THE HOSPITAL AT WIMEREUX UNDER THE R.A.M.C. IS OPENED
In Boulogne itself every place which was suitable for hospital purposes
was already occupied, but there was a large house at Wimereux which was
to let. The little town was full of jerry-built hotels and chalets,
erected by the _maire_ and rented in times of peace to the summer
visitors, who were a source of revenue both to him and to the town.
The large hotels were all let to the Army, but the Château Mauricien
was vacant; and although it was Sunday, the agent was prepared to do
business.
The château had originally been built by an Englishman, and it was
provided with an English cooking range and hot-water system as well
as with central heating. Its chief attractions were its position
in the eye of the sun, with a large garden all round it, and the
purity and freshness of the air. Attached to it was a three-storied
_dépendance_, which promised quarters for the staff. In addition the
stable, coach-house, garage and greenhouses could all be made use of.
It is true that the roof was inclined to leak and that the drainage
system was obsolete and broke down hopelessly; but the place was full
of sunshine and sweetness, and made a passable hospital both then and
later.
The agent, M. Jean Bataille, who acted for the _maire_, had the
appearance and manners of a bluff sea-captain. His appearance suggested
that his blue serge clothing covered an honest heart, that his mind was
as guileless as a child’s, and that philanthropy was his hobby. He had
a fixed idea that to be English was to be wealthy; and experience had
shown him that in matters of business the English were as babes in the
hands of the _maire_ and himself. Between them they monopolised most
of the trades and all the public offices of the town; nothing could be
obtained and very little could be done without applying to the _maire_.
Builders, chimney-sweeps, plumbers, gas-fitters--all seemed to be his
employees. No one else had houses or hotels to let. The milk came
from his farm; the coal through his agency. He controlled _l’apparat_
by which the congestion of drains was relieved; and by virtue of
his office he issued requisition orders and _autorités_ at his own
discretion and his own price.
The greater part of the morning was spent in argument, on the sunny
terrace of the château, before the bargain was struck. The terms of the
_maire_ were high, and he haggled and held out; but finally, having
been assured that the Légion d’honneur was likely to be his, and that
his association with the British Army might bring further honours, he
melted, and agreed to put the house in order and let it to the Women’s
Hospital Corps for six weeks, or longer if they wanted it. The party
adjourned to the _maire’s_ office--a black little den behind his
house--so that the agreement might be drawn up. There was only standing
room in the office, and a board laid on the top of the stove acted as
a writing table! M. le Maire and M. Bataille were unable to write more
than their own names, and the agreement had to be composed and written
by the doctors themselves. With much concentration and deep breathing
the gentlemen affixed their signatures. The document being completed,
they beamed on the ladies, and promised to have workmen and cleaners in
the house by sunrise next day.
By ten o’clock in the morning the sweep, the plumber and the gas-fitter
had not arrived; the women who were to do the cleaning were still
absent, and the _maire_ himself was invisible. The town had to be
turned upside down to discover them all; and when once they were set to
work, it was necessary to stand by and keep a watchful eye upon them,
lest they should disappear and get lost again.
The château needed furniture. And here the _maire_ was supreme; for he
had stores of furniture stacked in the ‘Salle Jeanne d’Arc,’ which he
had removed from the Grand Hotel when he let it to the R.A.M.C. for a
hospital. He was charmed that it should be requisitioned, and the agent
sent two ramshackle old carts and a couple of men to convey mattresses
and tables and chairs from the _salle_ to the new hospital. Through him
also a _batterie de cuisine_ was unearthed from the underground cellars
of the Grand Hotel; and from cupboards in the typhoid wards cutlery and
knives and forks were forthcoming. With the supplies and stores from
Paris, and others which Dr. Woodcock sent over, the château assumed a
fairly habitable and comfortable appearance. There was no furniture
available for the staff; for the _maire_ lent on hire at exorbitant
rates; and therefore they contented themselves with mattresses on the
floor of the _dépendance_ for many weeks, until the British Red Cross
came to their relief with bedsteads.
Dr. Cuthbert arrived from Paris with a detachment of nurses and
orderlies, who soon brought order into the house. And, to every one’s
joy, Miss Fenn and Miss Goodwin, professional cook and parlour-maid,
came over from London to run the establishment. After the arrangements
at Claridge’s, English cooking and ample army rations almost
constituted luxury.
For the _service_ some Belgian girls were engaged, and a French-English
vocabulary was pinned on the kitchen wall, by means of which Miss
Fenn and Miss Goodwin were able to direct the work. After a few
days, a complete understanding took place between them; and cheerful
conversation was not wanting.
For heavier work, one ‘Joseph’ was added to the establishment. He was a
young Belgian of military age, who had no taste for military service!
He was a refugee with his wife and child. He roused the sympathies of
the staff by relating the graphic story of the death of his brother,
whom he said he had seen cut into small pieces by German soldiers
‘before his very eyes.’
‘My only brother,’ he would say, and burst into tears.
Much kindness was shown to his wife and little girl; and Joseph’s own
shortcomings and disappearances were leniently treated. A few weeks
later he told the quartermaster with much indignation that his brother
had written him a begging letter.
‘But,’ said the quartermaster, ‘I thought you had only one brother?’
‘It is true, mam’selle, and now he wishes to beg of me.’
‘But you said that you saw the Germans cut him to pieces,’ remonstrated
the quartermaster.
‘It is true, mam’selle. Nevertheless, he has written asking me for
money,’ replied Joseph, too much absorbed in his anger against his
brother to notice his own want of veracity.
The town was full of Belgians, for whom relief was organised by M.
Larensard, the proprietor of the stationer’s shop and library. He had
a soup-kitchen in the coach-house of the château, and begged that he
might not be displaced. He came daily to supervise the _soupe_, looking
like an El Greco grandee, with his long ivory face, his pointed beard
and erect white hair. He wore black clothes, a white clerical-looking
tie and fluffy yellow socks, and on his arm a white brassard indicated
his merciful calling. He had a Christian creed and lived up to it.
Dr. Flora Murray had brought letters of introduction with her
from Paris, and as the preparations for the hospital were nearing
completion, accompanied by Dr. Garrett Anderson, she called at the
headquarters of the Army Medical Service in Boulogne and presented the
letters. In a bare little hotel bedroom with a hideous French wallpaper
on the walls, they found two colonels and a soldiers’ table. The senior
officer glanced at the correspondence and said:
‘We know all about the Women’s Hospital Corps here. Saw you in Paris.
You are very welcome here. Have you got a place? How many beds can you
give us?’
He seemed satisfied when the doctors answered that their ‘place’ with
a hundred beds would be ready next day. In answer to their inquiry
whether he would make use of it, he said:
‘Yes, to the fullest extent. I am Commandant here. You will be working
directly under me. Will you take surgery? We need another operating
station.’
Their hearts leapt within them; for all the time it had been their
ambition to see women doctors working as army surgeons under the
British War Office.
The conversation then took the form of instructions about registers,
returns, reports and nominal rolls. The question of maintenance was
discussed; and it was proposed to provide the hospital with rations and
coal, as well as petrol for its ambulances.
‘Have you a quartermaster?’ he asked.
‘Yes, we have one,’ Dr. Garrett Anderson replied, mentally appointing
Orderly Campbell to this post as she spoke.
It was arranged that the Château Mauricien should be attached to the
Military Hospital in the Grand Hotel, and that the newly appointed
quartermaster should understudy the quartermaster of that hospital. An
official document was issued for her use:
To O. i/c. Supplies.
The Women’s Hospital Corps have established a hospital at the
Château Mauricien at Wimereux, and is recognised by the War
Office.
(Signed) D. D. S.----, Lt.-Col.,
for A. D. M. S.
_5th November 1914._
Armed with this, Quartermaster Campbell assumed her duties, and,
accompanied by her model from the Grand, sought out the Supply Depot.
She returned with most superabundant rations, the male quartermaster
apologising and puzzled; for he could not understand how or why they
had got so much. Miss Campbell’s account was:
‘An orderly asked me if I would like a side of bacon, and when I said
yes, he put it in the car. And another said a case of peaches would be
useful and put it in. And some one else brought the jam and the cheese,
and they said a bag of tea and another of sugar would not come amiss.
And just as we were leaving, a sergeant threw in two hams.’
‘So there it all is,’ she ended gleefully.
On the following day, the 6th of November, the hospital was ready
for occupation; the plumber and gas-fitter were ejected, the pantry
became an operating theatre, the greenhouse was converted into a linen
room and packstore. In the evening the ambulances met the trains, and
the large ward on the ground floor filled up. Before very long all
the beds were occupied, and the Chief Surgeon and her two assistants
were kept busy with severe cases and heavy surgery. The pressure of
work continued until January; and both doctors and nurses had their
hands full. The place was small enough to be very personal, and the
relationship between the staff and the men was a close one.
The women felt strangely near the Front, for the men came down from
the lines in a few hours, and their tales of the mud and wet in which
they were standing almost up to their waists, the agony of frostbite,
the terrible shortage of ammunition and the superiority of the German
guns made pitiful hearing. The anxiety and strain of the severe cases
was as nothing to the pathos of the slight cases who had to be sent
straight back. As the day came nearer, their eyes would follow the
Chief Surgeon round the ward, apprehensive of discharge; and when at
last the moment of farewell came, they were silent, for fear of losing
their composure. A parcel of all the comforts possible was prepared
for each one, and the hospital turned out to see them off, and some
one would go with them to ‘Base Details,’ as the reporting station was
called. But there was no getting over the horror of going back. Many of
them, when they came out, had had no idea of what was before them; and
others were unfitted by temperament and by their former life for all
they had to endure.
A Lancashire operative, no longer a young man, told how he had put his
name to a paper.
‘Missus she said I should, and so I did, but I never thought anything
would coom of it.’
Then one day as he sat at dinner a military escort knocked at his door
and called him out.
‘But they coom for me,’ he went on, ‘at one o’clock they coom, just as
I was settin’ down to my dinner they coom, and took me outside, and the
orficer he said, “Now, A----, you’re soldier, and if you desert, you
will be shot,” says he, and they took me away. I had often heard tell
of abroad and I thought I would like to go, but I never thought abroad
was like this. Just a sea o’ mood, abroad is! I don’t want to coom
abroad no more.’
It was very easy for friends to come over from England, and many of
them took advantage of the opportunity. They did not come empty-handed,
and the hospital was supplied with games and gramophones, and with
abundance of such things as water-beds and air-rings. Sir Alan Anderson
arrived with a car load of pheasants, which were the last word in
luxury. And work depots were kind in sending linen and warm clothing.
It was in this hospital that a suffragist friend met and recognised a
wounded policemen. She claimed his acquaintance.
‘I remember you,’ she said. ‘You arrested me once in Whitehall.’
‘I wouldn’t have mentioned it, Miss,’ he replied with embarrassment.
‘We’ll let byegones be byegones.’
There was a constant stream of official visitors--colonels, inspectors
and consultants--all of whom were more or less eager to pass men on--to
send them to England or back to the line. The surgical work came in
for a good deal of scrutiny; for the R.A.M.C. were zealous about the
turn-over, and went round every week or sometimes oftener, with the
desire of emptying beds. Through constant observation, it was borne in
upon these officers that the professional work and the organisation of
the women were worthy of a wider opportunity; and when the chance of
saying a word of commendation came, that word was generously and freely
said.