A Volunteer Nurse on the Western Front

by Olive Dent

  Practically every man had taken a spray of forget-me-nots to enclose in a letter to his ‘girl.’ Some of the little flowers had gone to Australia, some to California, some to Winnipeg, some to South Africa, and some to the British Isles – and some of the ‘girls’ had been married twenty years!

  Yes, Tommy is a sentimental cuss, and surely we nurses are worse. For didn’t that selfsame sister make a special visit to the market to buy another relay of forget-me-nots for the boys in the other tents!

  Quite an exciting time this afternoon. Another nurse and I were washing our hands in the duty tent, when we heard the fire alarm, and looking out saw the wall and roof of a marquee in adjacent lines on fire. We cleared the tent ropes at a bound, and raced off calling to the orderlies to bring fire extinguishers and fire buckets.

  Several men were already throwing on water and using extinguishers, and we two helped the sisters get the patients out of that tent and one very near to it. It was rather weird hearing the crackling and sizzling overhead as we worked.

  As ill-luck would have it, the cases were all surgical, several with back, chest, and lower limb injuries. Those who could hobble were taken out wrapped in a blanket, the others were carried out in bed, and I don’t remember one of them feeling heavy.

  The orderlies soon had the fire under, and no one was any the worse except for a drenched tunic or a bedraggled cap. What lent celerity to our actions was the knowledge that a marquee can burn down in three or four minutes.

  When I returned to duty, a new tent roof and sides had been put up, the ward cleaned, and no trace left of the fire. Quick work.

  To-day I went into a ward expecting to find some freshly-made tea for one of my sick boys. Instead, I found the tea boiling industriously on top of a red hot stove after having been brewed a quarter-of-an-hour.

  ‘It’s my fault, sister,’ volunteered one boy. ‘I told them it was time to make it, but I have since discovered my watch was ten minutes fast,’ holding out a very active-service watch with cracked glass, and quite an accumulation of dirt on the dial. ‘If my watch wasn’t in such a delicate state,’ continued the unabashed culprit, ‘I’d knock its wretched face off for being so fast and forward.’

  The Australian sisters asked the remainder of our nursing staff to coffee last night, it being Anzac night. Some bright individual suggested our dressing for the event in fancy dress, and we all took up the idea with gusto. Why? Because, having to work hard, we like to play hard, too, – and we so rarely get the latter opportunity. Besides, most people, especially when they occur in numbers, rarely outlive the childish love of ‘dressing up.’

  So some of the girls put on their kimonos and came as Japanese ladies, and one put on her mackintosh, sou’wester and puttees, and called herself a back-to-the-land young Amazon. Another draped her ‘wardrobe’ curtain of spriggled muslin around her in pannier fashion, wore a white blouse, and tied a ribbon round her summer hat and came as a shepherdess. She looked delightfully pretty.

  One found an overcoat and a concertina in the Red Cross stores, and came as an itinerant musician, and when we heard her samples of music, we were glad she was itinerant, and didn’t mind how soon, nor how far, nor how long, the itinerary was.

  Another came as a ‘Blighty case’ in khaki mackintosh, khaki scarf muffled to the ears, ‘dinkum Aussy’ hat, and feet and legs swathed in bandages and encased in immense trench slippers. She had the usual two ‘Blighty tickets’ appended, duly filled in, and with the information that 5,000,000 units A.T.S. (antitoxin-serum) had been given!

  One martyr had draped her brown army blanket around her, and done entangling feats with her hair and ruinous things with her complexion to represent herself as an Indian squaw. Others wore Australian hats, loose blouses and ties, and V.A.D. skirts as bush girls, thus paying compliment to our hostesses.

  After songs and games, drinking coffee and nibbling sandwiches, we gave cheers for all Australian nurses and all Australian boys, for whom some of us have such a partiality that we are accused of having the familiar complaint of ‘Australitis.’

  And so to bed, as Pepys would say. The worst, however, of an Anzac night is that it is followed by an Anzac morning. As one girl said when the batman woke her at getting-up time, ‘I thought to myself “Dear me, I hope I’m not going to have a bad night.”’

  As many as possible of the nursing staff were asked to attend the funeral this afternoon of a V.A.D.

  When we arrived at the cemetery it was just in time to join the cortege.

  A cordon of R.A.M.C. lined the road, and down it passed the padre followed by the pipers wailing a dirge. Next came the coffin, a plain, unstained wooden one covered with the Union Jack. Then came the A.D.M.S., and some other staff officers, and then we nurses – Q.A.I.M.N.S., Territorial, Reserve, St. J.A.A., and B.R.C.

  We grouped ourselves round the grave, and the padre read the address exquisitely and most impressively. It was a beautiful spring afternoon with a fleckless blue sky and floods of soft sunshine. A bird on a bough swayed up and down up and down, with a continual cheep-cheep, cheep-cheep. We all stood taut and still, at attention, and the words rolled magnificently to us.

  ‘Lord most holy, O God most mighty, O holy and merciful Saviour, thou most worthy Judge eternal, suffer us not, at our last hour, for any pains of death, to fall from Thee.’

  The Union Jack is folded and laid aside, the pageantry and the impressive dignity of the scene loses its grip on one. Instead there comes to mind a picture of the dead girl, white and still, with closed eyes and crossed hands. We hear the rattle of ropes, the coffin is lowered, the swaying bird becomes a blurred vision. A French peasant woman with a tiny bunch of half-faded violets is sobbing loudly. The grave faces of the English nurses grow a little more set.

  Then come the prayers, the Last Post – poignant and haunting – and the volley. Two French nurses drop into the grave a bunch of carnations, we take our flowers and lay them by the grave and turn to go back through the cemetery.

  No matter what consolation is proffered, death is always an irreparable loss. But surely it is better to have it come when doing work that counts, work of national and racial weight, than to live on until old and unwanted.

  And what a magnificent end to one’s life, to lie there among those splendidly brave boys in the little strip of land which the French Government has given over in perpetuity to our dead. Thousands of the children that are to be, will come to such cemeteries, and will be hushed to reverence by the spirits of those who are not, by the spirits of the fallen that will for ever inhabit the scene.

  May eternal rest be given to the poor shattered body and glory eternal to the ever lasting spirit!

  Such a charming remark was made to me to-day. He was the shyest of patients, so gentle, quiet and retiring, and as I tucked him in – somewhat silently, perhaps, for I had given up hopes of wooing him to talk – he looked up at my St. John’s Ambulance Brigade badge and said, ‘Sister, I know now what S.J.A.B. means. It stands for, “She’s just a brick.”’

  A EUSOL FOOT-BATH

  A most interesting morning – had a peep inside an Army Veterinary Camp. At that end of the camp where we entered was a huge, rectangular tank, about twelve feet high, and with an inclined approach at one end and a descent at the other. The tank was filled with medicated water, and horses suspected of skin diseases were driven up the ascent and into the tank, across which they were obliged to swim to the descent on the other side; and the remarkable thing is that the horses are rarely refractory.

  Near by was a small pond, cement-lined and filled with medicated water. This was used as a foot-bath, and in it were tethered to a post some horses with foot injuries. After the foot-bath, each was to have a eusol dressing.

  Several slight surgical cases were in a compound.

  ‘We have good and bad patients just as you do,’ we were told. ‘This rascal persists in biting his bandage and disarranging the dressing. It will be guard-room for you, old chap, if you don’
t mend your ways.’

  But the ‘old chap’ took shamelessly little heed of the warning, and hobbled away off to a coterie of disabled friends, one with a huge bandage round the neck as though he were suffering from a sore throat, another with a huge swab and plaster on his nose, two others with ankle injuries, and a fifth evidently nearing convalescence.

  The more serious surgical cases were in stalls. Each had his medical chart giving the diagnosis and, occasionally, the temperature. The latter, of course, is more frequently charted and a more important matter in medical cases of, say, pneumonia or bronchitis. Several drainage tubes were to be seen in wounds, the treatment of which is very much on the same lines as the treatment of human wounds.

  The dispensary had its usual store of lotions, drugs, and medicines – the latter two much in request from the numerous coughs, colds, and heart troubles which exposure and a harrowing life bring in their train.

  Near by was a rectangular piece of ground, cemented, covered with straw and ground-sheets, and with a pile of blankets. This was used as an operating table, and to it were brought the cases for operation. Hind and fore legs were tethered, and the patient was pulled down, chloroformed, covered with a blanket, and the operation began.

  In an adjacent paddock, forty or so convalescents were being exercised by grooms who kept them trotting in a circle, the laggards and ‘lead-swingers’ being called to attention in a very firm, sergeant-major sort of tone that seemed to be more effectual than the cracking of the never-applied whip.

  All those who have sampled the famous Maconochie stew will relish the flavour of a Scotchman’s little joke cracked to-day in one of the wards.

  Said this Jock to a member of a certain Highland regiment, ‘But ye’ no Scoatch, are ye?’

  ‘Well, my father was Scotch, my mother was Irish and I was born in Greece, so what would you call me?’

  Puff – puff – pu-u-ff.

  Jock removes his stubby pipe, glances sideways and snorts out, ‘Maaconochee.’

  ‘A bit of a tickler, that!’ gurgled out one of the boys when he was subsequently told.

  ‘Aye, jammy!’ was the apt reply.

  The hard frost continues. This afternoon I was walking down the road when a convoy went out. The dust cloud raised by the cars from the dry, hard road was equal to that on a hot August day.

  What a picture the cars made! All along the straight, tree-bordered road as far as the eye could see, was car after car, a long steady uninterrupted line of them, with no horse vehicle, and no pedestrians to break their uniformity. On and on they come in apparently never-ending succession, this car from a fleet of the White Rabbit, that from the Scottish Mobile Unit, that bearing the name of the ‘Laird of So-and-so,’ this ‘The Minnies,’ that ‘The Maudes,’ this an A.S.C. wagon from the Red Hand fleet, that from the fleet of the Black Star, this the gift of the Licensed Traders, that from the Scottish Textile Workers. The Red Cross ambulance cars go to prove we are a united nation.

  Had a case of typhoid in one of the wards, so several boys in that particular marquee are to be inoculated. One boy informed me that he didn’t think it would be necessary in his case as it was only six months since he had been tattooed, and tattooing was as good as inoculation, wasn’t it?

  Quite a number of the boys hold this belief. This particular one rolled back his sleeve, and showed me a red heart shot through with a large, blue arrow the size of a respectable lead pencil. Underneath were written the words ‘Maggie, I love you.’

  Such an unblushing parade of affection persuaded another man to show his arms, the one bearing the name ‘Elsie,’ and the other ‘Agnes,’ a situation which the other boys thought liable to be fraught with considerable danger. The possibility, however, of rivalry and jealousy was removed, when the man explained that they were the names of his two little daughters.

  A woman’s head in a befeathered hat, and a girl’s name, are favoured subjects for tattooing, though the name, one fears, must place a terrible strain on the fidelity – or the veracity – of the gallant and impressionable martyr. A pantomime ‘principal boy’ is another favoured device. So, too, are clasped hands, while a man who has seen service in India quite usually boasts a coiled snake on the arm and a most elaborate blue and red dragon with out-stretched wings unfurled across the chest.

  Even yet, I’m not sure whether the following piece of sarcasm heard to-day was intentional or not.

  Two boys from the same town were talking of a home regiment.

  ‘Who is the Medical Officer with the Loamshires now?’

  ‘Captain Medico.’

  ‘Medico! I went to school with him. You don’t mean to say he’s a doctor!’

  ‘Yes, old son – and with the Loamshires.’

  AN OPERATION AT AN ARMY VETERINARY CAMP

  ‘Great Scot! He a doctor! Why, man, he couldn’t hurt a fly!’

  We had a thoroughly delightful and enthrallingly interesting lecture to-night when the radiographer explained to us X-rays and the working thereof, and showed us many plates of cases we had nursed. Wish all the lectures were as interesting.

  To-day a guard was on duty in a ‘shell-shock’ ward where was a patient who persisted in wanting to get out of bed.

  ‘Now be quiet, matey,’ he exhorted. ‘You must lie still, lie still, chum. No, you can’t get up. Lie still, I say. If you don’t lie still, I’ll – I’ll –,’ the accents grew positively threatening – ‘I’ll bring the other guard.’

  Chapter XXI

  War-Time Marketing

  ‘MA CHÉRIE, BE an angel and do some mess shopping for me this morning, since you are going into town,’ pleads the home sister.

  I hesitate, for off-time has been none too generous of late. We are short-staffed and one’s scanty leisure at any time is always pretty fully booked. So I hesitate.

  ‘It won’t take long.’ – I know it will take all the morning. – ‘Besides, you know the business from A to Z,’ continues the voice of the arch-flatterer. ‘You will enjoy it. It is market day. There is an evacuation, and you’ll get a good car to town. And you’ll help me tremendously.’

  When I leave the camp I don’t take ‘a good car.’ It is a glorious, mild, springlike morning – a perfect morning, thoroughly to be enjoyed after a month’s iron frost of twenty to thirty degrees, a morning when, if I were in mufti, I should feel shabby and go and buy a new hat, and then straightaway order a coat and skirt to correspond with it.

  However, the Army, excellent institution that it is, decides our fashions, and on April 1st I shall don a new hat, a straw one, and not until April 1st. Moreover, it is a very dull pastime buying a new hat precisely like its predecessor, so my ebullition of up-liftedness and light-heartedness finds an outlet in another way. Instead of decorously taking ‘a good car,’ I am mounted on a great lumbering motor-lorry, the seat at least six feet above the ground. Here I drink in great draughts of refreshing, sweet, pure air.

  The driver and I ‘talk shop,’ his shop, though ultimately it veers round to mine. After meeting cows, young bullocks, pigs, flocks of sheep, and several of the most antediluvian of country carts, – all quaint enough to form the subject of an exquisite picture, – we encounter a tiny band of Indians with their goats. At this we abandon the subject of self-starters for that of the management of traffic.

  ‘Of course, traffic is not so well regulated here as it is in England. Still, we have surprisingly few accidents. During Christmas week, however, I knocked down a man, an A.S.C. bloke.

  ‘He was admitted into hospital and I went that night to see him. “You fool!” was his greeting. I agreed.

  ‘“You fool! Here I am being tucked into a cushy bed several times a day by kind-hearted nurses, bless ’em! All we patients are happy as the day is long. Everybody is busy making something to decorate the ward. Look at all the holly and mistletoe the boys are going to hang up. There are going to be concerts and Christmas teas and sing-songs and game competitions, and you, you fool, knock me down – and d
on’t hurt me sufficiently to keep me here. I’m to be discharged to-morrow.”

  ‘And the poor blighter turned his face to the tent wall.

  ‘You notice, we’ve got some women-drivers, sister. They’ll be all right for the lighter base work, at E—— and H——, near the coast, but the usual ambulance-car driving is not fit work for a woman, with its night-work, and out in all weathers.

  ‘You know, too, what it was in July. We had to disinfect and spray our cars several times during the day and night – and our own clothes had to go to the fumigator. Our shirts we had to change more than once during duty. And another thing. As you know, we sometimes hadn’t a man as a case but, at the end of the journey, a dead body.’

  ‘True,’ I remark, ‘but not one of your arguments is strong enough to urge against women doing their obvious duty in this ambulance work. What about us nurses? We have night-work, we are out in all weathers in our camp hospitals. We had the vermin nuisance last July, and, indeed, always have it – in a milder form, of course. While as for your last argument …’

  ‘Yes, sister, but you nurses – well, you are just you.’

  Marvelling at the inconsistency of man, I bid him good-morning, and go towards the market, calling to mind the heated opposition we always have from the boys when we sometimes say what we often passionately feel, that we nurses would gladly and proudly go as far up the line as we could be useful, and that it is our duty to take the same risks of being killed, wounded, or maimed as they.

  But chivalry, it seems, is not yet dead, and this subject remains the only one on which the boys contradict and oppose us.

  What is the first item on my shopping list? Eggs. I go towards the poultry section set apart under the shade of Ecole des Beaux Arts, and flanked on the further side by a beautiful Gothic archway.

  I am offered ‘beaucoup eggs,’ as the boys would say, great yellow ones, at thirty centimes each. Why do eggs look so much more tempting when their shells are yellow? Emboldened by the size of my order for eggs, the market woman presses me to buy chickens trussed and ready for the oven at seven, eight, or ten francs. But what interests me more than the prepared fowls are the live ones with legs tied together and put down in odd places, three cockerels, for example, in company with a pair of great wooden sabots thrust into a string bag, which lies in the wide sill of a mullioned window, whose tiny, diamond-shaped panes are throwing back a myriad shafts of lights from the soft, February sunshine.