Another day has gone and I have not made much progress about getting
Philip here. After much telephoning and pulling wires we have found out
that Phil has been sent to No. 20 General Hospital at E. and is likely
to be transferred to England. I am going to raise the roof to-day--to
see if I can’t go there to see the D. D. M. S. of that area and see why
the boy can’t be brought here. I am going to do everything possible
before I give up, and anyway I shall see him, for if he gets sent to
England, I shall go over. I was going anyway next week, as Mrs. Whitelaw
Reid had written for me to come over about uniforms, etc. and Major
Murphy and Col. Fife had said they thought I ought to go, so I’ll go
anyway if Phil gets sent over there, but probably not if I can get him
here. All reports are that his condition is good.
It just occurred to me that you may not have received my letter of the
8th--telling all I know about his injury. The inclosed notes were my
original information. I will cable just as soon as I know anything more
definite. You poor old dears--you’ll be so shocked by my cable just as I
was by these notes Saturday. I felt sick at my stomach all day after
getting them. But don’t you worry, Phil is strong and he will get well
fast.
Lovingly,
Julia.
Sept. 19, 1917.
You cannot imagine how much my mind is at rest, for I have Phil here
with me and everything is all right. After waiting and waiting for some
word as to the chances of bringing him down from C., on Saturday last,
the 15th, I called the Aide of the D. D. M. S., and asked him to see
what he could do for me. On Sunday he telephoned that he had learned
that Phil was not able to travel, but that I could have an ambulance and
go up Monday morning, the 17th, and see the boy. It was necessary to
send an ambulance up to N. to bring a Chinaman up to the British
hospital for Chinese that is there. I was told I could take an officer
with me if I wanted to and if we found Phil well enough to travel, we
could bring him down. So I asked Capt. Veeder to go with me, and Col.
Fife gave us both two days’ leave of absence. It is about 130 miles to
C. We left at 10 A.M., and I took with me all the things that we might
possibly need if we were to bring Philip back, extra pillows, a feeding
cup, thermos, hypodermic set, etc., etc.
We had a beautiful trip up. The country for two thirds of the way is
most lovely and the day was beautiful. Both Capt. Veeder and I sat on
the front seat with the driver. The car was a great big regular
ambulance that can be used to carry four stretcher cases. The shelves
for the two upper cases can be hooked up. We made very good time. Had
dinner at a little hotel in E., stopped twenty minutes to say hello to
our friends of the Philadelphia Unit, had our tea en route from the
lunch box we brought from here, dropped our Chinaman at N., and dashed
on along the coast and reached C. about 6:30.
We went to the Chicago Unit’s hospital and were taken in most cordially
by Miss Urch, the chief nurse, and Capt. Veeder by Col. Collins, the
Commanding Officer. They told us that 20 General was just next door, and
that Phil was getting along finely. Col. Collins had seen him. He said
he thought we could take him back with us and that we would go down to
see him right after dinner. Meanwhile he would send word that I was
coming.
After dinner he escorted us through the pitch-black darkness to the
hospital. On account of recent air raids they have no outside light at
night and no unshaded inside. The result is very spooky. Ten days or so
ago the Boche had flown over and dropped some bombs on those hospitals,
killing a doctor from Boston, attached to the Peter Bent Brigham Unit
which is at C. also, and right next door to the Chicago Unit and their
officers’ hospital where Phil was. Several other people had been hurt,
some doctors and enlisted men. I saw a crater made by one of the shells.
Phil was sitting propped up in bed and he seemed mighty glad to see me.
He had no temperature and the M. O. said I could take him the next day:
so we told them to have him ready at 10 A.M., and left. He did not look
very badly, and, although his back is very painful when he moves and he
finds it difficult to stay in one position very long, we could tell that
the trip down would really not do him any greater harm than to tire him
very much. There was no danger of hemorrhage.
Then we went back to No. 12 Unit and were each of us given the greatest
hospitality. I had my first tub bath since I left London, though I took
it by the light of my electric torch. The quarters up there are better
than ours, but our location is much better than any of the others that
we saw. We came back even more satisfied with our station than we were
when we left. We got a good start in the morning, having the personal
attention of Col. Patterson of the Boston Unit and Col. Collins of the
Chicago Unit and the M. O. of the 20 General and several other people.
The pillows that we fitted around Phil’s back made it quite bearable for
him, and frequent turnings and readjustments and feedings and pleasant
converse made the hours go pretty rapidly. Capt. Veeder spelled me on
sitting inside on the little hard seat between the two stretcher places.
It was fearfully dusty, but I had plenty of nice cloths and could keep
the boy fairly comfortable. We stopped for lunch coming back at E. Capt.
Veeder and I went inside to see about ordering and to let Phil rest
quietly a few minutes while we had our lunch. We were near the window of
the dining-room, when suddenly I saw the wife of the inn-keeper climbing
into the ambulance with a large loaf of bread in one hand and a plate of
something in the other. I rushed out to stop her and pulled her out
looking quite horrified and saying “beaucoup malade.” Phil had wakened
up from a little nap and was convulsed to see her standing there holding
out the loaf of bread to him. I took the food back inside and in a few
minutes the Captain and I fed him comfortably with a nice little
audience standing around with much curiosity. Then we went on our way,
stopping once more about 4 to get some hot tea and to have a little
lunch.
We reached here at 6:45 and really I don’t think Phil was much the worse
for wear except very dirty and pretty tired. Col. Fife and Major
Clopton met us and made arrangements to have him put in an empty tent,
so the stretcher bearers pulled him out of the ambulance and carried him
in and we got him into a nice, clean, comfortable bed, and you can
imagine he was pretty glad to get there. His dinner was soon sent down
to him from the officers’ mess and he was cleaned up just enough to make
him comfortable. Major Clopton decided not to do his dressing until the
next morning, but to let him rest. He had a fairly comfortable night, he
said, sleeping at intervals, but he had not been sleeping well before he
left C. The next morning his temperature was only 99.6, so you see the
trip really did not do him any harm. When Major Clopton dressed him at
10, I went down to watch. He has what to you would appear to be a pretty
nasty wound, but what compared to so many of the things we see here is
really a very small matter. A jagged piece of shell about an inch long
entered just below the lower angle of his right shoulder blade and tore
right down through the muscles to the sacroiliac joint, which is where
the pelvic bones join the spine. It did not injure his spine at all, for
he can move very well except that he has pain. The doctors at the
Clearing Station opened up the whole tract almost, which was of course
necessary for free drainage.
Phil said that after the dressing the wound felt very much more
comfortable. He eats finely and is now having the time of his life,
having all his old friends visit him and make much of him. I have not
had much time to talk with him since I have been back, for of course
there was accumulated work for me to attend to, but I am so relieved to
have him here it does not matter whether I have time to spend with him
or not. I have seen that he has plenty of magazines and picture puzzles
to do, and he has been reading to-day all the letters from the various
members of the family that I have received in the past month, and also
the copies of all my letters to you all. I shall see him to-night
probably. We shall have him up in a chair out in the sun to-morrow; in
fact he may have been out to-day. He is occupying a tent alone although
there are 13 other beds in the tent where he is. I have said that he
does not need to stay alone, but while we are light it can easily be
managed. He has a convalescent patient as his personal servant, a “blue
boy,” as we call them, a “light duty patient” who is so proud because he
has an officer to wait on. There are American orderlies in his division
of course, but the blue boy fetches his meals and putters over him, etc.
Of course my nurses are in charge.
I brought all his kit and belongings down with him in the ambulance. I
have his metal helmet hanging here in my office. You can’t really
imagine what a narrow escape he had until you see the dent in the edge
of the thick steel hat that was made by the piece of shell. It broke the
edge and made a curved dent about an inch wide. It is a perfect miracle
he was not killed. It was the helmet that saved his life. He is so
marvelously fortunate, for no permanent damage has been done, and Major
Clopton does not think he will have any permanent disability, and he
might so easily have been killed or paralyzed by that little piece of
shell.
Friday, Sept. 28, 1917.
Yesterday afternoon I was writing a little note here in my office when I
heard the bugles sound for calling the convoy party and I finished my
note saying, there comes the convoy we have been expecting and I must
get busy. I must tell you how busy we got. It is now a little more than
24 hours later. On my way to the receiving tents I met a sergeant, who
said to me that the men coming in were in very bad shape. They were
being carried out from the receiving tents as fast as possible, after
their cards had been made out and their throats examined for diphtheria
suspects. We have had a lot of diphtheria brought to us and a number of
our own people have caught it. We now have four nurses away in the
contagious hospital near here, one has diphtheria and the other three
had positive throats without any clinical symptoms, so they just have to
be kept away from everybody until they are negative. So all suspected
throats are isolated in a special line until cultures can be made and
examined.
Capt. Rainey, who is Acting Chief of the Surgical Service in the absence
of Major Murphy, and Major Clopton, spoke to me in the tents and said we
have a big night’s work ahead of us, for many of these men will have to
be operated on at once. They have had nothing done to them but their
first-aid dressings and they are in pretty bad shape. He then asked me
to go with a special case that was in very bad condition and see that he
got a saline stimulation at once. This boy, a head case, was scheduled
for Line B, tent 2, and as I went into the tent with the stretcher
bearers, another patient was being brought in by two more bearers. The
nurse spoke up and said that she had only one empty bed. It was apparent
then that the assigner had made a mistake. I told the bearers to put
their patients down on the floor, and giving a hurried glance at the
other patient and a hasty feel of his pulse, I decided that my patient
was in the poorer condition, so I got the bearers to put him into the
empty bed and sent one of the other carriers back to the receiving tent
for instructions about the other man. Meanwhile I got things started
for the saline subcutaneous infusion. In a couple of minutes, the bearer
came back and said he had been told to put his patient in the nearest
vacant bed and report later where he had put him. We had a vacant bed in
B 2, so we carried him in there and got him into bed. We asked the man
if he could help himself at all as he was huge, and there is always
great difficulty lifting patients off of the stretchers because there is
so little space between the beds and the two carriers can’t do much more
than hold the stretcher at the bed level. Mrs. Hausmann, the Supervisor,
came along just that moment, and an up-patient; when the patient said it
was his back that was hurt and he could not help himself, we knew then
how to proceed and between us we lifted him on his blanket and got him
on the bed until the bearers could put down their stretcher and then
help us get the blanket out and make him comfortable. While doing this I
noticed that one of his legs was crossed over the other and I
straightened it out and saw big purple spots where they had been in
contact. Realizing from this that they had been crossed a long time, we
discovered that he was totally paralyzed from his waist down. On his
card it said “Penetrating wound of spine, not operated on.”
The poor fellow immediately went off into heavy sleep, as they almost
always do, they are so glad to stop being jiggled, and I went to report
to Capt. Rainey and to get extra operating-room nurses ready. We had
taken in 130 patients from that convoy, but every one is immediately
examined by the staff men who make their report to Capt. Rainey, who in
no time had a list of 15 needing immediate operation.
A steady stream of patients is carried into the X-ray room and from
there either directly to the operating room or back to their tents. The
plates are developed almost immediately and are examined while wet and
stuck up in improvised holders on the windows of the operating room.
They all showed foreign bodies and often bubbles, indicating the dreaded
infection by the “gas bacillus,” which causes such dreadful gas
gangrene. All these cases have to be opened up and the necrotic tissue
cleaned out. Then we began in the operating room. Miss Taylor was on
duty in the office, so I was free to help in the operating room. The
supervisors were each on their side of the hospital, and the nurses were
all getting the poor creatures as comfortable as possible. One patient
who was too far gone from bloodlessness to stand operation was made as
comfortable as possible and the minister sent for; they were all given
tea and partially bathed. This was about 4:30 P.M. Then we began in the
operating room, taking out foreign bodies and incising and draining. I
scrubbed up and helped, not so much because they needed me but because I
wanted to be in it. We kept three tables going all the time. The medical
students gave ether and even some of the medical men were helping. Out
in the little hall there were always three or four patients on
stretchers on the floor. My friend, Dr. (Sgt.) Voorsanger, the Rabbi,
was in charge of the records and stretcher bearers and worked like a
Trojan. We took pieces of shell out of necks, hips, knees, skulls,
ankles, shoulders, and out of the spine of my poor paralyzed man. Some
of the men took the ether badly and screamed and fought and cursed; some
thought they were in the battle and called out to their comrades “There
go the 61st, after them, after them.” But most of them took it pretty
quietly and just went off to sleep.
About 7 o’clock a message came in from the connecting “Theatre Hut,” a
ward at the other end of the hut, where the operating room is, that a
man who had had a fearful hemorrhage from the wound in his shoulder that
morning was very much worse. It was decided to transfuse him, a
complicated job under the very best of circumstances. An up-patient was
sought to volunteer to be the donor of the blood, and promised as a
reward that he would be sent to England and not back to the Base (how
good a promise I do not know, but at least he might get a glimpse of
Blighty for a few days if our men send him there, but of course if found
fit there, he would be sent back to the front). He was brought,
wide-eyed and wondering, into the brilliant, messy operating room filled
with strangely garbed and bustling people and put on a table and his arm
prepared. Some doctors got busy with him and I went with another doctor
to get ready the vein in the patient’s arm. In a few minutes we were
ready and the other doctors came to insert the tiny point of their glass
tube into the hole in the vein we had ready. A nurse was holding a
droplight over the bed, another nurse was holding the arm, a doctor was
adjusting the tourniquet so that the vein would show up well, then the
two men who were working were bending over the arm, I was handing them
instruments, for I was scrubbed up, since everything must be sterile.
The patient was just gasping, rapidly growing worse, but the point went
in successfully and the blood began to flow into his vein, when all the
lights went out and the patient stopped breathing!
I knew where a whole batch of candles had been put for use at the next
air raid alarm, so I dashed for them, knowing I could get them more
quickly than by sending any one. They were not far away. In about two
minutes we had candles stuck on every available spot, and the operating
teams who had to stop dead and wait, began to go on. The orderly who
was working over a miserable acetylene lamp which is supposed to be all
right for emergencies, finally got it going. It is quite all right for
emergencies if you have about ten minutes in which to start it. A couple
of oil lanterns were brought and given to the patients who were on the
floor in the hall to hold, so that they would not be stepped on. The
ether bottles were moved as far away from the candles as possible so
that we would not have an explosion to add to our difficulties, the
doctors came in from working over the dead man, and we all “carried on.”
It was now near eight, and Capt. Rainey said when these cases are
finished that are on the tables, we will stop for dinner. A couple of
nurses who had had their dinner reported just about then and we set them
to cleaning instruments and boiling and fixing up. The others of us went
up to a belated supper by candle light. The night nurse and orderly for
the theatre hut came on duty just in time to help with the gruesome duty
to be done there, and supper was kept for the day nurses from there when
they should be able to get off.
By 8:30 we were back again refreshed by scrambled eggs and coffee. The
operations continued till 3 A.M. I sent one day nurse off about 10,
because I knew she would have to have a full day to-day and would need
to be at her preparations early. Another nurse and I left at 1:30 after
getting some of the night nurses’ supper which I had ordered heavily
reënforced. Another nurse left at 3 and one stayed all night. In these
last 24 hours there must have been 34 operations. I haven’t the exact
list here. I was on duty here in the office at 9:15 A.M. Two nurses did
not come on until noon, and the one who was up all night (as well as
being up all day yesterday too, though not working, as she was just
coming off night duty and had expected to sleep that night) has been
sleeping all day. I have just been notified that 160 more are to be
brought to us at 6 A.M. to-morrow. That 6 A.M. will mean some time
during the morning, for the convoys are almost always several hours
after they are scheduled.
One of the night Supervisors has just been telling me that last night,
after that patient died, before he had been taken out, he was of course
behind the screens, the patient in the next bed said to her, “Sister, is
my pal all right? I haven’t heard him speak for some time,” and she had
to tell him what had happened. But only this one and that very bad one
have died so far.
It is now Sunday afternoon, Sept. 30. We are having a little respite
from our busyness and no convoys have been received since yesterday
morning when we received 140. The doctors are getting a little
well-earned rest, and the nurses, who have not lost so much sleep as the
doctors, are catching up with their work on the wards. Operations were
going on in the operating room till 1:30 again last night, but to-day
there have been none, but there has been much sterilizing, glove
mending, and preparing of supplies.
It is a beautiful sunny afternoon, and we would hardly believe that this
morning, up to almost noon, it was so cold that everybody was
complaining of the cold.
I have just had orders to have my next nurse ready to go up to the front
with a surgical team. They will probably go in a couple of days, three
men and one woman. It was my turn to go with this team, but a few days
ago Col. Fife told me he would not let me go. I am tremendously
disappointed because I wanted above all things to go. I want the great
interest and excitement of the work, which is hard but thrilling;
operating 16 hours on end, then off for 8 hours. These are the hours
while the rush is on. Then I wanted to find out how I would react to
real danger. I can’t ever remember being frightened, and everybody who
goes to a C. C. S. admits that he or she is frightened most of the time,
and especially when there are raids, and bombs and shells are dropping
about. Of course these are just selfish reasons, but there were others
too. I think Miss Taylor could run my affairs perfectly satisfactorily
in my absence for a month. But now I must wait. We learn to do that with
considerable success in the army. I hate to let the nurse I have
appointed for this team go. When the first one went up, we did not know
much about what it meant, but since she has come back to us, we know
more. Also Phil’s accounts have been enlightening. But it is her turn to
go. She is ready, has had all the preparations, and she is most eager to
go, so I must not make any change in the schedule, but we shall all miss
her and be worried about her until she gets back to us. All the teams
have a two days’ ambulance ride to begin with, then when they get there,
they have to pretty much rough it. They take their cots and blankets and
sleep in bell tents. When they have air-raid signals, they all have to
lie down flat on their stomachs wherever they may be. One of our teams
had a special hole in a cemetery they had to hop into all the time.
Phil’s fellow officers had a little drainage ditch full of mud that was
their hiding-place.
I suppose that long before this you have learned that our Unit was not
bombed. There seems to have been an official confusion between ours and
the Chicago names. Officially, until it can be changed, we are the “No.
12 (St. Louis U. S. A.) General Hospital.” You see Chicago was American
Base Hospital No. 12 to begin with, and it is easy to see how the
confusion arose. They are 18 General Hospital, B. E. F.
I have been sitting with Phil out in the sunshine beside his tent. He
has not had much attention paid him lately, neither from me nor the
surgeons, but he has not needed it. He is getting along slowly but well.
I saw his dressing yesterday, the first time for ten days, and I could
see a great improvement. He is not being allowed to walk more than the
few steps to his chair, and I find he has not much desire to. He is
anxious to get back to work, but he won’t be able to do much for a long
time. He is now finding out how closely his legs are hitched to his
back.
I meant to tell you about a curious little incident that happened on our
trip to C. I told you we escorted a sick Chinaman up to the British
Hospital for Chinese at N. Dr. Veeder had been given the envelope he was
to turn over to the authorities of the hospital. When we arrived just
outside the hospital compound and stopped, a British sergeant came out
to help the patient out of the ambulance and a lot of
blue-hospital-garbed Chinesers gathered around to see what was doing.
Capt. Veeder and I had gotten out to stretch our legs and were standing
by the tail of the ambulance. Dr. Veeder handed the papers to the
sergeant, who opened the envelope, read the paper twice with a puzzled
look, then burst into roars of laughter. He handed the paper back to
Capt. Veeder, and this is what we read: “6 cups, enamel, spitting.” It
was an “indent” for some necessary supplies that had been put in the
envelope and addressed to the C. O. of the hospital instead of the
transfer papers of the poor Chink. Fortunately we did not have to take
him on with us, as he was properly tagged himself. It’s a comfort to me
to know that even the British Army can sometimes make mistakes.
Next week, not this week, Thursday, I am expecting to go up to Paris to
attend the first conference of American Chief Nurses in France. There
are about sixteen of us, and Miss Russell, the representative of the
American Red Cross Nursing Service, has asked us to meet with her in
Paris. It ought to be good fun to get together and compare notes after
four months of this life, and we ought to get some really definitely
useful suggestions from our getting together.
There are to be various festivities of a heavy and enlightening sort. I
think the little change will do me good, as I find I am a bit tired. The
London trip is off, since Philip is here with me, and this Paris one is
on. I am asking for five days’ leave, but if things here continue to be
as heavy as they are now, I shall not stay the five days.
When a page stops abruptly at the bottom of the sheet and there is no
proper ending, don’t be worried that something has been taken out by the
censor. It often happens that when I have finished a sheet I have to
stop and don’t try to wind things up properly, though I usually try to
put in a few personal remarks at the end on a separate piece of paper,
and answer questions from letters, etc.
Now I must close, so good-by for now.
With loads and loads of love from us both.
Jule.
Rouen, October 9, 1917.
It is so good to be back at work and with my own people again. I could
not lay down my responsibilities for that short time I was in Paris, and
I could not help thinking about everything here all the time and
wondering about everybody, so it wasn’t so very restful, and then when I
got back last night, I found it so restful to be back, and all day with
all the many things to do I have been peaceful and contented and so very
glad to be back. I just wish you could have seen this place last night
when I arrived in the pouring rain and pitch blackness. Our train got
in about 8. My telegram had not been received and there was no ambulance
to meet us and there are never any taxis to be had at the station. The
station was full of poilus going out, and as the R. T. O. (Royal
Transport Officer) had his hands full, I didn’t have the heart to ask
him to telephone for our ambulance for us. I could not. So we decided to
try a tram to the quay and there hoped for a taxi. It was still pouring
but finally we got on to a tram with all our bags and bundles and at the
quay we had the very good luck of catching the only taxi which just tore
us out here to the camps. At the gate of our quarters I got out in the
mud and waded through the darkness to the door of my own room, and how
good the old place looked. To an outsider I imagine it would have looked
like the abomination of desolation, the camp and our quarters. For it
was so dark, and the rain was pouring down and there were such pools of
water everywhere, and only such weak glimmerings of light here and
there. As Miss Taylor had not come up from the office, I stopped just
long enough to get my rubber boots, rubber hat, and coat. My big great
coat was soaked through. Then I paddled happily off to talk things over
with Miss Taylor. The hospital had been very, very busy all the time I
was away, but everything had gone smoothly. We have over 1200 patients.
Then afterwards I went down to see Philip. He was no longer in a tent
alone, as the hospital had become so busy it had been necessary to fill
up the beds in his tent. As he was on the shell shock line the cases
with him were not bad surgical cases. We had a nice talk over in his
corner and read the letters that had come for both him and me in my
absence.
It has been raining here every day for the past ten days and is very
cold. We all are wearing sweaters and all our heavy things. The dampness
is so penetrating. The sweater Mother and Bab made arrived safely and is
exactly right. I have it on this moment and shall probably not take it
off until it falls apart. The bloomers are very nice too and I think
will be useful with the serge uniform in rainy weather when I pin my
skirt up. We are soon to have gray wash uniforms, which will be much
more suitable than these white ones, but they won’t be so very much
warmer. We are to have “spencers” or “woollies” to wear under them.
Phil has now been moved into a bell tent which was an office of Dr.
Schwab’s. It is a tiny little affair, but looked most cozy last night
when I was down to say goodnight to Phil. The rain was pouring down on
the canvas with a pleasant sound and coming through the opening on the
wood floor, but Phil was as warm and comfortable as can be. He has no
electric light, but my candle lantern held on his lap not only makes
sufficient light to read by but warms his hands. This cold is no joke. I
suppose we shall get used to it, but these first days of it are very
trying.
My children at the front are having such wonderful times. They are
working terribly hard, sleeping with helmets over their faces and enamel
basins on their stomachs, washing in the water they had in their
hot-water bags because water is so scarce, operating fourteen hours at a
stretch, drinking quantities of tea because there is no coffee and
nothing else to drink, wearing men’s ordnance socks under their
stockings, trying to keep their feet warm in the frosty operating rooms
at night, and both seeing and doing such surgical work as they never in
their wildest days dreamed of, but all the time unafraid and unconcerned
with the whistling, banging shells exploding around them. Oh, they are
fine! One need never tell me that women can’t do as much, stand as much,
and be as brave as men. And to-morrow another of my finest goes up, keen
as keen to do her bit and only hoping she will be equal to it. It’s Miss
Claiborne to-morrow. She is packing her things to-night after a hard day
in the operating room here. First, she has a long, difficult trip, then
plunges into the maelstrom up there. Five more went for the gas training
to-day to be ready to substitute if any of the nurses at the front have
to be relieved for sickness or accident. And all these five are just
pawing the air for a chance to be sent up, even after knowing all they
do about what it is like up there, and in all this cold. And oh, how I
want to go myself.
Our meeting in Paris was very pleasant, and worth while too. There were
thirteen of us Chief Nurses there. Six are with the B. E. F. and the
others with the American Forces. They, the latter, have not had any real
work yet. Some of us Britishers could not help laughing when some of the
others said they were beginning to be right busy as they had about a
hundred patients! The night before I left here we admitted over 200.
To-night on several lines one nurse and one orderly are taking care of
over 100 patients (not the sickest). We have so many awfully sick
patients now. But to go back to the meetings, we had lots of things to
discuss. We sent back to Washington suggestions about uniforms and
equipment. We decided on what we wanted for distinguishing marks for
Chief Nurses, black bands on the white caps and red bands on the cuffs
of the uniforms. We had to take up the matter of the Army Efficiency
Records, which were open to many interpretations. Then matters of social
life, dancing, going out with officers, leaves, a hotel in Paris, etc.,
were talked over. The question of dancing is a very warm one. The
English nurses in military hospitals are not allowed to dance. Some of
us think our nurses should be allowed to do it for their good and the
good of our own officers. The question was left over unsettled until our
next meeting in February. It will now go on according to the ideas of
the heads of each Unit.
Mrs. Sharp, the wife of the American Ambassador, entertained us at
dinner elaborately. The Lyceum Club gave us a reception, after an open
meeting when we heard of the Red Cross baby work, tuberculosis schemes,
surgical dressings, division, etc. I saw several very nice people that I
know, and had various meals and doings with them, so the time we were
not at meetings went very pleasantly. It is surprising how one can enjoy
fancy food when one gets it, even though all along you have been
thinking that food is very unimportant. I noticed that lobster and
sweetbreads and soufflés and oysters, and once, really, corn on the cob,
made a pretty big hit with me. But all the same I was so awfully glad to
get back to my job. The day to-day has been pretty full of problems and
I am a bit tired, so I guess I’d better turn in.
Phil had a nice little walk to-day in his clothes, but he is pretty well
used up to-night after a long, mean dressing done in the operating room,
from which he walked back alone, which he should not have done, but
insisted to his nurses that he wished to do. I am furious that I was not
on hand to prevent it. But he was warm and cozy and comfortably reading
in bed awhile ago when I went to say good night. This is not much of a
letter, but it must go as it is, I think, without waiting for additions.
Thanks so much for the book and for your dear letters. “Carry On” is
wonderful, and we love to read such things over here. I’m lending it
around now. Bab’s music came to-day; it was dear of her to send it. It
has been played already with much success. The violin is such a comfort.
I played last evening right straight through the book. I’ve never
enjoyed playing so much before.
Oceans of love,
Julie.
Sunday evening, October 14.