FIRST IMPRESSIONS
The last Chapter was devoted to the F.A.N.Y.'s in camp before the War,
but from now onwards will be chronicled facts that befell them on active
service.
When war broke out in August 1914 Lieutenant Ashley Smith lost no time
in offering the Corps' services to the War Office. To our intense
disappointment these were refused. However, F.A.N.Y.'s are not easily
daunted. The Belgian Army, at that time, had no organised medical corps
in the field, and informed us they would be extremely grateful if we
would take over a Hospital for them. Lieutenant Smith left for Antwerp
in September 1914, and had arranged to take a house there for a Hospital
when the town fell; her flight to Ghent where she stayed to the last
with a dying English officer, until the Germans arrived, and her
subsequent escape to Holland have been told elsewhere. (_A F.A.N.Y. in
France--Nursing Adventures._) Suffice it to say we were delighted to see
her safely back among us again in October; and on the last day of that
month the first contingent of F.A.N.Y.'s left for active service, hardly
any of them over twenty-one.
I was unfortunately not able to join them until January 1915; and never
did time drag so slowly as in those intervening months. I spent the time
in attending lectures and hospital, driving a car and generally picking
up every bit of useful information I could. The day arrived at last and
Coley and I were, with the exception of the Queen of the Belgians
(travelling incognito) and her lady-in-waiting, the only women on board.
The Hospital we had given us was for Belgian Tommies, and called
Lamarck, and had been a Convent school before the War. There were fifty
beds for "_blessés_" and fifty for typhoid patients, which at that
period no other Hospital in the place would take. It was an extremely
virulent type of pneumonic typhoid. These cases were in a building apart
from the main Hospital and across the yard. Dominating both buildings
was the cathedral of Notre Dame, with its beautiful East window facing
our yard.
The top floor of the main building was a priceless room and reserved for
us. Curtained off at the far end were the beds of the chauffeurs who had
to sleep on the premises while the rest were billeted in the town; the
other end resolved itself into a big untidy, but oh so jolly, sitting
room. Packing cases were made into seats and piles of extra blankets
were covered and made into "tumpties," while round the stove stood the
interminable clothes horses airing the shirts and sheets, etc., which
Lieutenant Franklin brooded over with a watchful eye! It was in this
room we all congregated at ten o'clock every morning for twenty precious
minutes during which we had tea and biscuits, read our letters, swanked
to other wards about the bad cases we had got in, and generally talked
shop and gossiped. There was an advanced dressing station at Oostkerke
where three of the girls worked in turn, and we also took turns to go up
to the trenches on the Yser at night, with fresh clothes for the men and
bandages and dressings for those who had been wounded.
At one time we were billeted in a fresh house every three nights which,
as the reader may imagine in those "moving" times, had its
disadvantages. After a time, as a great favour, an empty shop was
allowed us as a permanency. It rejoiced in the name of "Le Bon Génie"
and was at the corner of a street, the shop window extending along the
two sides. It was this "shop window" we used as a dormitory, after
pasting the lower panes with brown paper. When they first heard at home
that we "slept in a shop window" they were mildly startled. We were so
short of beds that the night nurses tumbled into ours as soon as they
were vacated in the morning, so there was never much fear of suffering
from a damp one.
Our patients were soldiers of the Belgian line and cavalry regiments and
at first I was put in a _blessé_ ward. I had originally gone out with
the idea of being one of the chauffeurs; but we were so short of nurses
that I willingly went into the wards instead, where we worked under
trained sisters. The men were so jolly and patient and full of gratitude
to the English "Miskes" (which was an affectionate diminutive of
"Miss"). It was a sad day when we had to clear the beds to make ready
for fresh cases. I remember going down to the Gare Maritime one day
before the Hospital ship left for Cherbourg, where they were all taken.
Never shall I forget the sight. In those days passenger ships had been
hastily converted into Hospital ships and the accommodation was very
different from that of to-day. All the cases from my ward were
"stretchers" and indeed hardly fit to be moved. I went down the
companion way, and what a scene met my eyes. The floor of the saloon was
packed with stretchers all as close together as possible. It seemed
terrible to believe that every one[1] of those men was seriously wounded.
The stretchers were so close together it was impossible to try and move
among them, so I stayed on the bottom rung of the ladder and threw the
cigarettes to the different men who were well enough to smoke them. The
discomfort they endured must have been terrible, for from a letter I
subsequently received I learnt they were three days on the journey. In
those days when the Germans were marching on Calais, it was up to the
medical authorities to pass the wounded through as quickly as possible.
Often the men could only speak Flemish, but I did not find much
difficulty in understanding it. If you speak German with a broad
Cumberland accent I assure you you can make yourself understood quite
easily! It was worth while trying anyway, and it did one's heart good to
see how their faces lighted up.
There were some famous characters in the Hospital, one of them being
Jefké, the orderly in Ward I, who at times could be tender as a woman,
at others a veritable clown keeping the men in fits of laughter, then as
suddenly lapsing into a profound melancholy and reading a horrible
little greasy prayer book assuring us most solemnly that his one idea in
life was to enter the Church. Though he stole jam right and left his
heart was in the right place, for the object of his depredations was
always some extra tasty dish for a specially bad _blessé_. He had the
longest of eyelashes, and his expression when caught would be so comical
it was impossible to be angry with him.
Another famous "impayable" was the coffin-cart man who came on occasions
to drive the men to their last resting place. The Coffin cart was a
melancholy looking vehicle resembling in appearance a dilapidated old
crow, as much as anything, or a large bird of prey with its torn black
canvas sides that flapped mournfully like huge wings in the wind as
Pierre drove it along the streets. I could never repress a shiver when I
saw it flapping along. The driver was far from being a sorry individual
with his crisp black moustaches _bien frisés_ and his merry eye. He
explained to me in a burst of confidence that his _métier_ in peace
times was that of a trick cyclist on the Halls. What a contrast from
his present job. He promised to borrow a bicycle on the morrow and give
an exhibition for our benefit in the yard. He did so, and was certainly
no mean performer. The only day I ever saw him really downcast was when
he came to bid good-bye. "What, Pierre," said I, "you don't mean to say
you are leaving us?" "Yes, Miske, for punishment--I will explain how it
arrived. Look you, to give pleasure to my young lady I took her for a
joy-ride, a very little one, on the coffin cart, and on returning behold
we were caught, _voilà_, and now I go to the trenches!" I could not help
laughing, he looked so downcast, and the idea of his best girl enjoying
a ride in that lugubrious car struck me as being the funniest thing I
had heard for some time.
We were a never-failing source of wonderment to the French inhabitants
of the town. Our manly Yeomanry uniform filled them with awe and
admiration. I overheard a chemist saying to one of his clients as we
were passing out of his shop, "Truly, until one hears their voices, one
would say they were men."
"There's a compliment for us," said I, to Struttie. "I didn't know we
had manly faces until this moment."
After some time when work was not at such a high pressure, two of us
went out riding in turns on the sands with one of the Commandants.
Belgian military saddles took some getting used to with the peak in
front and the still higher one behind, not to mention the excessive
slipperiness of the surface. His favourite pastime on the return ride
was to play follow my leader up and down the sand dunes, and it was his
great delight to go streaking up the very highest, with the sand
crumbling and slipping behind him, and we perforce had to follow and lie
almost flat on the horse's backs as we descended the "precipice" the
other side. We felt English honour was at stake and with our hearts in
our mouths (at least mine was!) followed at all costs.
If we were off duty in the evening we hurried back to the "shop window"
buying eggs _en route_ and anything else we fancied for supper; then we
undressed hastily and thoroughly enjoyed our picnic meal instead of
having it in the hospital kitchen, with the sanded floor and the medley
of Belgian cooks in the background and the banging of saucepans as an
accompaniment. Two of the girls kept their billet off the Grand Place as
a permanency. It was in a funny old-fashioned house in a dark street
known universally as "the dug-out"--Madame was fat and capable, with a
large heart. The French people at first were rather at a loss to place
the English "Mees" socially and one day two of us looked in to ask
Madame's advice on how to cook something. She turned to us in
astonishment. "How now, you know not how to cook a thing simple as that?
Who then makes the 'cuisine' for you at home? Surely not Madame your
mother when there are young girls such as you in the house?" We gazed
at her dumbly while she sniffed in disgust. "Such a thing is unheard of
in my country," she continued wrathfully. "I wonder you have not shame
at your age to confess such ignorance"--"What _would_ she say," said my
friend to me when she had gone, "if I told her we have _two_ cooks at
home?"
This house of Madame's was built in such a way that some of the bedrooms
jutted out over the shops in the narrow little streets. Thompson and
Struttie who had a room there were over a Café Chantant known as the
"Bijou"--a high class place of entertainment! Sunday night was a gala
performance and I was often asked to a "scrambled-egg" supper during
which, with forks suspended in mid air, we listened breathlessly to the
sounds of revelry beneath. Some of the performers had extremely good
voices and we could almost, but not quite, hear the words (perhaps it
was just as well). What ripping tunes they had! I can remember one
especially when, during the chorus, all the audience beat time with
their feet and joined in. We were evolving wild schemes of disguising
ourselves as _poilus_ and going in a body to witness the show, but
unfortunately it was one of those things that is "not done" in the best
circles!