It is such heavenly weather here and things are so beautiful. Everything
is quiet and happy and peaceful here with us though our work seems to
be increasing pretty steadily. I cannot help feeling more or less
agitated inside, for I know that an order to leave this Unit and go to
Paris may come any minute. When the order actually arises, there is not
going to be anything but approval, I think, among my nurses as far as my
action and my duty go--for they’ll know this is an _order_ and not a
choice in any way--but there is going to be a bad time when it comes to
parting. I dread it fearfully, for I know they all care for me and won’t
want me to go from a personal point of view, and I shall feel dreadfully
about leaving them. We have all been through so much together we feel
very close. Same way about the officers. I shall hate to leave them. But
it is coming. Phil won’t like it either.
Such is life in the army!
Loads of love,
Jule.
March 25, 1918.
This typewriter is almost hot, it has been worked so hard to-day. I
think Miss Taylor and I have written over forty Dangerously Ill and
Seriously Ill letters to-day, from which you may infer that we are busy.
We are busier than we have ever been before. I am snatching a few
moments while the day and night shifts change to tell you a little
about things, then in a little while I must go down to the lines and see
how things are and send off to bed the many day nurses I am sure to find
on duty still. The nurses all hate so terribly to go off when there are
so many things remaining to be done, but I cannot have them working both
day and night, for in a few days, if they keep that up, they won’t be
able to work at all. No one has had a minute “off duty” for five days
now and they are beginning to show it, but they have got to keep this up
for a while longer and so I drive them off with many things left undone.
Of course there are always night nurses to go on with the work, but they
are usually only one to a hut or line, where in the day-time there may
have been four or five.
Our excitement began last Thursday the 21st with an order that for all
ranks Rouen was to be “Out of Bounds.” This was because they had
Smallpox there. We have maids, French teachers, stenographers, and
sewing-women coming back and forth every day and things looked
complicated--and were. But only for a while. Everybody was vaccinated,
and the important civilians were given daily passes, and so our work
goes on about as usual. I made temporary arrangements for four maids to
stay here on the grounds with us.
That very day we were given an hour’s warning in getting our next team
off for a Clearing Station. The people had been designated but they
were not packed. You never saw any woman packed in more double-quick
time than our dear nurse was. We have been a bit worried about her ever
since she left, for disquieting reports of great activity in her
vicinity have been coming to us every day since she left. She has six
good American men to look after her, which is a comforting thought to
us.
That day patients began to pour in upon us. We were told to be prepared
to receive unlimited numbers. Well, they have been coming. Day before
yesterday we operated on fifty cases, yesterday fifty-one, to-day they
had seventy-three scheduled. I have just been down on the lines and to
the operating-room. You would not believe me if I told you how that
place looks. They have at least forty more cases to operate on to-night.
Both the day and the night shifts of nurses are there, but the day shift
promises to go up in an hour. As more convoys are due to-night, there
may be even more to be operated upon than are scheduled. The doctors are
about dead. They are working in shifts as much as they can. The
stretcher-bearers are dead tired, but as cheerful as monkeys. I was just
at the “Point,” where ambulances are loaded and unloaded, and a convoy
of stretcher cases was just going out to be shipped to England, I think.
Our American boys were jollying the Tommies who were on the stretchers,
and it all sounded so cheerful.
It is not so cheerful when the convoys come in. Last night we had a
convoy come in that seemed to be all D. I. cases, many were too badly
off to be operated on. It still makes one sick at the stomach to read on
a man’s card: “Gun-shot wound, face, chest and right arm, amputation
both legs.” Major Fischel has just been in to say that since there must
be two hundred “walking wounded” ready to go out by ten A.M. he wants to
know if I can have nurses to help dress their wounds early in the
morning. I said “Yes, if he meant by early, 7:30” because I wanted the
nurses to have something to eat before the start. Seven-thirty will do,
so 200 walkers who came in to-day will have fresh dressings put on their
injuries and be ready to be shipped along at ten.
So it goes. We have no time for sore vaccinated arms, but fortunately I
have heard of only one that is sore so far. People are such bricks under
pressure like this. It is perfectly marvelous. I cannot say how glad I
am that we managed to give every nurse a whole day off a week or so ago;
they certainly needed any reserve strength they could store up. Two
nurses just got back from leave in Paris this evening. For the past
three days they have been bombed and raided. Most of the past three
nights they have spent in cellars. But they have had a wonderful
vacation and are so glad to get back. We need them here all right. All
leaves for all ranks are now stopped until further notice. I don’t see
Phil at all these days, for he too is très occupé. He was here a minute
to-day and left mother’s letter of Feb. 28, but I did not see him as I
had dashed down town in the Ford (with special duty pass) to do some
necessary banking and to get some Carrel tubing from the British Red
Cross stores. Our supply is exhausted and new lots have not come through
and we are using it by the mile. I got some, and other necessary things
too.
You ought to see the way we are using up supplies. But so far we seem to
have enough of the necessities. We have long since ceased to attempt to
change sheets between patients. A good many patients have been in beds
without sheets at all, but that is a minor matter. Major Fischel just
gave me a guess on the number of patients we have taken in or sent out
to-day. I said five hundred, and he replied, “nearly double that.” We
have taken in and sent out all day long, and to show the spirit of the
men, Major F. repeated the remark of the head Sergeant of the records,
who said he wished we could get in a few more before midnight so that he
could say it had been over a thousand. It is a stupendous piece of work
and it all goes so smoothly. Now I must go to bed for I am weary, but
first I must see about the nurses for the morning.
It is the next evening now and we are waiting for the Night Supervisors
to come to get the evening report and to be told the arrangements for
the night. Things have been keeping up the same way ever since last
evening. Only, two of our men have died and we were so glad to have them
die. The sister of the man with the double amputation has arrived from
England after such a rough, cold trip. We have had a case of diphtheria
develop to-day among the nurses and she has been sent off to the
contagious hospital, where Phil will probably have charge of her. She
had a throat yesterday and we isolated her until a report from her
throat-culture could be obtained. Of course we are taking cultures from
the “contacts,” but hope there will be no more positives. Still no bad
arms from the vaccinations!
The men tell such dreadful stories and are so glad to get into bed and
to be made clean. Often we cannot get them bathed even the least little
bit before they have to be taken to the operating room, but we try to
wash them up as soon as possible. Just think of the problem of hot water
to bathe five or six hundred patients in a camp where all the hot water
has to be heated on camp stoves after being drawn from about a single
pipe. The “walking wounded” are so pathetic. They go limping off to the
tents to which they have been assigned, leaning on each other and
helping each other all they can. A nurse told me a few minutes ago that
one of her incoming patients who walked in was a young boy who had had
his right arm amputated four days ago! Another one said he had had
nothing to eat but cigarettes and tea for four days! Another with an
amputated arm was so troubled to have a sister bathe and shave and
shampoo him. She is a crackerjack at shaving, and all the orderlies are
carrying stretchers. But oh, she was so glad to make him clean and
comfortable. Our dietitian, Miss Watkins, is doing regular nursing work
and doing it so well. One of the nurses told me that before Miss W. gave
her first bath she said, “Now, I’ll just pretend that this is my
brother.” She takes temperatures and pulses and bathes and feeds but
does not do dressings yet. She is so fine, but says she does not ever
want to go back to cooking. Here are the night people, and I must stop.
I have been down to the camp since I started to write.
Much, much love,