September, 1915
_September 3rd._ Time has passed so quickly that it is hard to
realise that beautiful autumn is already upon us. Yet as the days
draw in, lights go on earlier, and our hut grows fuller and work more
engrossing. Outside the laughing, gurgling wavelets, chasing each other
round the rocks, are replaced by white-crested breakers that rage along
the shore at high tide and cut us off from the town.
Boulogne is once more animated, as people transfer their attention
during leisure hours from country pursuits to the joys of the shops,
whose windows give forth an enticing glow.
Our hut being the most easily cleared and converted into a concert
hall, it was decided to hold a performance there entirely for nursing
sisters.
About four hundred of them turned up, and, in spite of the difficulties
of getting sufficient cars to convey them backwards and forwards, it
proved a great success.
The morning before we had spent in trying vainly to get the place into
hospital-like order, so that even their critical eyes might have no
fault to find. It is extraordinary how many obstacles stood in our way.
For in France women scrubbers never go on their knees to work, their
method of cleaning a floor being to flood it with water and chloride of
lime, and having vaguely played about with mops on the end of a long
broom, to leave it severely alone; and as, long before the place has
had a chance to dry, it is being tramped on by men in muddy boots, the
results are disastrous, to say the least of it.
Nor is it at all easy to get rid of the refuse of the place, which
has either to be consigned to the incinerator, buried in trenches, or
carted away; and although the mayor's cart _sometimes_ condescends to
call once a week, it usually takes a good deal of persuasion.
_September 12th._ A day off duty is best begun by a swim. To float
on the warm, pellucid waves, rejoicing in the sun and breeze, is to
be alive. The next item on the programme is to look up old friends.
This is not altogether without disappointment, for they are all, like
oneself, "war worn" and beginning to be pessimistic. Many are on the
verge of a nervous breakdown, owing to the isolation of their position
(it is quite a tragedy in itself to note the number of people who can't
afford to have friends); others, and quite a number, have found solace
in religion and have turned Catholic, being baptised in the Cathedral
that has watched so many changes these last months.
From home come letters full of Zeppelin raids. Squadrons of these must
have come, according to descriptions. Everyone claims to have had them
"just over our street."
_September 20th._ We are glad to see the pest of flies and wasps
abating at last. May that wonderfully efficient sanitary inspector--the
bane of so many people's lives!--whose unflagging zeal has rendered
this disease-ridden neighbourhood quite a passable health resort
be honoured and sung as he deserves. The construction of baths and
laundries are minute details compared with the difficulties of coping
with drainage and flies.
Owing to the prevalence of the cesspool system here, the French
authorities permit only of creolin as disinfector; and, in spite of
effluvia, none of the ordinary deodorants is allowed. Then, quite
recently and with no warning, to cope with the shortage of water, the
contaminated water of the Odre River was let in to supplement the
ordinary supply, and we were served with notices to the effect that all
water used (1) for drinking, (2) for washing up cups, plates, cooking
utensils, etc., (3) for cleaning teeth, must be either boiled or
chlorinated, with many other regulations calculated to counteract the
idiosyncrasies of contaminated water.
_Revenons à nos moutons_--and our flies! For was I not about to pen an
anthem on all the fly traps, papers, cemeteries and fly poisons that
are our daily consternation?
Each morning for months past every dish has been covered by fresh
muslin covers, whilst sandwiches are stored under wire safes, and
harmless-looking but efficacious baits of creolin, hidden in seemingly
innocuous saucers of milk and sugar, are set nightly, oblivious of
the indignant buzzing of their victims. Congested traps full of wasps
meet their fate in buckets of boiling water, whilst those dangling
fly-spangled creations, whose unpleasant habit it is to smite the
unwary when least expected, leaving an unwanted "souvenir" of sticky,
jam-like substance on his face or hair, are consigned in all their
odorous glory to the fire.
Oh yes! our sanitary inspector is as much a tartar on the score of
flies as he is on drainage and the boiling of milk.
Only the other day, whilst inspecting the kitchen of a neighbouring
hospital, a typical incident occurred. Grunting his approval of
everything, the Major was about to take his departure when his eye
lighted upon a solitary fly which, having evaded all efforts at
capture, was crawling upon the ceiling.
"Adjutant!" roared the Major, "what's that fly doing there?"
Completely taken aback, the Adjutant faltered in trepidation: "I don't
know, sir, to be sure. But I'll ask the Sergeant-Major!"
_September 25th._ Now are all things explained--the massed cavalry, the
convoys, the ammunition wagons we saw on a surreptitious journey we
made up the line; the "Something" in the air, the expectation of the
small and restless audience at a concert we had this afternoon. For the
great "Push" has begun, and fifteen thousand wounded are expected down
here alone, and to cope with the work every available nook and cranny
has been converted into hospital accommodation.
It was about 9.30 P.M., just as we were finishing our evening repast,
that there came a tap on the shutters. There stood a polite but hurried
C.O. asking courteously for the _loan_ of our building, which he has
every right to commandeer.
_September 26th._ A dreary "gun rain" has set in, but nothing can damp
the spirits of the men--for rumour has it we have advanced five miles
along the whole line, with a magnificent cavalry charge; and the 3,000
prisoners brought down to-day clearly point to a crushing victory.
_September 29th._ A complete change has been wrought, and as I sit in
the library gazing across the sea of beds where lie the weary bandaged
forms, towards the counter, upon which rise the pile of surgical
instruments and other paraphernalia of sickness, the old smell, so
familiar a year ago, of blood-covered beings, whose clothes have been
time and again drenched through and dried on them, comes to me.
[Illustration: EXTEMPORISED HOSPITAL IN A HUT
"Fifteen thousand wounded are expected down here alone, and to cope
with the work every available nook and cranny has been converted into a
hospital"]
The place has been scoured out, and makes an excellent ward, but for
the elements, whose fierceness baffles all efforts to heat the interior.
Apart from the wounded there is no denying that Thomas Atkins has a
strong penchant for stuffy rooms. Maybe it is the reaction after months
of enforced outdoor life, but the fact remains that if he _can_ shut
every door and window, and huddle round a fireplace instead of enjoying
the fresh air, he will, without fail, continue to do so.
Icy blasts penetrate the cracks of the unlined wooden wall, rain pours
through the ventilators--which the French workmen had unthinkingly
built inwards--quite oblivious of the fact that the sleeping figures
on the beds are deserving of more consideration. We have just put red
lampshades on to mellow the light, and even have dreams of varnishing
the floor one day, when things are slack.
Outside, in the marquee devoted to the storage of our tables and usual
equipment, we are carrying on our own work--at a disadvantage, to be
sure--but still carrying on, to facilitate which an extemporary boiler
has been erected near the door.
In the kitchen, where daily we are gleaning undreamt-of wisdom on the
scores of ration-drawing, diet sheets, order forms, chaos would reign
but for the continual presence of one of us. For the two French girls
and two orderlies are tumbling over each other in their anxiety to get
things done up to time. As it is, things work admirably, and we are all
growing adepts at brandishing heavy meat choppers and cooking in the
cauldrons and stewpots, so large that no two women can move them.
We stewed 30 kilos of meat, with vegetables, this morning, and served
it at 12.15. As we cut up their meat for the handless and armless, they
were as unanimous in their appreciation of the food as we had been
in our admiration of the excellent ration beef, of which each man is
entitled to ten ounces. We can only attribute the men's grousing to the
fact that it may sometimes be insufficiently cooked. Better meat and
vegetables were surely never served before a king.
_September 30th._ As far as possible only the slight cases are sent to
us, so that the work amongst the fit may go on as usual.
Amongst the lying-down cases is a man with a bullet through the
pelvis, a gaunt Irishman of a strange hue, who, whilst wounded, had
been gassed by one of our own explosive shells.
"Look at them raindrops," said he. "That's 'ow the bullets fell, thick
as that."
"The wonder ain't the number of casualties, it's that anyone could live
through it," rejoined another.
"But we were through the fifth line o' their trenches and fightin' in
the open when I come down," adds a third, his eyes gleaming with the
light of victory that betokens that it was all worth while.
The achievement of our men seems all the more wonderful when one hears
how they were not only outnumbered and outflanked, but, in many parts
of the line, lacking in ammunition, which they maintain had to be held
in reserve for the main attack.
As the dressings were being done by the solitary nurse and doctor
in charge, as one by one the wounds were attended to, and a silence
pregnant with unuttered groans reigned, one felt vividly that none but
Michelangelo himself could depict that scene--those fine, muscular
forms looming in the dim morning light.