount of forethought, what a number of clerks are involved. The distribution of the wounded into the different wards, the notification and specification of each case—each is an art in itself. Whilst in the quartermaster's domain the drawing of rations for an elastic number of patients, ranging each meal from 50 to 400, is wellnigh stupendous.
And although we who know nothing of these matters have often laughed at the theoretical red tape of the Army, there is no denying that, in working order, it is a thing to be venerated rather than scoffed at.
November 8th, On the Ramparts of Boulogne. After the hush of the unornamental cathedral the soft autumn breezes out here are refreshing. Even in the well ventilated baths the pungent smell of segregated humanity permeates. What a strange place is Boulogne now, the city of hospitals, every hotel a hospital, every road thronged with troops and nurses!
Yesterday I had a slight fracas with my corporal, a nice but utterly untrained boy, who has a way of wandering into the office, cigarette in mouth.
Now, there is no law in the Army, so far as I can make out, that compels an orderly to pay the slightest respect toward a nurse. He must stand at attention when addressed by a junior subaltern, but may loll and smoke at his ease whilst taking a nursing sister's orders. Thus it seems that from time immemorial a slight antagonism has reigned, for the men are apt to take advantage of a woman, who, unless she have infinite tact, often enough finds things hard.
However, after two cups of black coffee to give me the requisite courage, I faced the little difficulty boldly. "Corporal," I suggested, "it doesn't matter what you do outside, but I would rather you didn't smoke in the office. You set the example to the others, who are beginning to turn the office into a sort of smoking-room. Besides, it isn't usual in the Service, is it?"
There was an awkward silence, as the poor boy blushed and grunted. Then I changed the subject, and think all will be well, for though surly in manner he is most anxious to please.
One afternoon I was asked to go and speak to some prisoners at the Imperial (No. —— General Hospital), where Miss A—— is now working. A young "Freiwillige" of 19 immediately inquired: "What about Paris?"
"What do you mean?" I asked, astonished.
"When did we take it?" was the somewhat surprising reply.
On the whole, in spite of the rigorous discipline that makes it necessary for German officers to go behind their men to save their own skins and goad on their victims; in spite of the fact that they seem to be treated like cattle and have been found chained to their machine-guns, as a whole (and probably as the outcome of the patriotism that is inculcated into every German from his earliest days) they seem loyal to their superiors; and, relieved though they appear at being captured, are not garrulous on the score of the reign of terrorism from which they have escaped. For not the most warlike can covet the privilege of being driven in massed formation, over heaped-up corpses, into the face of the enemy's fire that literally mows them down like hay. It turns even our own machine-gun men sick.
As we were about to turn in, ten funerals went up without even an escort, as the R.A.M.C. orderlies are too engrossed with their duties towards the living to be spared.
So die the flower of English manhood! Buried in their deal boards in French clay, with only a French grave-digger or two and a cluster of children playing round the massive gates to see them to their last resting-place.
Well might the bells of Shoreditch peal, muffled, on All Saints' Day!
November 9th. The autumn leaves are falling. Before me sit a group of convalescents in the courtyard, basking in what there is of mellow sunlight—awaiting their turn for baths. To say they look dejected is too mild. There is a look of weariness in their eyes that appals one. There is no mistaking a man from the front. They all have it—the trench-haunted look.
"Any man who says he wants to go back is a liar," say most. "It isn't fighting; it's murder, you see." And one is left all the more astounded at the heroism with which they face the inevitable when it comes to returning to the front, the unanimity of their: "Are we down-hearted? Never!" as they march off.
On the whole there is wonderfully little "swinging the lead" or "dodging the column," as the men themselves call malingering; and though some of the medical officers were apt to look upon the early cases of trench feet as much ado about nothing, it has since been found that the acutest pain is often present when all swelling has subsided.
It is a relief to get back in the evenings to the society of the nurses. Many of them already look knocked up. "Fifty patients on my floor, and only two orderlies," says one. And at home thousands of trained workers are waiting for work.
We often wonder that no use is made of the members of the Voluntary Aid Detachments as probationers under the trained nurses. True, in their present stage of efficiency (or inefficiency, for what are a number of first-aid lectures or stretcher drills as compared with the real hospital training?) many of them might prove more of a hindrance than a help in an emergency. Nevertheless, they could be of as much use as probationers out here—where, everything having been improvised, the inconveniences necessitate much extra labour—as they could be at home.
It is ridiculous to imagine that V.A.D.'s, with their theoretical experience, are competent to run hospitals by themselves; it is equally ridiculous to allow the valuable qualified nurses to run themselves to death, doing jobs an untrained woman can do, instead of utilising the many eager workers willing to take over the menial work.[A]
It will not be hard to sift the wheat from the chaff, the seekers after sensation from the genuine workers. For there is no romance in the work of a hospital, no jaunts to battlefields bearing cups of water to the dying, no soothing of pillows and holding the hands of patients; but ten to twelve hours each day occupied in the accomplishment of tasks so menial that one would hesitate to ask a servant to perform them.