THE HOSPITAL AND ITS VISITORS
A large sign was stretched across the portico of the Hôtel:
HÔPITAL ANGLO-BELGE,
173 AUXILIAIRE.
On Sunday afternoon, when all the world walked in the Champs Élysées,
it attracted a great deal of notice. And M. Aubry, smoking his
cigarette on the doorstep, was gratified by many inquiries about ‘les
blessés’ and the hospital.
With characteristic affability he bowed and made every one welcome,
and sent a stream of unknown and curious people to see the wards.
The visitors made him so many compliments upon his ‘installation si
parfaite’ that the following Sunday found him again on the doorstep.
Before long he was surrounded by a large and friendly crowd; for all
who had seen the hospital the previous week had returned, bringing
with them their families and friends to enjoy the ‘épatant’ spectacle!
Even M. Aubry perceived that it was impracticable to admit a seething
mass of two hundred or more people; and the staff promptly came
to his support and closed the grille in the face of a protesting,
gesticulating throng. After this incident, M. Aubry was persuaded to
smoke elsewhere on Sundays.
The wards were visited regularly by many kind friends, who took
infinite trouble to get to know the men personally and entertained
them with talk or reading. The Rev. Mr. Blunt, of the British Embassy
Church, came often, and his curate, Mr. W. Bennett, was a daily
visitor. The latter visited the sick and talked football round the
brazzeros whilst he roasted chestnuts and made toast. On Sundays he
held a service, with the help of the Baroness Geysa de Braunecker and
Mrs. Henley, who made music for the hospital every evening. Their
sing-songs in the big central hall were delightful: English songs,
Scotch songs, French songs, one after the other. ‘Tipperary’ was the
favourite then, but ‘Thora’ had a great vogue, and a heavy bass would
thrill the company with:
‘Speak! speak! speak to me, Thora!’
Most popular, too, was ‘The Bonnie Banks of Loch Lomond.’ And the
‘Marseillaise’ united everybody in one great roar.
A natural comedian among the patients, called Ginger by his comrades
on account of the colour of his hair, mounted the platform readily to
give his song: ‘With my little wiggle waggle in my hand.’ He received
so many encores that he felt encouraged to make a speech. He began by
saying how much he enjoyed the appreciation of the audience because he
knew how well he deserved it; and then he wandered off into praise of
his feats with the Army, ending up with kindly comments on the comfort
of the hospital.
From the neighbouring church of S. Philippe du Roule came l’Abbé
Charles Ablin to care for the Roman Catholics. M. l’Abbé was as
tenderhearted and sympathetic as St. Francis himself. His spiritual
face radiated gentleness and piety. His heart ached for the wounded
and the dying. To go round a screen with him and see him raise his
hands and murmur, ‘Ah! nos braves, nos braves!’ called up a vision of
suffering, bleeding France. In every delirious or dying infantryman he
saw his country, and he poured out his love and pity on each one. He
lamented that he could not speak to the English, but he visited them
all the same: ‘At least I can bless them,’ he said.
And day by day he passed among them, raising his hand and murmuring
gentle words: so that they learned to love him, and missed him if he
did not come. He had his own anxieties too: for a niece who lived with
him had gone to a Belgian convent for a holiday in August, and he had
had no news of her since the war broke out. In January he heard that
she had reached England, and in a tremor of joy and relief he set out
for London to bring her home.
Mr. Chester Fentress, the well-known tenor, was at that time living
in Paris. When the work on which he was engaged at the American
Embassy came to an end, he found that the American hospital had more
workers than it needed, and fortunately he was able to attach himself
to ‘Claridge’s.’ He came every day, ready to do anything, until he
was regarded as an orderly of the Corps, and helping in the wards he
suffered some things at the hands of the Sisters and patients.
‘There is a lamp there,’ one Sister was heard to say to him. ‘I cannot
get it to burn. Would you have the sense now to put it right?’
Nor was his genius always recognised! An irritable patient, hearing him
sing as he performed some menial task, exclaimed:
‘God help him, if he had to earn his living by his voice!’
Mr. Fentress’s knowledge of Paris and of the shops was of great use.
He was an expert shopper and guide, and very kind about undertaking
commissions. Later in the autumn he brought his friend, Mr. Hubert
Henry Davies, the playwright, to the hospital, and made him so
interested that when work pressed and helpers were few he also would
don a white coat and enter the wards. It appealed to his sense of
fun to fetch and carry for the Sisters, and the men were a constant
interest and pleasure to him. He was dearly loved by everybody for his
sensitive nature, his refinement, his humour and the way in which he
threw himself into the hospital life.
Amongst the nurses was one elderly lady who had once nursed for Mrs.
Garrett Anderson and who never failed to impress the fact on any doctor
who ventured to comment on disorder or want of management in her ward.
If reminded that the men should breakfast at 8 A.M. and not 9 A.M., she
would reply:
‘Well, I have nursed for Mrs. Garrett Anderson, and she always said it
was a mistake for patients to breakfast early.’
If it were pointed out that dinner was over in other wards and had not
yet begun in hers, the answer was:
‘When I nursed for Mrs. Garrett Anderson, she always said that
patients should not be pressed to eat till they were hungry.’
If asked to put an extra jacket on the man whose bed was near the
passage way, the doctor was informed:
‘Mrs. Garrett Anderson did not approve of muffling up patients, and I
nursed for her long enough to know.’
Or she would remark crushingly:
‘Well, doctors are not what they were when I nursed for Mrs. Garrett
Anderson.’
The medical staff bore itself humbly, for it was already conscious
of its inferiority to the great Pioneer; and try as they might, they
never succeeded in learning when and where the nurse had had this
great experience. Her quaint habits of mind and plainness of speech
made her a joy to Mr. Davies. Meeting him one day on the Boulevards,
she attacked him for not having emptied her dressing-bin that morning,
and drew such a pathetic picture of her plight in consequence of
his negligence that she moved herself to tears. Both he and Mr.
Fentress were horrified to find themselves and the weeping nurse
objects of public interest. They hastily pushed her into the nearest
shop, hoping to propitiate her with coffee. But the shop turned
out to be a bookshop, and she never read books. It took some time
before a suitable offering could be found and friendly relations be
re-established.
Nearly every afternoon saw Lady Robert Cecil in the wards. She was
always a most welcome visitor. No one knew better than she did how
to make the time pass pleasantly. Mrs. Kemp came too, with generous
supplies of English bread, which the men regarded as a great treat
after the French loaves. And at Christmas time Mrs. Pankhurst was
in Paris, and her first visit made an equal sensation among French
and British. They would gather round her while she talked to them of
their homes and the education of their children, or encouraged them to
consider how the heavy daily toil of their wives might be lightened.
‘I would rather have seen that lady than that Queen who came the other
day,’ said one, referring to the visit of Queen Amelie of Portugal. And
the roughest diamond, a bricklayer, not unaccustomed to beer drinking,
delivered himself:
‘I do declare to you, lady, that this war has shown me that the “spear”
of woman is something different to what I thought it had been.’
But very often there were more visitors than was desirable; men
suffered from too much attention and grew weary of the repeated
inquiries as to wounds and progress. The sick would gladly accept the
suggestion to have screens put round them, and even then they were
not always safe from intrusion. A lady in ‘a shepherd’s plaid frock’
upset a Cameron Highlander by commenting on his lemonade and grapes and
calling him ‘one of the pampered ones.’
‘I would have ye know, mem,’ he retorted, ‘I’m a Brrritish soldier man
and not a toy dog. What should I want to be pampered for more nor other
men--and me a Cameron?’
And to his nurse afterwards he confided:
‘She fair maks me seeck.’
Two days later the same tactless lady again gave him cause for
complaint.
‘She offered me a cake an’ I took it, for she was vera polite. An’
then she starts her sauce. “There’s naething the matter wi’ ye,” she
says. An’ I says, “Ye’re right, there’s naething wrang wi’ me an’ so
I’m no’ needing ony mair visitors.” An’ I never touched her cake; I’ll
never touch her cake again--wi’ her shepherd’s tartan frock an’ a’,’ he
growled wrathfully.
At a later stage the Cameron was met in a corridor, with his uninjured
arm fondling a Belgian girl. The doctor who met him remarked upon his
affectionate manner.
‘Och, Doctor, she’s got the toothache an’ I canna speak French.’ And in
complete understanding they wandered undisturbed down the corridor.
It was difficult to make kindly-intentioned people understand that the
wards must close at certain hours or that the men were really ill and
must have quiet. Concert parties and people with views on recitation
would arrive unexpectedly at a late hour, and fail to see any reason
why performances could not be given during supper or with the sleeping
draughts. A lady brought a French poet to recite his works to a ward
which held principally Englishmen, at the time when general washing and
blanket bathing was in full swing. The sight alone of the poet caused
catastrophes among the basins; for his appearance was as advanced as
his verse, and his long hair and bow tie and very full-skirted coat
were more than startling to British eyes.
Other hospital units, waiting in Paris for a location, called to
see round Claridge’s, and amongst such visitors were the Duchess of
Westminster, Lady Sarah Wilson and Lady Dudley. The surgeons belonging
to these units were restive at being kept waiting so long and inclined
to be envious of the Women’s Hospital Corps, which had been running
for some weeks; but their hospitals had a large personnel, for which
quarters were not so easy to find as they had been for the women’s
smaller unit.
In December a cordial welcome was extended to Dr. Elsie Inglis and
Dr. Frances Ivens, who, with a Scottish Women’s Hospital, were on
their way to L’Abbaye Royaumont, to open the hospital which became so
famous. At an earlier date Dr. Elsie Inglis had written to Dr. Garrett
Anderson to ask if there were a vacancy for a surgeon in the Women’s
Hospital Corps; but the Unit had its full complement of surgeons; and
her suggestion to join it was regretfully declined. In view of what
she afterwards initiated and accomplished, this was not the matter of
regret which it seemed at the time. It was splendid to have another
women’s hospital established under the French Red Cross, and to hear
also of the other Scottish units which were going farther afield.
* * * * *
The presence of their English colleagues was stimulating to the French
medical women, and they did not fail to contrast their own position
unfavourably with that accorded to their foreign sisters. Whereas
English women were established in control of hospitals under the French
Red Cross, the French women were serving in military hospitals as
dressers, or as night orderly officers. They had no responsible work,
and no professional position. One afternoon, Madame Paul Boyer brought
a number of them to ‘Claridge’s,’ when a free discussion took place
over the coffee cups.
Although the Paris University had opened its degree to women many
years before the Universities of the United Kingdom, the number
of women on the register fell far below the number in England.
Educational facilities were equal in Paris for men and women, but after
qualification the resident posts and staff appointments were still
given to men, and women could only secure very subordinate work. They
were not combined in any society, as the British women are. They had
no association or council to promote their interests, and they had no
hospitals of their own, staffed and supported by women, through which
they might obtain responsible surgical work and experience.
When war broke out, their Government scorned their offer of service,
and it was only as the result of the shortage of doctors that a few
had obtained any footing at all in military hospitals. Dr. N.-K., a
Russian lady of great ability and many years’ experience, was working
as a dresser under a lieutenant of twenty-two years in the officers’
section at ‘St. Louis.’ Her work seemed to be largely that which a
nurse would do in England. She took temperatures, dressed wounds, kept
notes, directed the male orderlies, but was denied all responsibility
in professional matters. Mme. Boyer was permitted to sleep in the ‘Val
de Grace’ and attend to night calls. She lamented the absence of women,
whether as nurses or doctors, in the French hospitals, and described in
graphic terms the confusion and discomfort to be found there. Another,
who spoke Polish, had been told that she might join a hospital on the
eastern frontier if she were disguised as an _infirmière_, but that she
must promise not to disclose to the _Médecin-en-Chef_ that she was a
doctor.
Most of these women doctors were married and very much domesticated,
but they complained unanimously of having no opportunities, and were
even a little bitter about the unfairness of their position. Dr.
Garrett Anderson and Dr. Flora Murray pointed out that women must make
their own opportunities, and told them of the societies, schools and
hospitals for women in England. At last, stirred to emulate, they
declared that they also must ‘faire un mouvement.’ Then one said that
her husband did not like her to concern herself with ‘mouvements,’
and another that, if a ‘mouvement’ meant attending meetings at night,
she could not come, because her husband could not bear to be left
alone. And the enthusiasm began to dwindle. Pressed to consider the
possibility of a hospital staffed by women, they admitted that it would
be an advantage, and that such a scheme might be feasible, till Mme.
Boyer said that they had had no chance of surgical experience and asked
dramatically what they should do ‘if the first patient came with an
_énorme fibrome_.’
But there were at least two silent onlookers, young women, one of whom
had not yet finished her medical course but knew English, had been in
England and had some knowledge of the women’s movement there. She and
her comrade were not married, and they obviously had personal ambition.
They had been touched by the modern spirit. Through them and through
their contemporaries progress might come. They sat listening to their
seniors with decorum and in silence. But their eyes were critical and
in their hearts they judged them and found them wanting.
The English doctors realised that the new element was present, and that
the advance had sounded for professional women in France.
[Illustration: THE MORTUARY IN THE HÔTEL CLARIDGE
(Page 74)
]
[Illustration: THE MATRON OF THE MILITARY HOSPITAL, ENDELL STREET.
MISS G. R. HALE, R.R.C.
(Page 75)
(_Photo, Reginald Haines_)
]