by Olive Dent
In the early days, some of our nursing sisters had improvised bedrooms from the loose boxes which were near us, in virtue of our being on a race-course. Later, when tents and huts materialised at a quicker rate, these were left for the accommodation of the batmen. Bell tents and marquees were always very popular, being absolutely delightful in summer and very cosy in winter with the aid of stoves. Some nurses who had thoroughly enjoyed life in a marquee during the winter of 1915–1916 were in a rebellious mood at having to go into a hut for some weeks during the winter of 1916–1917.
It was wonderful how pretty and comfortable bunks and bell tents could be made. All the furniture was of the packing-box variety; indeed, once installed, and a few other bunks inspected, we all felt competent to give authoritative advice on how to furnish a bed-boudoir-morning-smoke-drawing-room on a franc and a half. Chest of ‘drawers,’ whose characteristic was that they did not draw, were built from small boxes on the cumulative principle and by the system of dovetailing. Then a chintz curtain was hung in front. Another chintz curtain served as a wardrobe. Indeed, chintz like charity covered a multitude of sins, the greatest of these being untidiness.
Most ambitious dressing-tables and writing-tables were evolved by standing a sugar-box on end, knocking out the lower side, and nailing on top at the back a small narrow box. These made a brave show stained with permanganate of potash, or, later, when this got rare, with solignum. A camp-bed, too, is easily convertible into a ‘Chesterfield,’ flanked at either end with one’s pillows pushed into pretty cushion-covers. An admirable ‘Saxon stool,’ too, most of us possessed, fashioned from three sides of a box and stained. In post-war days house furnishers must look to their businesses, for the land will abound with men skilled in the art of dug-out furniture, and maidens nimble at throwing together O.A.S. furniture.
Camp housekeeping was decidedly reminiscent of a picnic. One had the same makeshifts, the same multum in parvo with respect to cutlery and dishes, both as regards cooking and serving, the same triumphant adaptation of commonplace articles to superior purposes, the same feeling of everything turning out well in the end. Then, too, one had an additional satisfaction, that of being on active service.
A ‘BAIRNSFATHER’ BUNK
Three of us – all V.A.D.s – ran the home and mess, which at the time consisted of between sixty and seventy nurses. We were helped by batmen, all P.B. men, who cleaned the huts and tents, swept and washed floors, attended to our supply of drinking, cooking and washing water, – taps and sinks were unknown luxuries, – mended fires, washed dishes, cleaned and cooked vegetables, cut up and cooked meats, and generally did the heavier work. We planned the menus, laid the tables, carved, served out the different meals, cooked certain dishes, did the shopping, dusted, had the management of the home quarters, e.g. preparing rooms for newcomers, tending indisposed sisters, and were generally responsible for the hundred and one little trifles necessary to the smooth running of affairs.
Man in pursuance of the domestic arts has often been suggested more or less facetiously as a solution of the domestic servant problem. The soldier man in this particular rôle proved himself a curious creature. Some of his virtues he owed to the fact of his being a soldier, and some of his idiosyncrasies to his sex.
Thus his soldierly dispatch and obedience were most refreshing to any woman subjected to a succession of pert maids who say ‘Yes, miss,’ and then execute the order at their leisure. Positively at first it was disconcerting to have such instant obedience, to have the batman rise in the midst of washing the floor to go and perform some duty casually mentioned. The Army rule, ‘The last order obeyed first,’ however, soon sinks into one’s mind.
As workmen our batmen constituted the customary problem a man presents, – they always made a big fuss about having the correct tools. Whereas a woman will drive in a nail with a boot, a hair-brush, or a flatiron, a man must have his tool-bag by him ere he will undertake a little carpentry.
Possessed of this, however, he will work the proverbial wonders. Our mess furniture was a triumph for our men. The sideboard began life as a huge packing-case for medical stores, so did our glass cupboard, our linen chest, our ‘wine-cellar,’ and our dwarf bookcase, all bravely stained brown and duly polished. Our best plant-stand did much praiseworthy duty, its packing-case pedestal draped in thin green bastiste, and the plant admirably enshrined in a marmite.
Camp housekeeping in France quickly proved itself to be quite an arithmetical affair. Thus if one decided on making scones, immediately there was a little mental arithmetic to be done in ratios and substitutions, with the home quantity as a basis. For example, if half a pound of flour makes sixteen scones, how many are required for sixty people, – with camp appetites, – a quantity which must then be calculated in demi-kilos, those being the weights we had in the kitchen. Then the quantity of butter, sugar, cream of tartar, etc., must be calculated. Similar arithmetical tussles were necessary before making, say, a custard, and sending for the milk, which, by the way, the batman always spoke of as so many ‘leekers.’
Over our makeshifts we used to make merry or grow conceited. Biscuit tins were our great refuge for storage, for converting into buckets, and at times for cooking. Coffee tasted delicious from a biscuit tin, especially on a cold morning with several degrees of frost, and at an hour still unusually early.
Bully beef made excellent curry, good shepherd’s pie and most appetising rissoles, particularly when served with tomato sauce made active-service style from a tin of tomatoes, heated, sieved, and thickened with a little flour.
Ration biscuits, otherwise irreverently known as dog biscuits, only required considerate treatment to be responsible for quite agreeable puddings and porridge – reminiscent of the schoolroom ‘milk’ pudding, it is true, but what would you? We are on active service which is the English equivalent of C’est la guerre, both of which accompanied by a philosophical smile or a rueful shrug of the shoulders, as the case may be, are supposed to cover a multitude of deficiencies.
Mice, quite an alarming bag of them, we used to catch with a basin, a thimble, and a piece of stick. Our vegetable sieve was a biscuit tin with holes jabbed in with a jack-knife. The sphere of usefulness of things was never confined, too. Our mimosa bloomed daintily as ever from a glass which originally held Florence Cream, while a charmingly bright touch was given by a polished, oblong cocoa-tin holding holly and red berries.
One of the first essentials in camp housekeeping is to rid oneself of all one’s tenderly cherished notions, and all one’s dearly loved susceptibilities on the subject of housekeeping, so soon as one enters the mess room. We used to disobey every canon of housewifery ritual and emerge unscathed: boil water over a stick fire held together by three bricks, and yet not get the water smoked, have the dishes washed in hot water and soda, and yet the few gilt-edged specimens we possessed obstinately, serenely and successfully retained their gilt for several strenuous months. Our knives we plunged into a jug of hot, soapy water, and yet the handles remained staunchly attached to the blades. The dish washing used to be done at breakneck speed, and although we had upwards of a thousand dishes washed per day, we had no casualties for a fortnight – once, at any rate – so our soldier men set a very good example to the average scullery maid. Indeed, our boys were treasures, though now and again they liked to twit themselves for doing ‘women’s work.’ ‘Wouldn’t I make a good wife for some one, sister?’ one used to ask me, as he slapped a wet flannel round the floor or cut up the bread for meals. Poor boy, he had been very badly gassed in the memorable first Hun attack, and he was still subjected to dreadful, prostrating headaches.
Active-service housekeeping, interesting though it is, soon, however, begins to pall even on the most fervent apostle of the domestic arts.
Housekeeping is an exhaustive business even when one has only a small home family to cater for. How much more is it so when the family is one of sixty-five people and with meals duplicated – breakfast at 7, at 7.30, and then for the
night sisters at 8, ‘snack’ lunch of the buffet variety from 9 to 10, two midday lunches, two teas, two dinners, and invariably some individual meals to keep warm for sisters delayed.
Then, too, much as one wishes to make more comfortable and homelike the life of those hard-working women, yet one cannot have the same vim and enthusiasm, nor experience the same fascination in ‘keeping house’ for sisters as one does in working for, and tending, our brave boys. So most nurses and sisters gladly shake from their feet the dust of the mess-kitchen and wend their way back to the wards.
Chapter X
The Trials of a Home Sister
SCENE I. The HOME SISTER interviews the COOK.
Time 9.30 a.m.
HOME SISTER seated at table in mess. Enter
CORPORAL.
H. S. Good morning, Corporal.
C. Good morning, Sister.
H. S. What can you give us for meals to-day?
C. [dryly]. Well, it’s wot have we got.
H. S. I thought you might manage rissoles. That would be a nice change.
C. Yu-u-s. [Pause, continuing]. I don’t know wot we’ll make them of.
H. S. Well, there are the remains of last night’s joints.
C. Well, there isn’t much.
H. S. I’ll see what there is. [C. disappears.] These men have no initiative – and no interest. What a pity we don’t have V.A.D. cooks. Women are so very clever in using up left overs. Just like the French, who can make a really marvellous meal out of a scrap of garlic, a piece of dripping the size of a walnut, and the claws of a deceased pigeon.
[Re-enter C. with dish, whereon
extremely clean bones.]
C. There isn’t enough there, yer know, Sister.
H. S. [in very hopeful voice]. Oh, I don’t know, there are some quite nice pieces there. Besides, you could eke it out with bully. I want you to make two rissoles for each sister. That will be a hundred and thirty [in a final tone]. That’s settled. Oh, yes, and you might, too, make an extra two dozen for the night sisters.
C. [aside]. Well, she has some ’opes.
H. S. Vegetables and milk pudding you’ll serve as usual, except that we should prefer them rather better than usual in the actual serving. The potatoes yesterday were very lumpy.
C. Well, that potato-masher you got down town isn’t no good, Sister.
H. S. [interrupting]. No? I thought myself that a little longer boiling of the potatoes might have improved matters. Now about dinner. Have you any suggestions?
C. [dryly]. Well, it’s wot have we got.
H. S. I thought of a tapioca soup, – it is so nourishing, – fricassée of chicken, steamed peach pudding with a sweet sauce, and cheese straws, as your share of the meal.
C. [aside]. I don’t think. Her and her fancy ideas. I’ll let her see [turning to SISTER]. Well, what about the stock, Sister?
H. S. The chicken bones, of course.
C. I’m afraid they’re nothing but bones, Sister.
H. S. [in hopeful tones]. Well, eke it out with bully. [C. produces bones.] Good gracious, where are the pieces of chicken for the fricassée?
C. Well, Sister, there are that many dratted dogs about.
H. S. But haven’t you got a safe, man?
C. Yes, Sister, only the door hinge has been off this three month.
H. S. I reported the matter. Hasn’t it been mended? [Writes industriously on memorandum.] To return to the matter of the soup, Corporal.
C. Well, Sister, if you give me a few soup cubes, a tin of tomatoes, a bottle of sauce and a few potatoes to thicken it, I might manage something.
H. S. And in place of the fricassée?
C. Well, Sister, we’ve got a lot of Maconochie in hand. What if we got rid of some of those? I could put in a couple of penny packets of curry powder and –
H. S. We’ll leave it at that. See that the pudding is good.
C. Yes, Sister … pudding. What about the peaches? They hadn’t any at the canteen last night, and stores aren’t due in till Saturday, and then they’ll likely be late.
H. S. [despairingly, after long pause]. What do you suggest?
C. Well, Sister, I could give you prunes and custard, but we’ve had them five times this week. And the apricots’ll want soaking, so you couldn’t have those very well until to-morrow. And the sisters don’t seem to care about raisins. And the bread puddings – oh, well, they’re a wash-out. And you’d spotted dick yesterday lunch. And the under-cook, he isn’t very handy, so there’s no chance of him making you any of these fancy puddings in advance this afternoon. So what do you think about duff and treacle?
H. S. [icily]. Suet pudding and treacle, then.
C. And, Sister, I don’t see how I’m to manage the cheese straws.
H. S. And why?
C. Well, it’s like this, Sister. We’re on half-rations and drew no cheese for three days, and I don’t suppose I’ll get any for another three.
H. S. [more icily]. Omit the cheese straws.
[Pause. Then exit C.]
H. S. [soliloquising sighingly]. It’s very, very disappointing somehow, when one tries one’s hardest. Let me see, I drew up quite a nice dinner for the sisters to-night, – a tapioca soup, fricassée of chicken with creamed potatoes, steamed peach pudding and sauce, and cheese straws. And what are we to have? – a query soup, disguised Maconochie, suet pudding and treacle … Well, we’re on active service. I suppose we must take the rough with the smooth … only sometimes it seems all rough and no smooth.
[Re-enter C.]
C. Sister, Jock has been inoculated and will be off duty the next twenty-four hours. My leave has just come through and I’ve got to go at eleven o’clock. So I don’t know how you’ll manage for lunch and dinner, with nobody in the cook-house … By the way, Sister, you promised me some cigarettes when I went on leave …
[Collapse of SISTER.]
Chapter XI
B.E.F. Nicknames
WHEN A FEW cheery souls, such as the men of our Army, get together, nicknames inevitably abound. I have encountered a great many Army-bred nicknames in the past two years, have been present at the baptism of some. ‘Orderly, I wish you could find time to give me a shave to-day,’ once remarked a smooth-faced boy of eighteen. ‘A what!’ came in chorus from the other more mature men of the ward. ‘Orderly, you’ll need a microscope or some forcing lotion. A shave, indeed!’ And for the rest of the time the boy was in the ward, he was known as ‘The Young Shaver.’
It was in the same ward that we had another young boy who was very fond of chocolate. Hence, although he was ‘a good plucked ’un’ and had been wounded twice he became known to many and sundry as ‘The Chocolate Soldier.’
One youngster earned his nickname through mispronunciation. I took his name, number, etc., on admission, and then asked ‘What is the trouble, boy?’ ‘Synoblitus (synovitis) of the right knee, sister.’ So Synoblitus he became, which was duly shortened to Blitus, and then got to Blighty – which, poor boy, was more than he got, as the synovitis was too slight to merit an expensive, albeit very pleasant, journey westward.
As among schoolboys, the personal appearance is a fruitful source of nicknames. Thus a very tall, thin man, was dubbed ‘Pull through’ from his testified resemblance to the piece of cord and brass known as a pull-through, and used to clean the rifle. ‘Snowball’ was the owner of a bullet head covered with very, very fair, pale, straw-coloured hair, and when he lay tucked in bed with the bedclothes above his nose and only his fair hair showing, he really did resemble a large snowball. The cognomen ‘Snowflake’ on the other hand, was a piece of irony which was appreciated and enjoyed by the owner of the name as much as by any one else, for he was a native of Trinidad and dusky as could be. ‘Darkey’ had spent a good many years in Mexico, and had become very swarthy in the time. ‘Somebody’s darling’ had fair, curly hair, blue eyes, pink cheeks, and a bow mouth and was aged eighteen. ‘Charlie Chaplin’ shortened to ‘Charlie’ and ‘Chappie’ owed his name to his wal
k, or, more truthfully, to his feet which were inclined to be distant with one another. ‘Farmer Garge’ was a bluff and hearty, beef-and-beer, John-Bull type of man with a big, red face, and as much mutton-chop as the Army allows.
I am afraid I was responsible for one nickname. There was one little boy in the ward who simply wouldn’t talk. All we could charm from him was monosyllables, a few smiles, and many blushes. ‘Now, Magpie,’ I said one day when I went to make his bed, ‘talkative as ever I suppose.’ And ‘Magpie’ stuck to him. After he had left the ward the other men told me he had been accustomed to declare himself a woman hater! [he was aged eighteen] and one thing he didn’t mind about up the line was that there were no women. On protestation he admitted – oh, balm to my ’satiable vanity! – he didn’t mind ‘our sister,’ she ‘wasn’t half a bad sort, that she wasn’t.’
Then we had ‘Dormouse’ who had a truly voracious appetite for sleep, would sleep like the Seven Sleepers all night, and then doze like an octogenarian all day. ‘Rip Van Winkle’ was the name bestowed on a man of similar tendency in another ward. ‘Tiny’ and ‘Bantam’ were playful pieces of irony, for both were Grenadiers whose toes came to the bottom of the bed. Ironical, too, was the designation of ‘Lightning’ to a bulky, leisurely moving man who, according to the consensus of general ward opinion, was ‘too slow to catch cold.’
One night, we had brought in two boys who came straight from the trenches bringing with them thick shocks of hair and semi-patriarchal beards.
‘Well, sister, have you any one you would like me to see?’ asked the divisional major of a nurse, when, a little later, he did his rounds. He referred, of course, to any anxious eases.
‘Yes,’ said she, interpreting his words quite literally and naughtily pointing out the two boys. ‘Here are Robinson Crusoe and his man Friday.’
Both joined the Major in a broad grin and ‘Crusoe’ and ‘Friday’ they remained so long as they stayed with us.
