ARRIVAL IN PARIS
The authorities in Paris did not require the unit to travel until
later than the date originally suggested. It was September before they
decided that it should be located in Paris and should open a hospital
in the Hôtel Claridge, which had been placed at the disposal of the
French Red Cross.
On Tuesday the 14th of September 1914 the Women’s Hospital Corps
left Victoria for Paris. The heavy baggage had gone the day before,
and was to be forwarded on the boat by which the party would travel.
Empty trucks were to await it on the other side, and these were to be
attached to the Paris train.
A personal friend among the traffic managers reserved a saloon for the
travellers and procured them the great privilege of having friends on
the platform to see them off. This was immensely appreciated, and many
well-wishers gathered round them, offering greetings and tokens of
affection in the form of flowers and fruits. Madame Brasier de Thuy
and her husband, accompanied by several French ladies, were there.
Mrs. Granger came with her arms full of grapes. Many women doctors,
well-known suffragists, journalists and photographers joined the little
crowd. Relatives brought roses and chocolates, and ladies with sons in
France asked that letters and parcels might be conveyed to them.
A little apart, Mrs. Garrett Anderson, a dignified figure, old and
rather bent, stood quietly observing the bustle and handshaking. One
wondered of what she was thinking as she contemplated this development
of the work she had begun. Her eyes were tender and wistful as she
watched her daughter in uniform directing the party and calling the
roll of the Corps. A friend beside her said:
‘Are you not proud, Mrs. Anderson?’
The light of battle--of old battles fought long ago--came into her face
as she raised her head and surveyed the scene.
‘Yes,’ she answered. ‘Twenty years younger, I would have taken them
myself.’
* * * * *
Late that afternoon the boat steamed into Dieppe, past the long low
lines of the Quay, outlined by silent, watching people. As the women
in uniform followed one by one down the gangway, the groups of sailors
and porters gazed at them with grave attention. The English Consul had
come to meet them, and wished that they were staying in Dieppe; for the
hospitals were crowded with wounded and there were not enough helpers.
The agent, M. Guérin, was there too, with his complement of empty
trucks for the baggage, which, it now transpired, had not been put on
the boat. The perjured purser, who had given assurances that all was
well, stood ashamed; but M. Guérin, claiming him as a great friend of
his son, demanded that he should use his best endeavours to expedite
the missing luggage. Leaving them to arrange the matter between them,
the women followed the Consul to the Douane.
A picturesque old French lady in a chenille cap asked no questions but
made marks with a stubby bit of chalk on the hand-baggage; an excitable
British Red Cross lady explained that nothing was any good here. ‘The
red tape was awful--all the arrangements had broken down. The sepsis
was appalling. The town was full of Germans whose legs and arms had
been cut off and who were being sent to Havre next day like that!!’
And so talking the party came to the station, and travelling like
soldiers, ‘sans billets,’ on account of their uniform, they were
hustled into the train, which jolted slowly away.
The last part of the journey was very slow, and Paris was not reached
till ten o’clock at night. From Pontoise onwards the train was held
up at every little station, and gentlemen in blue blouses came to
the carriage windows asking with immense interest who the travellers
were and where they were going, or volunteering amazing information
on military matters, and as it grew dark indicating lights which they
called patrolling aeroplanes or signals or searchlights.
The Gare du Nord was dimly lit and there were no porters on the
platform, but a representative of the French Red Cross met the train
with the information that rooms were reserved in the Station Hotel. He
watched with silent astonishment while Orderly Campbell and Orderly
Hodgson commandeered a large luggage trolley and, having loaded it with
all the bags and wraps, proceeded to trundle it out of the station.
Then drawing a deep breath, he led the way through the darkness to
the hotel. The station entrance to it was locked; the lifts were not
working; the _cuisinier_ was mobilised. There could be no supper.
Impossible even to make a _chocolat_. But there were bedrooms on the
third floor, and the ladies might go up and take their choice. So,
shouldering the bags, they mounted the half-lit staircase, found a
whole corridor of rooms at their disposal, and settled down cheerfully
to picnic out of the still well-stocked luncheon baskets.
The following morning the President of the French Red Cross, Madame
Pérouse, called at the Hôtel to discuss matters with Dr. Louisa Garrett
Anderson and Dr. Flora Murray. She was a charming old lady, gentle and
unaccustomed to office work. She was confused by the multiple claims
made upon her, and oppressed by the burden of work, which was far
beyond her strength and her powers.
Speaking no language but her own, without a stenographer or typewriter,
and supported by officials who were all advanced in years, her
difficulties must have been very great, and no one could blame her if
she was not entirely successful. There was friction to contend with
between the three branches of the Red Cross, which caused overlapping
instead of co-ordination of effort; and each and every section had
obstruction to meet from the Army Medical Department, the military
authorities and the Military Governor of Paris. Thus, if the Society
seemed slow in its decisions and uncertain in its action, there were
extenuating circumstances; and the number of old people at the head of
affairs could not fail to be a drawback. For has it not been written:
‘Men of age object too much, consult too long, adventure too little,
repent too soon, and seldom drive business home to the full period’?
Madame Pérouse was accompanied by an English doctor, who was attached
to another voluntary hospital. He gave a lurid account of the French
Army, its hospitals and the state of its wounded as he saw them,
including in his remarks advice against trusting the French Red Cross
or anything else that was French. While he talked to Dr. Garrett
Anderson, Dr. Murray came to an understanding with Madame Pérouse.
Realising that the old lady really did not know what she wanted them
to do and had no instructions to give, she proposed that they should
go with her to the Hôtel Claridge and inform themselves as to the
possibilities of that building.
The Hôtel Claridge was a large modern caravanserai on the Champs
Élysées. As the builders had only just completed their work, the
walls were hardly dry, and the floors were covered with débris.
The whitening had not been cleaned off the windows, and men were
still working at the electric light and in the boiler house. On the
ground floor a series of large salons and dining-rooms opened out
of one another. They had been designed so that no ray of sunlight
ever entered them! But they were structurally capable of making good
wards for a hundred patients. Luxurious and comfortably furnished
bedrooms on the first floor offered accommodation for the staff, and
large stores of new beds and expensive blankets were available. The
building was intersected by long gloomy corridors, each one laid with
an elaborate tesselated pavement and decorated with enormous mirrors.
The _chauffage_ had not yet been persuaded to act, and the atmosphere
was cold and damp; but there were many conveniences in the shape of gas
ovens and sinks as well as service-rooms--a fact which made the Hôtel a
suitable place for a hospital.
The French Red Cross had already accepted the services of a Red Cross
commandant and a small party of English nurses, and had quartered them
in the Hôtel. Madame Pérouse proposed to attach them to the staff of
the Women’s Hospital Corps and to let them work under the direction
of the doctors. In the kitchen a chef had been installed, with some
Belgian women to assist him, and the rest of the establishment included
M. Perrin, the engineer, and M. André, the concierge, with his wife and
family.
It was obvious that the Unit ought to move in at once and begin to
get the wards into order. Meanwhile, there were certain formalities
to be observed. The members of the staff had to be registered with
the police; cards of identity had to be issued for each one of them;
photographs were needed to complete these; and arm brassards with
cryptic figures must be procured from the offices of the French Red
Cross in the rue de Thann.
The Red Cross offices were the scene of great activity. In one large
room numbers of ladies were engaged in writing examination papers which
would qualify them as nurses after an intensive fifteen days’ course of
study. They were ‘très bien mises,’ and the first lecture of the course
gave careful instructions for the care of the hands and complexion, and
included recipes for the preparation of _pommades_ and other cosmetics!
In an adjacent room ladies in white robes were winding bandages; and an
office upstairs was tenanted by two gentlemen who occupied the position
of _directeurs_.
The senior of these two was M. le Docteur M----, a man of a highly
irritable nature which made him a terror to the Red Cross ladies. ‘Pour
rien du tout,’ they whispered, his long grey hair would stand on end,
his pendulous cheeks quiver and his corpulent person be convulsed;
then, with threatening finger and bitter gibes, he would drive them
from his presence. His method of conducting affairs was unintelligible
to British people; and seeing how obstructive and perverse he was,
it was a marvel that his staff accomplished anything. Dr. Garrett
Anderson and Dr. Flora Murray, having stated their requirements to a
secretary, were asked to sit down while he made out some papers for
them, and from two chairs against the wall they had leisure to make
their observations. With deep interest they heard a senior clerk try
to obtain a decision from M. le Docteur and his white-haired, sleepy
colleague as to the situation of ‘L’Hôpital Base des Alliés.’ Both
directors were deaf, and he had to read the letter in question in a
loud voice. The letter was ten days old, and the clerk urged this as a
reason for deciding that afternoon.
‘Il y a déjà dix jours,’ he pleaded.
‘Et s’il y avait vingt jours!’ roared M. le Docteur; and suddenly
subsided as he became aware of the interested spectators against the
wall.
The clerk tried another line, produced a map and made further
suggestions; but the older gentleman was tired of the matter. He
turned his back on his colleague--still growling over the map--and
concentrated his attention upon ‘ces dames anglaises.’
The papers being ready, the secretary directed them to another office
where brassards might be obtained. Here a lady, with great volubility
and in most rapid French, explained her intricate reasons for not
giving them any! And as they did not much mind whether they had them
or not, they bade her a friendly farewell and left the premises. Just
outside they met M. Falcouz and laid the foundation of a pleasant
little friendship. With his white hair ‘en brosse’ and his little
tufted beard, he presented a sufficiently un-English and interesting
appearance. It was his habit always to dress in black and to wear a
black satin tie and gloves two sizes too large for him. He was the Red
Cross Treasurer, and as beseemed his office, he beamed on the doctors
and fell to discussing money matters.
‘Have you money? How have you raised it?’ he asked.
On hearing how the money had been found, he exclaimed:
‘Épatant.’
And then added:
‘In France it would not be possible, mesdames. Nobody would be trusted
with such a sum!’