FIRST DAYS IN PARIS
The streets of Paris were strangely altered and unfamiliar, with closed
shops and whole blocks of houses empty and shuttered. The Government
was at Bordeaux, and the Louvre and all places of amusement were shut.
Only the churches were crowded, and from their dark interiors the
side altars shone out, brilliantly lighted and surrounded by women
and children on their knees. Day by day they trooped past the altars,
lighting the candles and offering their prayers; and day by day the
casualty lists grew longer and the number of crêpe veils in the streets
increased.
Life was not easy for the women of Paris, but they bore themselves with
great dignity and courage. Their attitude was calm and reticent; they
took over men’s posts in the shops and work-rooms, or on the trams and
railways, as a matter of course, and carried out their duties with
quiet efficiency.
The uniform of the Women’s Hospital Corps soon became known, and
secured a cordial reception for its members in the bureaux and offices
which they had to visit, as well as on the boulevards. Strangers would
offer them gifts of socks and mittens. Old ladies, with tears running
down their cheeks, would lift their outer skirts and rummage in the
_poche intérieur_ to bestow a few francs with a blessing upon them. An
Englishman, choking with emotion, put two sovereigns into a doctor’s
hand as she passed him on the stairs of the Hôtel. Shopkeepers asked
about ‘les blessés’ and sent presents of sweets and biscuits. The
greengrocer added an extra cauliflower to the purchase! Flower-women
ran after them and pressed bunches of roses into their hands.
At the entrance of the Hôtel when ambulances were unloading, elderly
men in silk hats and black kid gloves would crowd round and offer to
carry the stretchers, or would follow the bearers inside, with the
kit--often a very dirty kit--in their arms. The sight of the suffering
moved them so that they turned aside and wept. They brought violets
and roses and cigarettes for the men. They stood outside the doors
to listen to them singing, and they wrung the hands of the doctors
silently and went out. The people were deeply moved, but not cast down.
They had settled down to war, and even then they were confident of
victory, since the English were with them.
The cordiality of the people, the general sympathy and the inspiration
of a common cause, combined with the beauty of Paris and the charm of
the autumn weather to make these days a wonderful memory.
* * * * *
The organisation of the hospital proceeded rapidly, and the amount
of heavy surgery and acute sepsis which came in taxed the energy and
resources of the surgical staff. Dr. Garrett Anderson acted as chief
surgeon and Dr. Gazdar took charge of the officers’ ward. Other workers
fell into their places and a sort of routine was gradually evolved.
The duties of administrator, or _Médecin-en-Chef_, fell to Dr. Flora
Murray, and when she was not issuing stores or counting linen, she
would be receiving the countless visitors who came to see the wards.
The French Red Cross wished the hospital to have a _directeur_, and
for this purpose they attached to it M. Aubry, a French gentleman who
was at leisure during the closure of the stock exchange. He spoke
French only, and his duties as director were purely nominal. He was
considerate and genial, and the staff became very fond of him. He had
a son in the Dragoons of whom he was immensely proud; and the arrival
of a grandson, or _petit dragon_, was a great social event in which
every one shared. He seemed to spend several hours a day chatting with
any one who had time to listen to him, and occasionally he joined the
mess for tea. He helped the work of the hospital greatly by bringing
in one of his clerks, M. Gohin, to take charge of the registers and
returns.
The French Army required an immense number of returns to be made. These
had to be rendered in the form of a nominal roll, on the fifth day, the
tenth day, and the twenty-fifth day of each man’s stay in hospital. As
the men did not all come in on the same day, the return of the yellow
or blue or white cards--as the case might be--was never-ending. The
British made it simpler, for one nominal roll went every week to the
War Office and a copy of it to the R.A.M.C. authorities in Paris.
M. Gohin was unfit for military service, but he certainly made good by
the skill with which he managed a very complicated and tiresome piece
of clerical work.
Sundry other youthful clerks also came from M. Aubry’s office to assist
in the wards, and his concierge, M. Roget, took the hospital under
his wing. M. Roget had been with M. Aubry for a great many years, and
he loved and admired him dearly. His affection frequently prompted
him to discuss the appearance and ways of his master when he was ‘en
colère.’ At such times he was said to resemble a wild beast, and no
one could calm him except Roget. Every morning, in a white pinafore,
with a little watering-pot in his hand, M. Roget would perambulate the
central hall, covering the pavement with moist curls and twists. Then
he would throw a little sawdust about and leave it for some one else
to sweep. He was a great man for rumours, and when he was not giving
details of his anatomy and his pathological condition, he would have
mysterious tales of a hundred trains that had gone from Paris to the
Front to bring in German prisoners; of spies and plots within the walls
of Paris; or of great military events which were to end the war in six
weeks.
* * * * *
The management of the Hôtel itself was in the hands of M. Casanova,
who acted as _directeur_ under the Company which had built and owned
it. He was short and stout, with a flowing black beard, and soft,
well-manicured little hands, very courteous and agreeable, prolific of
promises, which for some reason never seemed to be fulfilled. He was
moved to the very depths of his self-indulgent soul by the war and the
proximity of suffering and wounded men. He would descend at night in
his pyjamas if he heard a convoy coming in, and penetrate to the wards
to see what was going on, and to offer help. Though not in the best of
health, he would fetch hot water or lift weights. He would reach out a
trembling hand to hold things, while he wiped his eyes with the other.
His sympathy and distress, combined with a desire to kiss the busy
hands of the doctors, made him a touching figure.
In his train were always strange ladies, wrapped in blankets, who
followed him and peeped round the doors. His rooms were luxurious. His
menu was _spécial_. But he roused himself to serve and to help with all
sincerity. Unfortunately, his relations with M. Aubry became somewhat
strained at a later stage, for he had a passionate temperament.
There were wont to be terrible domestic uproars below stairs. M.
Casanova’s method of administering justice was to declare that some
one was _coupable_ of breaking into the wine-cellars, eating too much
butter or causing the cheese to disappear. He accused everybody, and
everybody asserted his innocence; so he said they must draw lots as
to which of them must be _chassés_. The lot fell on four Belgian girls
who hung about the place and did _services_; at this the rest of the
staff was up in arms, and M. Perrin, the engineer, said, if they were
_chassés_, he also would be _chassé_; and in a perfect storm of rage
and recrimination it was decided that every one was to be _chassés_.
M. Perrin disappeared. The apparatus for the supply of hot water and
heating ran down in his absence, and the Belgian girls wailed that they
were being cast upon the streets.
The _Médecin-en-Chef_ waited upon M. Casanova in the interest of the
girls. He presented her with twelve cakes of soap and some scent:
‘As a testimony of my admiration for your courage and nobility,’ he
said.
And, kissing her hand, he added:
‘The members of _l’équipe_ under your distinguished direction, madame,
are models of virtue and devotion; but there are others of whom one can
say nothing but evil.’
His mood, however, softened, and in the morning it was understood that
no one was to leave, and, to the relief of all concerned, M. Perrin
returned and resumed his duties.
The officials of the French Red Cross were delighted with the rapid way
in which the hospital had got to work, and took a great interest in all
that was being done there. Not infrequently Madame Pérouse, accompanied
by M. Falcouz, would arrive to pay a visit at eight o’clock in the
morning. The first greetings over, she would suggest going to greet the
officers--‘prendre de leurs nouvelles,’ so she put it. At that hour
the ward work was in full swing, and any one who has had experience
of nurses knows how the Sister feels when visitors arrive before she
is ready. British officers, too, prefer to have time to breakfast and
shave before being inspected. But the dear old people were oblivious
of their embarrassment and entered the ward with genial ‘Bonjours.’
They asked the major how he was and he replied, with grave courtesy,
‘Merci, madame; merci, monsieur.’ They asked the others one by one if
they spoke French, and they replied severally, ‘Pas beaucoup,’ or ‘Un
petit peu.’ And so, bowing and gracious, they passed on their tour of
inspection.
In those days very few officers seemed able to speak French, and
intercourse with their French brothers-at-arms in neighbouring beds
was inconveniently restricted. Referring to the language, one of
them said, ‘The insuperable difficulty of this campaign is the
language--it’s unspeakable!’ And some of the doctors echoed his opinion
heartily.
Left alone on duty one night, a surgeon wished to talk to a wounded
French officer and was obliged to ask for the assistance as interpreter
of a nurse who had a reputation as a linguist.
‘Ask him,’ said the surgeon, ‘if he has a pain in his stomach.’
The nurse bent over the bed and put the question:
‘Monsieur, avez-vous du pain dans l’estomac?’
The poor man had been shot through the body and was on a water diet.
He indignantly repudiated the suggestion, assuring her that he had
only taken what the surgeon had ordered for him and that under no
circumstances would he do otherwise.
Both French and British officers were acutely shocked by the horrors
through which they had passed, and most of them suffered from a painful
reaction when the strain was relaxed. At first they could not rest
in hospital, and their nights were haunted by terrible memories and
anxious thoughts. One of them never told what he had seen, but night
after night he covered his face with his uninjured hand and moaned:
‘The children. Oh! the children!’
He had left children of his own at home; and the sufferings of the
little Belgians gave him no rest.
Older men were harassed and worn by anxiety, and distressed by the
difficulty and precarious position of the allied Armies. The younger
ones spoke of how ‘the British were hanging on with their eyelids’;
or how the French were supposed to be ‘making a flank attack and were
lost.’ Some in their depression feared defeat; others broke down with
exhaustion and reaction.
To all of them, officers and men alike, hospital was a haven of peace
and security. It was heavenly to lie in clean beds, to be cared for by
Englishwomen, to be rid of regimental discipline and for the moment
of responsibility too. The severity of their wounds, the operations,
the pain were minor matters; for the time being they had found comfort
and rest. Probably none of them had been in contact with women doctors
before; but that did not make any difference. They trusted the women
as they would have trusted men--passing the bullets which had been
extracted from their persons from bed to bed and pronouncing the
surgeon to be ‘wonderfully clever!’ The more convalescent patients
visited the men who had undergone serious operations in the wards
and cheered them with reminders that they were not ‘in the hands of
the R.A.M.C.’ Their enthusiasm for the hospital was delightful and
encouraging. When they got well and went away, it was like seeing boys
go back to school.
The condition of the men was, if possible, worse than that of the
officers. They had lain in queer wayside stations, waiting for
trains, or on straw in stables and churches, hoping for transport. At
Villeneuve, on the Paris railway circle, there was a goods shed with
straw on the ground, in which officers lay at one end and men at the
other. An R.A.M.C. doctor and a few men did what they could for them,
and when the ambulances came out from Paris, the worst were picked out;
but, for the rest, the weary waiting for a train continued. At Creil,
forty miles from Paris, the accommodation was an open shed filled
with straw. French and British lay huddled in groups, some covered by
blankets, others by dirty sacks. A doctor of the French Army, very
dapper in his red and blue plush cap, sorted them into trains, when any
trains came. Several French soldiers stirred a mess of _potage_ with a
dirty stick. But of dressings or nursing there was no sign. Patiently
and uncomplainingly these sufferers waited, often fifteen, twenty-four
or more hours, while the rain poured down on the roof of their shed,
and the wind swept drearily through the station.
At last, septic and wasted by fever, they were jolted by the ambulances
over the ill-paved roads to Paris and hospital. Lieut. Lowe, whose only
chance lay in getting into hospital without further delay, was brought
down from Compiègne on a stretcher laid across an ordinary motor-car
and held in position by an American doctor and a man with one hand. His
thigh was badly fractured and very imperfectly supported; but with the
help of morphia he endured the journey. From the first there was little
hope of his recovery, but he lingered for some weeks, during which his
sister was able to be with him, lavishing care and tenderness upon him
to their mutual comfort.
The men were dirty and half-fed; many had not had a change of
clothes or socks since they left England; but they were absolutely
uncomplaining and began at once to appreciate their hospital
surroundings. Women doctors were a novelty which served to enhance the
importance and the grandeur of the gilded and marble halls in which
they found themselves. ‘The doctors is ladies,’ they wrote in their
letters home; and to the visitor who asked: ‘Is it really true that
you have no men doctors here?’ the reply was: ‘And what will we be
wanting men doctors for, sir?’
They found comfort in the presence of women and repose in the care
lavished upon them, and with the philosophy of the soldier they let it
rest there.