This is just a letter to you, not a general epistle to the United
States. Major Murphy has just cabled to-day that we are all well, and
the reason that there has been such a long delay in your getting our
letters from France is that they were held up in London. We do not know
why. A number of friends have cabled, and that is how we know that our
letters have not been received. I spoke to the Major about it this
morning, as so many nurses have said they thought they had better cable,
and he said he would cable Miss Hudson at once, which he proceeded to
do. I began this last evening, but was interrupted by having an orderly
bring me a huge bunch of sweet-peas, mignonette, etc. from a nice
Colonel commanding a neighboring Infantry Base Depot. Of course I had to
stop and put them in such vases as we have. I brought some down to the
officers’ mess, where they were just finishing dinner, and where I had
to stay and chat a bit.
This afternoon we have had distinguished guests! Mrs. Christie, the
Chief Nurse of the Presbyterian Unit from N. Y. and three of her nurses
motored down from E. to call on me and more especially Miss Allison of
the Cleveland Unit. It was pleasant to see them and to compare notes.
My, but you all seem far away in another world. But it is fun to think
about you. We feel now as though we had been here forever. If you have
not read Lord Northcliffe’s new book, “At the War” do get hold of it,
for it describes just what we are in the midst of, and everything about
us and our surroundings etc., not really us--of course, but hospital
people out here in general. One of our men lent me his copy. We are
going to be very short of reading matter here very soon. We had a small
library from our steamer books, but in Rouen, it seems, there are not
many English books. (I’m reading some French, of course.) We have
subscribed for a good many magazines, but none have come yet, nor
papers. If you should mail a good novel once in so often, I believe it
would reach us easily and it certainly would be appreciated. Another
thing we would love to have is some music. Popular new dance music, or
songs, and a hymn-book. We have rented a piano, but no one brought any
music. We have some good singers, and we need some good popular airs. I
believe I told you about the 12-franc violin some of my girls bought me.
You’d be surprised what sweet tunes it can play! The three or four old
torn pieces that were hanging around are almost worn out and I can see
that if we enjoy playing and singing now, we will much more when the
little sitting-room end of our mess hall is the only warm place to go to
on a rainy, cold, winter night. So there are two things you can do for
me. The Parcel Post is bringing things over from the States already, and
I guess that is the best way to send things.
Everybody over here talks about the cold of the winter, and we shall
have no heat except in occasional small oil stoves, or a coal stove, for
each hut. Our tented Hospital is not to be hutted this year, as we have
been told. But if the English could stand it last year, I am sure we
can. Mrs. Whitelaw Reid has written to ask if we want sleeping bags, and
I have replied “Yes.” We have rubber boots, rubber hats, and rubber
coats, which we shall have to wear constantly. Washington is trying to
work out some suitable uniform for us. It will take considerable
imagination to design a costume that will be warm enough, short enough,
washable, and suitable for use in tents where you must dress very
infected wounds. Our white caps are absurd for popping in and out of
low-entranced tents.
Elsie asks how the responsibility of taking care of all my people is
burdening me. For a while it was a pretty big burden, but now it does
not weigh nearly as much as it did. I have such splendid people here
with me. Just a few have been a little troublesome, but nothing to
mention. And the rest are loyal, affectionate, and entirely to be
depended upon. The ten that came from Kansas City have been bricks. The
two from Hannibal have turned out to be good nurses and fine women, and
the rest, almost all of them, developed fine qualities that I really did
not know they had in them. We have had so little trouble I cannot help
wondering what it is, when I hear of difficulties the other Units are
having. “Oh yes,” Matron X. said, “I have forbidden my nurses to go out
with officers, but they are doing it.” We allow ours to go out with
doctors, but have made the only restriction that they go in groups of at
least three. They have been fine about it and go off half a dozen at a
time, and have splendid walks, etc. “Yes, I’ve forbidden mine to smoke
or drink wine in public, but they do it in private, and I don’t think
it’s any of my business to meddle with their private lives,” said she.
Our nurses talked the matter over at a meeting after I had presented the
whole thing to them, and voted to go on the water-wagon and not to
smoke while they were over here, and they are doing it too! I don’t ask,
or pry, but tell them how proud I am of them when I can tell other
people of the stand my people took by themselves. Miss E. of the
American Ambulance, who was down here, was so much impressed by the
attitude of my nurses on these matters, she went back to Paris and told
her nurses there about it, and said it made a big impression on them. It
is hard not to drink wine where so much wine abounds, but we are not out
in public places much, and one can always get water or their horrid
cider. And the point is, my people are proud of themselves, and are
proud to tell the English officers, who offer wine at parties, that we
American nurses don’t drink wine. The officers say: “Aren’t you allowed
to? your Matron won’t know.” Then they answer with pride, “It isn’t our
Matron that won’t let us, we decided not to ourselves.” By that time the
officers quit fooling, and say “Well, it’s a mighty good resolution,
too.”
You can’t begin to guess how welcome your letters are. Some seem to come
through so very quickly now. One of Mother’s dated July 12 reached me
July 28th and Elsie’s of the 13th came just as fast. I wish Elsie’s
kiddies could make jigsaw puzzles for our men. They are just crazy
about them, and we arrange tables so they can get at them, and they
spend hours working on them. It is so much easier for the one-armed ones
than reading. Couldn’t Billy make and send me one, or some knitted
things. I’d give it myself to one of our boys and have the boy write
Billy a letter. I wish I could send you pictures, but we can’t send a
single thing. All the kodaks were taken, and we each had to sign a paper
that we had none in our possession. I wish I could draw, there are so
many wonderfully interesting and picturesque things about here, and
right in our camp.
August 8, 1917.
We have just finished our weekly inspection by the “D. D. M. S.,” which
means the Deputy Divisional Medical Supervisor, who is a very pleasant
Colonel. Every Wednesday at 3.30 we all line up at the entrance to our
camp and wait to meet him after he gets through inspecting No. 10
General Hospital. By “we” I mean our “C. O.” Major Fife, our “M. O.”
Major Murphy, our Liaison Officer, a British Colonel, the Quartermaster,
and the “Matron,” me. It really is a very pleasant occasion. We sit out
there in the sun, if there is any, on a park bench and gossip until we
see the D. D. M. S. aide appear from out of the last tent of No. 10,
then we stand up and walk over a bit to greet him. He always shakes
hands with me first and asks me how I am getting along, then salutes the
others and has a word or two with them, then turns to me and asks what I
want him to see. I usually turn to Major Murphy and ask him if he has
anything special to show the Colonel, and Major Murphy says: “Let’s show
the Colonel line so and so.” I have accidentally mentioned before what
lines I would like to have visited. It is usually tea time when he
comes, and, unless we tell the nurses to hold off with the tea until
after the inspection is over, the tents are in a mussy state. So every
Wednesday I usually warn two or three different lines that I may have
them inspected. To-day as a matter of fact we went to three different
lines that had not been warned, as Major Murphy wanted to show the
Colonel some special cases. After inspection is over, the officers take
him and his aide to tea in the Officers’ Mess, or I take him up to the
Sisters’ Mess. While we were making rounds to-day, it began to pour, but
one of my nice aides brought me an umbrella and Captain Schwab lent me
his rain coat to save my clean white dress. When I went down to the
point to wait for his Elegance, the sun was shining beautifully, but it
was about the second peep of the sun we have had in over a week. And now
it is pouring.--I had to stop then and put on my rain hat and coat and
go up to the Sisters’ Quarters with a Lieutenant from the Royal
Engineers, who came to inspect the leaks in the roofs of the nurses’
huts. He saw them all right and will have them fixed.
We are wondering so much whether you are getting our letters. Letters
coming to us have told of a long stretch of time without word from us;
in fact no letters had been received from any of us since we landed in
France. Major Murphy cabled Miss Hudson a week ago that we were quite
all right, so I hope none of you are worrying. We heard to-day that some
postcards I sent on June 24th had been received, so it seems that cards
go through safely anyway. I hope that by this time you are getting our
letters. Wasn’t that account of my interview with the London reporter
absurd? Of course I did not say all that bosh, but I did say that I
could not make any comparisons between the American and the English
hospitals. That is what she wanted me to do. I saw copies of that
interview from San Francisco, Detroit, Philadelphia, and St. Louis
papers, which shows how far a little bit of “swank” can go.
It is ten days since I have written at all to any one. We have been very
busy, and have all had long hours of work and I have not felt much like
writing when I have had the time to do so. The pressure has now let up a
bit, but I think it will be only a temporary let-up. Our hospital is
very full and we have many very bad cases. My nurses are beginning to
show the effect of the emotional strain. Their nerves are a bit on edge,
and I find that when they lose for a few days time-off-duty, as they all
have been doing, they are not standing the strain and loss as well as
they did the last time we were so busy. I have had about a dozen of them
weeping, so I am hunting about for more forms of diversion. The
continuous rainy, damp weather, the accumulating emotional strain, and
the real hard work are having an effect upon them all that is bothering
me. There is a convalescent hospital for Sisters at E., to which I can
send one or two at a time for a short rest as soon as I can spare them.
But I do not want to have to begin to do that yet. So we are having a
little dance in our Mess to-morrow night and perhaps I can get up some
bridge parties or some other games. Our sitting-room space is so small
we are very much handicapped but if it will only clear up, we could play
some outdoor games. You see my real problems are beginning. I would have
given a good deal myself to have had some one like Mother to weep on,
last Sunday. You can imagine how I miss my older women friends.
Naturally I cannot do any weeping here, since I have to be wept on; but
there are times when it would be such a comfort to be braced myself.
There was nothing really wrong on Sunday, but that day we had so many
sick men to look after, and things got a bit complicated and several
nurses got hysterical and I felt things were just too much. Any one
would have thought so if they had seen our poor gassed men who are so
terribly burnt. One of my most stolid nurses came to me that day and
said “I just don’t know how I am going to stand it, taking care of so
and so.” I said “Why not?” and she replied, “When he was brought in to
us he was so badly burned we could hardly see any part of him that we
could touch except the back of his neck; but that isn’t the worst part,
instead of cursing or moaning he was singing, and I just can’t stand
that.” It isn’t only women that are affected by these things, the men
don’t weep often, but they come near it. And they get just as edgey and
worn to a frazzle. They lose more sleep than the nurses do, for they
have to get up in the night all the time, to operate, or attend to
patients, or look after convoys, in or out.
I want to tell you about the most unique day I ever had in my life. It
was last Monday when I and five other nurses went out for our gas
training. All soldiers receive gas training, as you know, and are fitted
with gas helmets, which they take with them to the front. Recently all
doctors and nurses who go up to the Casualty Clearing Stations have
been given gas training too. Only about ten nurses so far have had this
training. We have already sent one surgical team to the front, including
one nurse, and I have been quite determined that I shall go as soon as
possible. Major M. hasn’t been altogether willing that I should,
thinking that I ought to stay here with my children, but I have pointed
out to him that Miss T. and the Supervisors could take care of them
perfectly well, and he has consented to let me go. I want some real
manual work with the patients and I can’t get it here, for I have to do
so much office work. I have been going down to the operating room as
much as I could to help a little and get my hand in, but I cannot get
there often. Major M. says I can’t go with him, for I must not be gone
while he is away, so I am to wait and go with Major C. Now about gas
training. There is a regular school here where thousands of soldiers are
given their training daily. It takes the greater part of the day. I
cannot describe it. You will have to wait till I get home. But we had
our masks tested first in a room filled with lachrymating gas; we were
drilled in putting them on any number of times, for speed is a very
important element, so each motion is counted and timed. We were lectured
for an hour, the most interesting and barbarous lecture I ever heard in
my life. It is at one and the same time the refinement of science and
civilization, and of hideous barbarism. We had lunch in a dugout with
the officers of the school, for the school is in the middle of a huge
plain, and then we were taken into a trench filled with lachrymating gas
so that we would know what it is like. This without helmets. Then with
three officers, one before, one in the middle, and one behind our string
of six nurses, and a medical officer standing outside, we were taken
into a closed, tunnel-like affair into which chlorine gas was being
poured in clouds from special pipes. We of course had our masks on and
were all carefully inspected before we went in. This gas would not hurt
us, they say, but we get the smell and get used to wearing the masks and
are ready afterwards to get our certificate.
August 20, 1917.
The last letter I wrote was August 8th and here it is the 20th. The time
goes so very rapidly I forget when I last wrote and am surprised to find
that it is over a week. We have not been so very busy these past two
weeks, I mean not as we were before then. It has not been raining as
much these past few days, to our great relief, and we are beginning to
get dried out a bit. When mattresses begin to get moldy inside of huts,
it has been pretty damp. The spirits of my people are improving under
the let-up of strain, but they are showing a few physical signs of the
over-fatigue. We have been having a number of infected fingers and other
little things and have really broken our good health record. I have one
nurse, Miss S., away at E. for a ten days’ change at a lovely
Convalescent Home for Sisters, and another is to go soon,--Miss M. who
had a bad attack of bronchitis. Miss S. had a lot of little infections
which showed she was below par. Then yesterday we had our most serious
trouble, for we had to send Miss S. to the Hospital for Sick Sisters
here in Rouen to have an operation due to an old injury. The British
officials could not have been more courteous to us. They made it
possible for our men to perform the operation and let one of my nurses
go and stay with Miss S. The operation was a very long, serious one.
Major M. and Major C. operated and Miss S. assisted while I held the
arm. The operation was performed in the Operating Room of No. 8 General
Hospital, which is five minutes’ ride from the “Sick Sisters” where
there is no Operating Room. She was taken back in an ambulance before
she was out of ether. The “Sick Sisters” is a lovely place on the other
side of Rouen, about 8 miles from here. We go and come in a little Ford
Ambulance. Major M. and I have been over to-day, and everything is
getting along beautifully. We took our second patient over with us
to-day,--Miss P., with a bad infected thumb. We are not supposed to
keep a sick sister in Quarters more than 24 hours. We have been very
lucky up to now in not having to send any one away. But this hospital is
ideal. It is taken care of by British doctors and Sisters and is in a
lovely location, higher than the spire of Rouen Cathedral. It is
worrying to have my children sick, but it is good to know what excellent
care they will get when they are sick enough to be sent away from us.
We have been having some lovely walks these past few days, since the
rains have let up. There are loads of beautiful places to go to all
around. One can take a little excursion boat from Rouen, down the river
a bit, then get off and walk back here through the woods. Several times
I have gone with some good walker into town, late in the afternoon, had
supper in a most interesting little French café, and walked out here
afterwards, making a nice walk of about 7 or 8 miles. The evenings are
light and the sunsets wonderful and the crowds going home across the big
bridges and out in our direction are most interesting. Ruth has walked
one way with me but not the two. She is on day duty now, but I do not
get a chance to go out with her very much as I cannot plan my free times
much beforehand.
Yesterday we had two very interesting callers: Miss Draper and Miss Hoyt
from New York. They looked very smart in neat gray and blue uniform
suits with A. R. C. on the shoulder straps. They said they were sent to
make inquiries about hospital needs for the American Red Cross. They
were very charming and pleasant and I liked very much talking with them.
They came just as we were starting to leave to attend to our operation,
so we asked them to come back to supper, which they did. They had driven
down from Paris in Major (Dr.) Alex. Lambert’s car, a humble Ford, they
called it. It looked pretty beautiful to us.
On the 13th I got a telegram from Philip saying he had landed at
Liverpool on the 11th. I wonder where he is and hope I shall be able to
communicate with him soon. I had to stop there to take a patient’s
mother down to see him. The boy is very badly hurt in several places,
two legs and one arm. A nice Y. M. C. A. person just turned her over to
me. It is a wonderful system that brings a relative out here, almost
personally conducted the whole way. This Y. M. C. A. person also brought
the brother of another of our patients, but he got here too late and I
had to tell him that his brother died last evening. He can be here for
the funeral to-morrow anyway, and he can talk to the nurses who looked
after the boy in his last hours. The Y. M. C. A. lady took him away for
the night, but will bring him back to-morrow.
There is not very much of special interest to chronicle just at present.
I am very well myself and trust I am going to stay so. Our food is quite
good and sufficient. We all have huge appetites from being out of doors
so much.
We are longing for letters very badly. It must be about three weeks now
since I have had a line from the States. I get some letters every day,
but they are mostly from England about patients or from people in the
locality, on business. There goes the third aëroplane that has flown
over us in the past half hour. They are such pretty things. I should
like to have a ride in one.
With loads of love to you all. This is a stupid letter, I know, but they
can’t all be thrilling, for naturally there have to be many unthrilling
days.
Julia.
August 28, 1917.
For almost 24 hours we have been having one of the severest wind storms
I have ever seen. It has been beautiful. It has been pouring for two
days, then last evening it began to blow, and such a whistling and
shrieking and rattling as there was. Up in our grove our little huts
were pretty well protected, but the trees lashed themselves with fury,
and branches broke, and doors and windows slammed and smashed. Several
small tents were blown down, but no serious damage was done. All day it
has been blowing great guns and it has been gray and cold, like a late
Fall day. I have been in the office all day doing accounts and other
tiresome things, with one or two trips to the lines for various
purposes. Miss Taylor had been off all the afternoon. I had tea in the
Officers’ Mess, which made a diversion of a few minutes. One of my
Colonel friends sent over some sweet peas and dahlias, and I took some
down for the officers’ tables, and got invited to tea, so stayed a few
minutes. Their mess is a bare, barracky kind of room under the grand
stand.
Yesterday I had a little different kind of day. All the morning I was in
and out of the office, down on the lines, and all over in the pour. Then
at 12:30 the Major and I went over in the ambulance to the Sick Sisters’
Hospital to see our invalids and take out the final stitches. Our lady
with the serious operation has been doing wonderfully well from the very
beginning. She has been up and about for several days, though she was
operated upon only nine days ago. She will be back on duty before very
long, if everything continues as it has been going. We shall probably
send her to the Sisters’ Convalescent Home for ten days after she is
well enough to go. It is such a blessing to have such splendid places to
have our sick nurses taken care of. I have one nurse now, at E.,
recovering from bronchitis, and just this operation case, and the nurse
with the badly infected finger, so I feel we are doing mighty well.
Well, after our visit to the hospital, we rode back to town in the pour,
and had lunch at Rouen’s best hotel, the Hotel de la Poste. It is a
regulation Continental hotel, full of staff officers, and has excellent
food. We in uniform were the only Americans there, but we saw a number
of our English friends. Afterwards we separated to do various errands. I
had a long séance at the Base Cashier’s, where I received 18,000 francs
from the British Government for my nurse mess, laundry, and field
allowance for July, and had to sign my name 138 times. Then I went to
the bank and deposited the money and straightened out some difficulties
there. That bank is so stupid, and makes so many mistakes; one has to
watch them very carefully. Then I paid a rations bill of £91, was picked
up by the ambulance, went to buy a sewing machine for the nurses, and
drove back to the hospital.
It poured all the time, but I enjoyed being out in the rain, for I was
properly dressed. I had on my heavy army boots, leather gaiters, blue
serge uniform under my nice belted tan raincoat, and my blue uniform
hat. My feet were not exactly dainty and ladylike, but they were so
comfortable and dry. All of us who have large enough feet are getting
our shoes from the quartermaster, and those with small feet are
bewailing their fate. Our paths are all mud and sharp stones, and the
ordinary sole of a woman’s regular shoe lasts about two weeks, and even
when new does not prevent the stones from hurting one’s feet. The shoe
question is going to be a problem this winter. I started the fashion of
wearing these very heavy army shoes, then many clamored for them; since
I wore leather gaiters yesterday, Major Murphy says he thinks I had
better have all the nurses get them.
_Sept. 2, 1917--Sunday_: We all have rubber boots. Some had bought them
for themselves and some were sent by Mrs. Whitelaw Reid. She is being a
regular fairy godmother to us. She has sent me, as a personal present
from her, the most wonderful Jaeger sleeping bag. It’s a perfect beauty,
and so soft and warm. She is sending sleeping bags for all the nurses,
but I imagine not fancy ones like mine. She sent us sheets and
pillowcases, which we were so glad to have, as we had been using stained
old things that had been issued to us from the hospital supplies. She
also has sent extra hot-water bottles, instrument kits, rubber aprons,
rubber coats, and hats, and she has just written that she is going to
attend to getting gray uniforms for us. She is Chairman of the London
Chapter of the American Red Cross, and is apparently much interested in
the American nurses that are with the British forces. She has just
written that she will send us woolen spencer waists to wear under our
uniforms, if I want them. I think I shall let her send them. She has
also written that she would like me to run over to London to talk things
over with her. I should like to go, but I am afraid I cannot, as Dr.
Murphy is just about to go up to the front with a surgical team.
I made my final trip over to the Hospital for Sick Sisters yesterday to
see Miss S. before she goes to the Convalescent Home at E. She has
entirely recovered, and has made a most remarkable record for herself
and our surgeons. We shall have her back on duty in a very few days,
probably about ten.
_Sept. 3d_: This letter has been written at several different sittings,
and the result is going to be pretty poor. Now that I have not such
interesting descriptions to give you or accounts of adventures, I am
almost ashamed to send on these dull commonplace letters. It is a
glorious, cool, sunny day to-day, and the hospital is not very heavy. I
have been off duty a while, sitting under the trees up in our compound,
reading an _Atlantic Monthly_ story aloud to Ruth as she lay on a
blanket on the ground. Her mother has just sent her some _Centurys_ and
the August _Atlantic_. We are getting the _Scribner_, and Dr. Clopton
brought me his August _Harper’s Monthly_, so we feel very rich. But for
69 American nurses these few copies won’t go very far. In a little while
the band from a neighboring base depot is coming to play for our
patients. I have been trying to manage this for some time, and at last
the day has come. And to-night there is to be another little dance in
our mess. All our tables have to be taken out, but we keep our guests
after the ball is over, and make them bring the tables back and help set
them for breakfast. To-night our officers are giving the party, and we
are the guests, but in our mess, as that is the only possible place for
dancing. We have had word from Washington that 30 more nurses are coming
to us. We shall then lose our V. A. D.’s, for which I shall be sorry,
for though they are more or less of a problem, the advantage of having
an interesting group like them in such close contact outweighs any
difficulties I may have with them.
We are all wonderfully well, and everything is well with us. In spite of
all that I say about bands and dances and the sun shining, there is
always the other side. Almost every day we have a death, if not more
than one. Night before last a poor boy died of tetanus, and just a few
days ago we had the sad experience of helping a poor mother watch her
son die, oh so hard. We had sent for her from England, and she was so
glad to be here. She came every day from the Y. M. C. A. hostel, and sat
by his side. He knew her when she first came. He had such terrible
wounds, and he could not stand the awful infection of them all. She was
here with him all that last night, and when he stopped breathing about
three o’clock, Miss Claiborne, the Surgical Night Supervisor, took her
away to the night nurses’ hut, a tiny place where they have their
suppers at midnight. She made her some coffee and wrapped her in
blankets and fixed her comfortably in chairs. The poor soul did not weep
a tear. She slept till morning, then went back to her hostel, and slept
all day, the Y. M. C. A. worker told us. The next day she came to get
his little belongings. I took her down to the mortuary, and it was not
until she saw the flowers Miss Watkins had put down there on him that
she went to pieces. She went to the funeral that afternoon, then left,
so full of gratitude to us, as though we had done anything.
Sept. 3.