In such a community, one of the most difficult offices to fill successfully was that of chaplain; for it is not always possible to combine a vocation for the sick with a sympathetic understanding of young men and women. The chaplain’s work was solitary and lacked the stimulus of companionship, which was so helpful to the doctors; and it cannot be denied that a large proportion of the patients were more interested in the quality of the surgeons than of the parsons. The efforts of the Church of England chaplains were supplemented by chaplains of other denominations, but these only visited the wards and did not give their whole time to the hospital.
Five chaplains were appointed in succession to Endell Street, but, except the Rev. Edward Wells, none of them remained there for any length of time. Mr. Wells’s close and happy association with the hospital continued for more than two years and was only terminated in 1919 by his decision to accept a living. From time to time, a locum tenens came for holiday duty or during an interregnum; but the duties were not easy, and the young and inexperienced men who were sent must often have felt discouraged.
The attitude of the soldier to the chaplain was one of shyness or embarrassment. He was unwilling to be seen talking long with him because other men might tease him about it. Every new chaplain approached him in a different way—some with assumed confidence, some with a brotherly bluffness, some with diffidence. They seemed to find it as hard to be natural as he did. One of them who laid his hand on the patients’ heads and stroked their faces, ruined his own cause by the discomfort he caused them. A convalescent, speaking of him, said, ‘I am sure he speaks beautifully, but I never could listen: I was so afraid he was going to kiss me.’ And the fear was not unfounded; for in his earnestness, the parson used to bend nearer and nearer, till the men became so nervous that they almost screamed.
Visits out of ordinary hours had a terrifying effect upon the seriously ill, and the wrath of Heaven, in the form of the Chief Surgeon, overtook one chaplain who ventured to disturb a case she was specially concerned about at eleven o’clock at night and again at seven in the morning.
Private Stephens, white and trembling, asked: ‘Doctor, is it true I am dying?’
‘No, you’re not going to die. Who said you were?’
He rejoined, with tears, ‘Chaplain says I must be prepared; but I’d rather trust in you, Doctor.’
Which he did, with the best result.
The visiting of the acutely ill required judgment; for if it caused fear and excitement instead of comfort, it could be harmful; and at times both Sister and doctor might be anxious to ward off the chaplain’s visit, and yet hesitate to interfere with his prerogative.
Under Army Orders, church parade was compulsory. It was unfortunate that it was almost the only thing which was compulsory at Endell Street. In church, the men sat rigidly during the sermons, their eyes fixed on the preacher with an appearance of attention, which must have been very helpful to him. The methods of preaching varied with the chaplains. Those who were young, favoured local colour. The Bible would be referred to as a trenching tool; the Prayer Book as an enamelled mug, and the Twelve Apostles were termed staff officers. Stories of the piety of men in the trenches or other hospitals were given and letters from men to the chaplain were often quoted. One preacher was fond of inventing allegories, and conversations between himself and imaginary soldiers, which mystified the men very much. And another who was in favour of Women’s Suffrage, preached on the ‘New Womanhood,’ and exhorted his hearers not to regard those in charge of the hospital as ‘playthings,’ but as ‘their own equals in every respect’; the women being for the time in the position of the men’s superior officers!
In the summer of 1919, an Education officer was added to the staff of the hospital, and a few of the men were persuaded to take classes. The first of these officers was unfortunate in having a hesitating, uncertain manner and a bad delivery, which made the men call him ‘Mr. Er-er.’ The second was very deaf. As a rule, the patients showed little desire to study anything, and only about two per cent. welcomed the scheme, on which the country was spending such enormous sums of money. Teachers in every branch of knowledge were produced. One came to teach shorthand; another, book-keeping; others, history, German, singing, or typewriting. The Jewish men were the most anxious for lessons, but they preferred instruction in voice-production or singing, and one wished the army to train him for the operatic stage. The attempt was not very successful. It did not equal the real education which the librarian had carried on during the years that had gone before.
The Hospital was more than fortunate in its R.A.M.C. detachment, which, though small, was excellent of its kind. Sergt.-major Harris was in charge of it from August 1915, until his demobilisation in July 1919. When he was promoted to the rank of corporal and sent to Endell Street, his friends in the 35th Company R.A.M.C. kindly prophesied failure and disaster; but he remained there for four years as one of the pillars of the hospital. His experience had been gained in the St. John’s Ambulance Brigade and in the South African War, and he had not had the advantage of any training in the work of a warrant officer. However, his sense of responsibility and his devotion to duty overcame all obstacles, and his value to the hospital grew with his rapid promotion. There were occasions on which neither the Doctor-in-Charge nor he felt sure of the correct procedure, and then they would shut themselves up in her office with ‘King’s Regulations’ and ‘Regulations for the R.A.M.C.,’ and make a careful study of those wonderful and intricate volumes. Emerging later, with minds made up, they pursued the line of action decided upon, with an air of confidence and custom, very impressive to all who witnessed it.
In the sergt.-major, the medical staff had a loyal supporter, who never failed to back up their authority. He adopted the hospital; took it to his heart; and often sacrificed Mrs. Harris and his own leisure to its service. When women were added to his detachment he trained and drilled them, and guarded them in a manner almost paternal. In the sergeants’ mess of the 35th Company R.A.M.C., which he visited occasionally, he upheld the credit of his hospital and of his mixed Company. After such visits, he would tell the Doctor-in-Charge interesting details, chiefly about the discipline in other hospitals, where men habitually stayed out all night, and where lists of forty or sixty defaulters were of daily occurrence. ‘Nothing like that here, Doctor,’ he would say, with pardonable self-congratulation.
He was assisted and supported in his duties by Sergt. Robertson, who began as a private in 1915, and whose reliability and excellence soon brought him promotion. His good nature was unfailing. He believed that the Endell Street Hospital showed the way to all others, and his chivalry towards women, whether working under him or as his officers, never failed; his avuncular manner included them all.
When the hospital opened, Privates Bishop, Price, and Hedges, who had been in France with the Corps, and who had enlisted in February 1915, were transferred to the 35th Company R.A.M.C., and included in the Endell Street detachment. The help of such experienced nurses in the first year was invaluable and their places were always in the serious wards, where the heaviest cases and the greatest need of skill were to be found. Later, when all men of class ‘A’ were sent abroad, they found wider fields of usefulness and more thrilling experiences in France and in the East.
Corpl. Musselbrook was theatre orderly. Under the training of the Chief Surgeon and Sister, he had become very expert in his duties, when to every one’s regret he was suddenly called in and sent, with several hundred other R.A.M.C. men, to be trained and transferred into an infantry regiment. He took with him a document certifying him to be a trained theatre orderly; and on the strength of this, he subsequently got back into the R.A.M.C. and was sent to Salonika and Russia. On his return to England in 1919, he came to Endell Street and related his experiences and successes. He described his feelings when he went to a hospital in Salonika and was detailed for duty in the operating theatre. How the major, in his apron, holding out his gloved hands, stood silently watching him arrange the patient; how he himself perspired with anxiety, as he placed the hands and folded the clothing; and how suddenly he was asked: ‘Where have you been?’ When he replied that he had been at Endell Street, it was a joy to find that the major had been there too, and that he shared Corpl. Musselbrook’s admiration for that place and for its women surgeons. Through all the months that followed, he had one important post after another, attributing his success to the early training and to the document, which he always kept on him.
Corpl. Washington succeeded him in the operating theatre, and soon equalled him in skill and keenness, remaining at his post through several years of pressure. He was a favourite with the rest of the staff, and on summer mornings, when ices were sold in the canteen, Orderly Tanner might be met slowly ascending the stairs, consuming an ice with her right hand and carrying another for Washington in her left.
The duties of the R.A.M.C. included the care of the intoxicated men who were constantly brought in by the police or by the London County Council ambulances.
These ambulances were staffed by a fine set of young women, whose serviceable uniform and alert, well-drilled bearing were a credit to their service. It was a pleasure, when the ambulance turned into the square, to see these active girls, in their navy blue suits of breeches and tunic, swing themselves off the car, throw the doors open, unload and bear the stretcher with its burden to the casualty room. If they thought that the N.C.O. on duty might be chary of receiving a case of drunkenness—for, strictly speaking, unless otherwise injured, such cases should not have been brought to the hospital—they were clever in finding another diagnosis: ‘Case of drugging,’ they would cry confidently, tip the man on to a couch and be off in a whirl of wheels and blue legs, before the N.C.O. could stop them. More often they favoured fractures, and their cases would arrive bound in first-aid splints or with collar bones duly bandaged. When splints and bandages were unfastened, it was not uncommon to have the injured man make violent use of his arms and legs.
The Y.M.C.A. huts also were too kind to diagnose drunkenness, and many a time the hospital sent for cases described by their workers as ‘serious’ or ‘immediate,’ only to find them ‘fighting drunk.’ The huts always seemed to postpone dealing with such cases until late at night, and many an uproar arose in the Johnny Walker Ward when the sergt.-major asked these ‘serious’ cases to show their ‘passes.’ Men with ‘both collar bones broken’ were known to attack him with their fists! Some put their feet through the panels of the door, and others their heads through the window-panes; and the peace of the hospital was so often disturbed that the Doctor-in-Charge finally reported the matter to the Command. Her report included as instances an account of one man who ‘bit a policeman and struck the sergt.-major,’ and of another, supposed to have a dislocated shoulder, who arrived at 10 P.M. ‘As it was a Sunday,’ she wrote, ‘some of the staff were off duty, and there were only the sergt.-major and a dwarf, and a man with a wasted arm to deal with him.’ For in 1917 the physique of the R.A.M.C. was very poor.
There were men who became habitués of the Johnny Walker Ward, for they knew enough to simulate fits when in the hands of the police, and these symptoms would insure that they were taken to the nearest hospital. One of these, who was well known to the doctors, was quieting down after the departure of the police, and the doctor sent for lemonade for him. He took a long pull at the mug, and then looked up at her, and with a regretful sigh said:
‘Och! Dochter, jist think ef it was beer!’
Many half-intoxicated men had to be admitted to the wards for slight or serious injuries; for they jumped from windows or fell down areas in their attempts to evade the police; and the nurses and orderlies became more or less accustomed to looking after them. A voluntary worker at a railway station, thinking that a man in this state was really ill, brought him to the hospital, where he was detained for the night. Not being very busy, the voluntary worker called next morning, full of kind intentions, and was able to conduct the man to the railway station. He wrote afterwards, complaining that the gate officer ‘was not by any means sympathetic’ about the poor fellow; which in the circumstances may have been natural, for his case was not exceptional.
When the women orderlies were demobilised in 1919, the male detachment was increased. The men who were sent to the hospital were mostly infantrymen, who for some disability had been transferred to the R.A.M.C. They had had no training, and as a rule they had little liking for ward work, and when put on night duty, they firmly believed that they were entitled to a certain number of hours sleep at night, and to the indignation of the Sisters, were found rolled in rugs on empty beds. It was a rude change, after being accustomed to the ways of the intelligent, gentle young women, to go to a ward at night and ask if a case, newly operated upon, was comfortable, and to be told by a stableman in khaki, ‘T’ y’ung chaap in t’ carner be ’eavin’ a bit.’ From which it was inferred that the patient was somewhat sick.
The mysteries of hospital life and Sisters’ orders, were new to them. One of them, being instructed to shave the leg of a patient going up for operation, was greatly puzzled. ‘Shave him very close,’ said the Sister. ‘You must not leave a single hair anywhere.’ The orderly’s knowledge of asepsis was meagre. He had never heard that legs or arms required shaving; but wishing to carry out his instructions, he attacked the man’s face with energy: strictly obedient, he insisted upon removing his moustache; and so clean did he make his shave that the patient was found sitting up wiping blood from his chin with cotton-wool; but his leg remained unprepared.
There is always some one behind the scenes who plays an important part in making the wheels go smoothly, some one who works hard and gets no kudos; and this was so at Endell Street also. There was a band of some twenty-eight or thirty women, referred to on the pay-sheet as ‘cleaners’ and by most people as ‘char-ladies,’ who cleaned and scrubbed and swept and washed-up, day in and day out, year after year. It is impossible to estimate the value of faithful, continuous service of this sort. The cessation of it is demoralising in an institution, for every one’s comfort depends upon it. So the char-ladies never failed to come. Labouring patiently, they learnt to love the hospital and to regard it as their own. And on the anniversary of their third year of continuous service, the hospital fêted them. A small presentation was made to each one; they were appraised by the C.O. in a speech which ‘went right through you and was felt in yer very bones,’ and cheered by the assembled patients.
Working well together, the staff could also play together; and sometimes a dance would be given, into which they threw themselves with delight. Every one came to it—the char-ladies too; and for once in their lives, these hard-worked, toil-worn women flung care and husband and family aside, and gave themselves up to pleasure. Some yielded to the novelty of wearing men’s clothes and appeared in khaki or blue, as jockeys or as workmen, dancing all night, enjoying the supper and the speeches, and looking back on it afterwards as ‘a little glimpse of ’Eaving.’
The R.A.M.C. gleefully decorated the recreation room and polished the floor, and then arrived disguised as niggers, cowboys, or nurses, led by the Sergt.-major dressed as a ‘lady doctor.’
The Sisters, the masseuses, and the orderlies were well known to the assistants at Clarkson’s and Simpson’s, whose shops they ransacked periodically. Every kind of dress was worn. ‘Little Bits of Fluff’ and cavaliers, pages, sailors, officers, ballet girls; early Victorian ladies jostled doctors in Plantagenet costumes, doctors as Turkish houris, as pierrots or as navvies. Colonel and Mrs. Dug-out—the one exuberant in kilt and plaid, with fierce red whiskers; the other clinging and elegant, in lace cap and mittens—received the guests and joined in the dance. The invitation to sit down to supper was greeted with loud cheers by the guests, so was the Colonel’s speech; and the toast of ‘The Hospital’ was drunk with Highland honours and much acclamation. There never were such dances as those. Youth, in its beauty and happiness, was at its best.
No record of Endell Street would be complete which did not mention ‘Keogh Garrett.’ At the age of six months, he sat on the office table, asking for approval: a rather weak puppy, with a beautiful head, neat pointed ears and a manner which won all hearts. Once assured of his position, he grew more attractive every day; and a chorus of praise and adulation was wont to follow him as he passed—a dainty little aristocrat, full of character, full of idiosyncrasies, trotting at the heel of the Chief Surgeon, lying down before those he loved, turning a deaf ear and a white eye to those he did not favour. Affectionate to Sister Lawrence, who massaged his weak forelegs, adoring the Quartermaster, he was reticent and dignified towards the patients, failing to notice their friendly advances, but remonstrating with any man not in khaki or blue who entered the square. Outside, in park or street, he would recognise and run to greet the hospital uniform. To this day a floating veil attracts him, and he will do homage to unknown nurses.
The long hours that his family spent in the operating theatre tried him, and as the afternoon waned, he would come upstairs and lie with his nose on his paw just outside the door. He knew he must not enter and cross that shining surface of floor; but he also knew that it mattered less about the floor if the Sister was at tea. What hours he spent on the table in the office window, watching the lift by which friends came back to his world again; how many muddy footprints he left on official documents, and how many colonels he growled at, from his safe retreat on the blotting-paper!
For the sake of companionship, a little ball of white fluff with the blackest of black eyes and nose was added to the staff; and as they grew older, they became wonderfully possessive. William was every one’s friend—a veritable cupboard lover and wheedler. He had an unsubdued and boisterous spirit.
How naughty they were to the cats of Soho, who sought a refuge in the hospital precincts, and how rude to the Matron’s dog, whose lineage they persistently insulted. On their walks abroad, they excited admiration and constant reference to Buchanan’s Whisky. Elderly gentlemen, tightly buttoned into majors’ tunics, would journey the whole length of a railway car, swinging perilously on the straps, to bend over their guardian and chuckle, ‘Black and white!’ The patients thought they must be brothers, regardless of the difference of breed; and some even thought them the sons of Matron’s ‘Bully’; while the Daily Mail, describing a historic scene, referred to them as ‘Black and white Airedales.’ Garrett had all the dignity and airs of Dog-in-Charge. William was the little friend of all the world, and they accepted their position as the pets and mascots of the hospital.