April 6, 1918.
I last wrote on March 25th, and now it is nearly two weeks later. Our
rush has kept steadily up until day before yesterday. Yesterday was the
very first day in two weeks that any nurse had any time off duty.
Yesterday, because of reënforcements that arrived, we were able to send
every nurse off to rest for three hours. It was the most extraordinary
Easter anybody ever spent. For two nights before we had over two hundred
patients sleeping on the benches on the grand stands. These were
“walking wounded,” but wounded, you will notice. On one of those days we
had over fifteen hundred patients. We never kept any “walkers”; they
were sent right on to the Convalescent Camps, where they were able to
expand more. We dressed every case here, though, before they were sent
on. We certainly found out not only what we can do in an emergency, but
what the British Army system can do. We are constantly marveling at the
efficiency, speed, and lack of waste with which the English manage their
business.
We all physically were so hard pushed Major Murphy wired for help, and
just a day before this lull we received a mobile Unit from the A. E. F.,
fifteen nurses and thirty-odd enlisted men. You may be sure we were glad
to get them, though fifteen nurses were just lost in the shuffle and did
not seem to make the slightest difference. They all were very young,
inexperienced, little things from Kentucky, who had only recently
landed and had not seen a patient since they had been over. Some of them
are only twenty-one (the age limit has been lowered; it was twenty-five
when we left) and have only been out of a training-school a very short
time, and had only been in very small Kentucky hospitals. So it seemed a
heart-breaking thing to thrust them into this unbelievable hell of a
hospital.
Such a baptism of fire as they got that first afternoon! I tried to
prepare them all I could, but no words could convey anything like the
reality to their inexperienced minds. It was pouring when they came at
12:30 A.M. (and me to meet them here, and feed them, and find them a
place to sleep with a half-hour’s notice of their coming!) and it was
pouring rain the next afternoon when the Supervisor started off with the
little rubber-coated-and-hatted group to drop one here and another there
according to assignments we had made here in the office. A little later
I had occasion to go down in the lines, and I looked in one of the huts
just to see what the little new thing looked like. Just before I got to
the hut a little procession had come out of the door. First two of our
men carrying a stretcher covered with a Union Jack, then a second
stretcher also covered by a flag, then our Supervisor walking behind
accompanying them to the mortuary. People along the line stood rigidly
at attention as they passed, and saluted. Then I went into the hut. The
odor that hit me as I entered was terrific, for most of the cases in
this hut have penetrating chest wounds which drain. The little nurse was
standing by the stove stirring something in a cup on it with a spoon.
She was green-white and looked utterly nauseated. I did not dare speak
to her, for fear she would lose any control she had left, so I told the
weary head nurse to be as gentle with the little thing as she could and
try to realize what she was going through.
That evening I spoke to their group for about ten minutes and told them
that it was not going to be like this always, and about the mitigations
and the happy part of it all. Then I asked them if, after all, this was
not what they had come for, and weren’t they glad they were here. A most
sincere response made me feel that they would be all right soon. Like
all young things, they are adjusting wonderfully and are already making
themselves felt, and are going about as chipper and happy as monkeys.
But oh, the poor little dears, they will never forget that first day.
The night after these fifteen arrived another contingent appeared at
1:15 A.M. in the pouring rain! This time I had known it about three
hours, but at that time of night there was very little I could do to
make preparation, for I simply insisted that my poor tired nurses should
not be disturbed. I lay on my bed part of the evening, but as a nurse
was sick and I had to get Major Fischel for her, it was not for long.
When they arrived, weary and miserable, I fed them hot soup, made from
bouillon cubes that some kind person had sent us, and gave them bread
and cheese and jam, and then put them to bed in the night nurses’ beds
in their separate huts. They could not even have a wash, but they said
they did not care, all they wanted was sleep.
These poor souls had been ordered to leave their Unit that morning with
a couple of hours’ notice only and were sent off in several different
directions, fifteen to us here and fifteen to the Cleveland hospital up
the road and somewhere else. Naturally they are the homesickest, bluest
group of nurses you ever saw. You can just imagine how we would feel if
we were suddenly ordered to scatter. The reason for their scattering is
pretty obvious to us here, but I cannot write about it. These nurses are
a real help, for they have been in a busy British hospital as long as we
have and they are all experienced, well-trained nurses. But how they are
all hating us at present. For my ways are not their Matron’s ways and
everything about this hospital is far inferior to theirs. I have seen
their hospital and they are right in lots of ways. Their former quarters
were far superior to ours, and of course all these last comers are
having only make-shift quarters. We have erected three marquees for
them, but they are pretty dreary. They have no lights but lanterns as
yet, and their luggage has just come and some of it has been lost, and
it rains, and you can see the picture. They will settle down pretty
soon, and my people are being as kind as they can be to them and are
trying not to mind their grumbling. I tell them they would grumble worse
if the positions were reversed, or I don’t know anything about them.
Well, so much for the war, except that to-day we have had no convoys in
and are catching our breaths. I cannot tell you the details of the days
that have passed since I last wrote. There were so many deaths and so
many awful cases and such pitiful things going on all the time it was
hard to keep steady, especially as every one was much over-worked. Miss
Taylor and I had to stick pretty tight to the office work or it would
have swamped us; so we tried to keep up with ourselves each day, and
never left at night until we had every S. I. and D. I. letter written.
Of course the end of the month came along just then, and all the regular
monthly things had to be tucked in also. And of course there was no
possibility of having a clever man-stenographer for two days to do my
complicated British payroll, as I have had before, for every available
man was working night and day, hence I had to squeeze that in also. So a
job that takes about two solid days of an uninterrupted clerk’s time had
to be put into the midst of an office where people were running in and
out every minute; but it got done, and I was a bit proud when I finished
the thing at ten o’clock that night when the first reënforcement
arrived.
We have certainly learned what we can do. I don’t mind for myself, but
it breaks my heart to see my children get hollow-eyed and white, and see
them one by one succumb, at least temporarily, and have to be sent to
bed. They have done wonders. To-day, for instance, with 130 nurses here,
after all they have been through, I have just three in hospital; one
with diphtheria, one with a kind of trench fever due to exhaustion, and
the third, my dear, brave soul who came down from the evacuated C. C. S.
She has just “exhaustion” for a diagnosis. She was sent down without
baggage or the rest of the team, 48 hours after arriving. The last ten
hours of her trip were standing in a freight car packed with refugees.
She arrived here at five one morning dead to the world. She had slept on
the floor the two nights before as much as she could and been operating
sixteen hours straight before that. We were so thankful to get her back
safely. The men arrived safely later. Her C. C. S. was captured. She
went on duty 36 hours after she arrived here apparently as good as new,
but she could not stand the strain and could not eat, so we sent her to
the Sick Sisters’ Hospital for a rest. In quarters I have one nurse
recovering from gastro-enteritis and another with a bothersome knee, and
all the rest are working! Isn’t that doing pretty well for women? After
my two nights up until after two and going each morning as usual for
very, very busy mornings, making arrangements about new nurses and
seeing to their records, I had a bit of an upset myself and felt pretty
miserable. So one afternoon I went to bed at four and stayed there until
the next morning and have been much better since. It has all been
something of a strain.
Then the morning after the second night up (April 4) Major Murphy
brought me in my order to go to Paris to be Chief Nurse of the American
Red Cross. It was almost too much, but I was too busy to think about it,
so I put it in my pocket and tried to forget it. To-night I am going to
tell my original group. I am appointed by the Chief Surgeon and am still
in the Army. It is an order, and there is no disputing it. When I get
away, I shall be glad of the opportunity it presents, but just at
present I cannot seem to bear it. These were just the American orders,
and I must wait for the British ones, which will probably come through
in a few days. I am “relieved from further duty at No. 12 General
Hospital B. E. F. and will proceed to Paris, France, reporting on
arrival to the Chief Surgeon, Am. Red Cross in France, for duty as Chief
Nurse with the American Red Cross.”
I saw Phil yesterday a moment and told him of my order, and strangely
enough he had just received an order to go to Paris for duty with Dr.
Blake’s hospital. Curious, isn’t it? But won’t it be nice for us both to
be there? Paris is not such a sweet little health resort just at present
as it has been. But bombs and long-distance guns are nothing to me.
I guess you don’t need to be told how I feel about leaving my children
here after all we have been through together. It is quite beyond words.
I am just trying to steel myself to it, and to get it over as fast as
possible. Now it is time to go and break it to them. How can I make them
glad to have me go? For I must do that.
It’s the next day now--a quiet, sunny Sunday. Everything went all right
last night, and my nurses are bricks. They weep, but they are glad to
have me go. I am trying to get ready to leave in a few days. I am so
sorry for all your uncertainty about me. It was a grand mix-up. Miss
Taylor is to be Chief Nurse here.
Loads and loads of love,
Jule.
It was getting dark as I went down between the A and B lines of tents.
Ducking under the entrance of A. 3 tent, I stopped just a moment inside
the door, to get used to the darkness in the tent. The fourteen beds in
the tent were all full and I thought at first that no nurse was there.
Then I saw her. She was kneeling beside the low cot of a lad whose whole
head was bandaged. The tight starch bandage covered his ears and his
eyes, and came down under his chin. A glance at his face showed that he
was not far from the end. “Robert, lad, what are you trying to say?” she
was asking, bending over him with her arm across his shoulder and her
face close to his lips. “Say it again, boy, so that I can hear you. Did
you want me to do something for you?” Slowly pulling his arms out he
reached up and drew her head down to his and kissed her on the cheek. “I
think,” he said, “you must be like my sister.” Just then she saw me.
“Oh, excuse me, Matron,” she said as she rose, “I didn’t hear you come
in.” We walked through to the connecting tent while the other thirteen
men stirred and pretended to wake up.
A nurse stopped at the office to leave the notices of two new
“Dangerously Ill” cases. As she handed me the slip she said, “Of the
sixty-four new stretcher cases we got in last night, all have bandaged
eyes. They are the worst gassed men I have ever seen. I’ve done nothing
but irrigate eyes all the morning. One man discovered that he could see
a little when I got his lids opened and his eyes washed out, and he
burst out ‘Oh, sister, I can see, and I am not going to be blind after
all, am I?’ Then I realized what an agony of fear there must be in the
minds of those sixty-four motionless men, not one of whom had even
whimpered--so since then I’ve been saying to each one that he was sure
to see after a while, for you know if they live they nearly all do get
back their sight, and probably not more than those two D. I.’s will die.
But think what they have been suffering!”
Another nurse was giving a bath to a man who had just been brought in on
a stretcher, “Oh, but you are the dirtiest man I ever saw,” she laughed
at him, “absolutely the very dirtiest.” “Oh, sister, don’t say that,” he
said. “How could I help it? I haven’t had a bath nor a change of
underclothes for twenty-two days.”--Quick came the answer, “If that’s
the case, I call you clean.”
The orderly came up to the sister and said, “May I have a piece of gauze
and a bandage?” “Surely,” she said, as she handed it to him, “and what
do you want it for?” “For the Hun there at the door who has cut his
finger.” Looking down the hut to the door, she could see standing just
outside a Boche prisoner and his British guard. The orderly took the
dressings outside and bandaged up the finger. When he came back, some of
the patients who had been watching said, “I wish his finger were off,
and why didn’t you cut off his head? etc.” Then a man in a near-by bed,
whose leg was stretched out in a weighted extension, said, “Oh, boys,
don’t talk like that; we are fighting the Huns up the line, but we are
not fighting them down here.”
When he came up with the rest of the blue, hospital-clothed men for
final inspection before being signed out for Convalescent camp, the
Major noticed that he had a D. S. M. ribbon on his coat. “How did you
get this, Jock?” the Major asked, pointing to the ribbon. “Oh that,
sir,” he said, “there were a few occurrences, sir,” and he went on his
way.
His right leg had been amputated, his right hand was badly wounded, and
his left foot had a hole right through it, but he was always smiling and
cheerful, and had a come-back for every foolish thing that was said to
him. One day the Padre asked him how he could keep so cheerful all the
time when he must have so much pain. “Oh,” he laughed, “it’s in the
book, Boy Scouts Manual, page 8, paragraph 3, ‘Smile and keep
whistling.’”
Here’s the copy of a telegram I got Major M. to send last week.
“Director General of Voluntary Offerings, Scotland House, London: Number
Twelve General Hospital urgently needs three thousand each, two, three,
and four inch roller bandages, thousand each abdominal, chest, shoulder,
hip, elbow, head triangular and T bandages. Two hundred each, elbow,
arm, and leg splints, two hundred sand-bags, three dozen pairs crutches,
five hundred limb pillows, thousand pneumonia jackets, five hundred arm
slings, five cases each absorbent wool (in America, ‘cotton’) and
absorbent gauze, also unlimited gauze dressings.” The next day we got
the message: “Bulk of all articles named being shipped immediately.”
Pretty good business? We have received notice of twenty bales sent from
London already.
Paris, April 12, 1918.
If I don’t hurry and write I shall not be able to remember a single one
of the really memorable things that have happened to me since I last
wrote. I am getting new impressions so fast I can hardly straighten out
one from another. I last wrote April 6 just after I got my orders to
move. On Sunday the 7th the British orders came, and I decided that I
would be ready to leave Wednesday the 10th.--Just then Philip was
announced and I went down to see him. He had just arrived in Paris. It
was a curious coincidence his being ordered here, too, just as I was.
Sunday evening we had one of the finest sings up in our mess that ever
anybody had. Every Major, including the two English ones, was there, and
all the young officers too, and the mess was full, and there was much
amusement, as they all tried to ask for their favorite tunes at the same
time. We used the new Y. M. C. A. service hymn-books that Aunt M. sent
and they proved most acceptable, and everybody seemed to find his or her
favorite hymn in it. I played my violin and a fine player played the
piano, and I can tell you we made the welkin ring. It was a bit hard for
me, especially when some idiot asked for “God be with you till we meet
again.” But nobody could know how badly I was feeling.
Monday was very busy all day. That evening was our usual little family
dance, which I attended. The next day I finished turning things over to
Miss Taylor, went up to Sick Sisters’ Hospital to say good-by to the
nurses up there, and the afternoon, packed. The D. D. M. S. came to say
good-by and the Acting Principal Matron, which was nice of such busy
people at such a busy time. The nurses were full of mysteries all those
last days and that afternoon I found in my room a wonderful fitted
dressing-bag, the kind my soul has always longed for. It is like a small
suitcase, is black, and has a cloth cover and is a perfect beauty. That
was from my whole family. Then the original 64 gave me a lovely little
gold mesh-purse to go on my watch chain with my other dangles. That too
was another thing I had been hoping to have some time.
I forgot to say that on Saturday evening I had talked to the 64 and told
them about my going. They were all splendid about it and are glad that I
am going to have this position which they think needs me. They told me
individually and collectively how badly they felt about my going, but
they all think it is the right thing and there has not been one murmur
or horrid feeling about it. They are giving me to the bigger cause
freely and gladly, though with truly sincere sorrow, I know. So that has
made things easy for me, in a way.
That last evening they all had a big reception for Miss Taylor, Miss
Claiborne, the new assistant, and me. The officers sent wonderful
bunches of roses to all three of us. The party was a wonder. After
everybody was there, three Majors came for us three over in my
sitting-room and escorted us over to the mess, where we were lined up,
and everybody came up and shook hands and said nice things. After some
general talk we all sang songs out of the back of Aunt M.’s books, “Old
Oaken Bucket,” “Swanee River,” “Auld Lang Syne,” “Juanita,” and the
like; then Miss Taylor and I ran away and it was all over. My four dear
Majors gave me the most beautiful charm to wear on my watch chain. It is
a round, flat unpolished crystal, about as big as a quarter, with a red
cross in the center, made of large garnets. It is a perfect beauty.
Major Clopton got it at Tiffany’s in Paris for me, and the four of them
all signed the dearest note that went with it. They have been such
wonderful friends to me and I am so horribly lonesome without them. No
woman leaving a job ever had such things said to her as I have had, this
past week.
But, oh, I need to remember them now, for if ever there was a desolate
soul, it is I. My predecessor left before I arrived. Her assistant has
been sick and away from the office ever since I have been here, and I
have been simply floundering. Miss Morgan is a great help, but, I wish
it was a month from now and I knew something of my job, which is huge.
One can only sit tight and not let oneself be discouraged. It’s got to
come out right. Our job is, I am sure, to do our job and wait patiently.
Lovingly,
Jule.
Paris, May 17, ’18.
Now to go back a bit. Last Sunday I was down in Rouen! By Friday the
19th I was so homesick and lonesome for all my children and the hospital
that when some of the officers blew into my office and said they were
going back Saturday evening at five, after their meetings were over, I
decided I would go with them. It was very easy to arrange, and oh, I was
so glad I went. Our train was late and we did not reach the camp until
about nine-thirty, but I got a welcome all right! It did me more good
than anything else possibly could have done, and I came back renewed in
courage and strength in a most remarkable way, and perfectly sure if so
many dear people loved me so much and had such confidence in me, maybe I
could manage this awful job after all. Sunday morning I played with Ruth
and talked with lots of other people. That noon we had Maj. Murphy up to
dinner with us. Before that I went to the office and talked “shop” with
the “Little Matron,” as my children, who are now her children, lovingly
call her. I stayed with her in my old rooms that night and we talked
long into the night, much to the easing of my heart and mind. She has a
bed in the sitting-room, used as a couch, which she says is ready for me
any time I want to use it. Later I met lots of people, officers and
nurses, for tea in the mess. Then M. T. (Miss Taylor, the little
matron) and I had early supper together in her sitting-room. Then Maj.
Murphy said that he had been planning to go up to Paris the next day,
and he would go a day ahead, so he came along with me. We left at seven
and arrived at ten. Phil met me and we came home to this nice apartment
into which Phil had moved all his and my things that day. I am going
again to Rouen just as soon as I possibly can, because I need so much to
see them all. They don’t need me, for everything is going wonderfully
smoothly, but I need to see them. We don’t talk about their shop, for
naturally I am not doing a single thing about their local business, but
M. T. talks over my shop with me and helps me lots. That is certainly
the most wonderful group of men and women it has ever been my privilege
to work with. The more I see and hear of other groups, the more I
realize how exceptional ours is. And oh, how good they have been to me.
Most of them, I feel, will be my friends forever, and a few of them will
be some of the most precious possessions that a person could ever have.
Sundays are my own, and so I want to go down there often. The
anniversary of our leaving [May 17th] will be my next visit, I hope.
Printed in the United States of America.
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