We are all wonderfully well, and everything is well with us. In spite of all that I say about bands and dances and the sun shining, there is always the other side. Almost every day we have a death, if not more than one. Night before last a poor boy died of tetanus, and just a few days ago we had the sad experience of helping a poor mother watch her son die, oh so hard. We hadsent for her from England, and she was so glad to be here. She came every day from the Y. M. C. A. hostel, and sat by his side. He knew her when she first came. He had such terrible wounds, and he could not stand the awful infection of them all. She was here with him all that last night, and when he stopped breathing about three o’clock, Miss Claiborne, the Surgical Night Supervisor, took her away to the night nurses’ hut, a tiny place where they have their suppers at midnight. She made her some coffee and wrapped her in blankets and fixed her comfortably in chairs. The poor soul did not weep a tear. She slept till morning, then went back to her hostel, and slept all day, the Y. M. C. A. worker told us. The next day she came to get his little belongings. I took her down to the mortuary, and it was not until she saw the flowers Miss Watkins had put down there on him that she went to pieces. She went to the funeral that afternoon, then left, so full of gratitude to us, as though we had done anything.
Sept. 3.
Dearest Family:—
Such a wonderful lot of letters as I’ve had recently. I am sending Mother’s letter on to Phil. I have had two notes from him. He is so lucky in having the splendid chance he has, so near thefront. Our men envy him. I will try to keep close track of him, and write him often, so he won’t feel so far away; and if he should get sick or hurt, he is to have my address on him all the time, and I could get to him at once. I am sure I have sufficient pull with officials, and I should work it hard. He is, of course, in much more danger than we are here. You must realize that. But there are not so many dressing stations and field ambulances shelled or bombed. And he will be all right. He is lucky to be there, and I wish I were too. I suppose he will write you that there is no danger, but I want you to know the truth. A Clearing Station was bombed the other day, and people killed and an American nurse injured, and he is nearer the front than that Clearing Station, we understand. I’ll let you know everything I know, so don’t worry; and if he gets hurt, I’ll look after him all I can.
Loads and loads of love to you all. You must not think I am doing anything but exactly what I wanted most to do, and there is no heroism in that. I am very happy at being so much better.
3d Canadian b. b. s.4th Sept., 1917.
Dear Miss Stimson:—
This note is on behalf of your brother, who wasadmitted to-day into this hospital, slightly wounded in the muscles of the back by shrapnel.
There is no cause for alarm. He will be sent on to the Base after a short treatment here, and will let you know from there how he is getting along.
Yours sincerely,T. M.Chaplain.
B. E. F.4-9 17
Dear Miss Stimson:—
I very much regret to have to inform you that your brother was wounded this morning, he was hit in the back, and I don’t think it is serious; the piece of shell entered his back just below the right scapula in a slanting direction. I sent him on immediately to C. C. S., and I am advising him to try to get down to your hospital. The Boche began shelling our Dressing Station and we thought they had finished and went back to our tents, when he sent a parting shot—so to speak, which nearly got the lot of us. I think he will be able to write to you himself to-morrow, so there is no need to worry. He has proved himself a very good officer whilst with me, and I am very sorry to have to lose him, as we very rarely getthem back, once they go to the Base. I greatly regret that this has happened.
Believe me,
Very sincerely yours,G. H. L. H.,Lieut. Col.
Sept. 8, 1917.
Dearest Mother:—
By the time this reaches you you will have received my cable about Phil. I will repeat what I said just in case it may not have arrived safely. I sent it this noon. “Phil slight shrapnel wound right shoulder. To be brought here. Don’t worry. Will cable often.” The news came in the mail that came in this morning. The two inclosed notes were in the bunch of letters that I received. I read the Chaplain’s first and afterwards found the one from the Colonel. I shall write to thank both these people who were so kind as to write me. I have been able to get a little more information about Phil from Major C. of the Cleveland Unit. Last evening Major C. telephoned me but I was undressed and could not go to the telephone. Miss Taylor took the message and said that Major C. just wanted to know if I knew where my brother was. She has told him that I did not know exactly, but that he was at some Field dressing station with a B. E. F. unit.That was all. This morning, wondering why Major C. was asking about Phil, I called him up and had just the same conversation with the Major. He said he had himself just come down from the front and that there were a number of Americans up there and wasn’t it pleasant for me to have my brother over here? I still wondered why this conversation, until the mail came. Then I called up Major C. again and asked him if he knew that Phil was wounded, and he said Yes; he had seen him but had not wanted to tell me until I had been notified some other way. He said that Phil had been stationed not very far from where he was, and when he heard that he was hurt, he had gone over to see him. This was the morning after the accident. He said he saw Phil soon after the operation. I said operation? and he said, “Yes, the usual operation removing the shrapnel pieces and opening up for drainage.” He said Phil had been in a good deal of pain at the time but was sitting up in bed. He could not write himself as it was his right shoulder. He said, “I talked over with him about where he wanted to go and he said he wanted to be brought to No. 12 General.” I broke in, “Will they allow that since this is not an officers’ hospital?” He said, “Oh yes, if that is what the officer wants. They have the opportunity to choose where they want to be sent, and Phil had chosen here.” “Of course,” Major C.said, “this may not be final that he is to come to you, but I personally saw all the authorities I could and I think he will be brought to you very soon.” Then he went on to say, “You may take it from me you need not worry about your brother’s condition, for it is not a serious wound. It probably will take a long time to heal as it is a deep muscle wound, but there is no occasion for anxiety.” I thanked him profusely for his kindness and hung up.
Then I went to Col. Fife, who was terribly nice and said he would make inquiries at once about having Phil brought here. He told me afterwards that he communicated with the D. D. M. S. (Deputy Divisional Medical Supervisor), who is responsible for all the hospitals in this area, and now all I can do is to wait. It must be that the boy will be brought down on the next convoy. He was hurt the 4th and this is the 8th, so I may expect him any time. But of course he has to be sent on a regular ambulance train. Col. Fife and I talked the matter over and I told him I knew Phil would rather be put in one of our hospital tents and be taken care of here among his friends than be sent to any fancy officers’ hospital. Major Murphy left this morning with our second Surgical team to go to the front, as luck would have it, but Major Clopton will give him every possible care when the boy gets here.There is much interest and solicitude here in the camp about Phil, for his is the first real casualty that has happened to a relative or friend of any of us. When Phil gets here, if he does not feel too badly, he will be just spoiled to death. Major Clopton says that there are excellent doctors up at the 3d Canadian C. C. S. where he was taken. And Dr. Schwab spoke up and said that they have a good neurologist there too, and it’s sure to be a good hospital if there’s a good neurologist there. The other men laughed and said, “That is why this is such a good hospital, isn’t it?” (Dr. Schwab is our neurologist and is a splendid one too.)
I have just been notified that a convoy is to be prepared for at 1A.M.and I shall be on hand to meet it on the chance that Phil may come in it. I shall leave this letter open until after the convoy is in.
I cabled because I was so afraid the English authorities might send a message to you, and any way I was sure you had rather know the exact facts always just as soon as possible. I shall be so relieved when the boy gets here and I can look after him. For when he is once here, he will get as good care as he could get in any place in the world. I’m so glad I’m a nurse and am here. Isn’t it wonderful for me to be here?
P.S. Phil did not come on the convoy last night. I saw Major C., who said that Phil was to receive every care, because he had spoken to the officers in charge of him and had identified him and told them who he was.
Sept. 10, 1917.Monday.
Dearest Mother:—
Another day has gone and I have not made much progress about getting Philip here. After much telephoning and pulling wires we have found out that Phil has been sent to No. 20 General Hospital at E. and is likely to be transferred to England. I am going to raise the roof to-day—to see if I can’t go there to see the D. D. M. S. of that area and see why the boy can’t be brought here. I am going to do everything possible before I give up, and anyway I shall see him, for if he gets sent to England, I shall go over. I was going anyway next week, as Mrs. Whitelaw Reid had written for me to come over about uniforms, etc. and Major Murphy and Col. Fife had said they thought I ought to go, so I’ll go anyway if Phil gets sent over there, but probably not if I can get him here. All reports are that his condition is good.
It just occurred to me that you may not have received my letter of the 8th—telling all I know about his injury. The inclosed notes were my original information. I will cable just as soon asI know anything more definite. You poor old dears—you’ll be so shocked by my cable just as I was by these notes Saturday. I felt sick at my stomach all day after getting them. But don’t you worry, Phil is strong and he will get well fast.
Lovingly,Julia.
Sept. 19, 1917.
You cannot imagine how much my mind is at rest, for I have Phil here with me and everything is all right. After waiting and waiting for some word as to the chances of bringing him down from C., on Saturday last, the 15th, I called the Aide of the D. D. M. S., and asked him to see what he could do for me. On Sunday he telephoned that he had learned that Phil was not able to travel, but that I could have an ambulance and go up Monday morning, the 17th, and see the boy. It was necessary to send an ambulance up to N. to bring a Chinaman up to the British hospital for Chinese that is there. I was told I could take an officer with me if I wanted to and if we found Phil well enough to travel, we could bring him down. So I asked Capt. Veeder to go with me, and Col. Fife gave us both two days’ leave of absence. It is about 130 miles to C. We left at 10A.M., and I took with me all the things that we might possibly need if we were to bring Philipback, extra pillows, a feeding cup, thermos, hypodermic set, etc., etc.
We had a beautiful trip up. The country for two thirds of the way is most lovely and the day was beautiful. Both Capt. Veeder and I sat on the front seat with the driver. The car was a great big regular ambulance that can be used to carry four stretcher cases. The shelves for the two upper cases can be hooked up. We made very good time. Had dinner at a little hotel in E., stopped twenty minutes to say hello to our friends of the Philadelphia Unit, had our tea en route from the lunch box we brought from here, dropped our Chinaman at N., and dashed on along the coast and reached C. about 6:30.
We went to the Chicago Unit’s hospital and were taken in most cordially by Miss Urch, the chief nurse, and Capt. Veeder by Col. Collins, the Commanding Officer. They told us that 20 General was just next door, and that Phil was getting along finely. Col. Collins had seen him. He said he thought we could take him back with us and that we would go down to see him right after dinner. Meanwhile he would send word that I was coming.
After dinner he escorted us through the pitch-black darkness to the hospital. On account of recent air raids they have no outside light at night and no unshaded inside. The result is very spooky.Ten days or so ago the Boche had flown over and dropped some bombs on those hospitals, killing a doctor from Boston, attached to the Peter Bent Brigham Unit which is at C. also, and right next door to the Chicago Unit and their officers’ hospital where Phil was. Several other people had been hurt, some doctors and enlisted men. I saw a crater made by one of the shells. Phil was sitting propped up in bed and he seemed mighty glad to see me. He had no temperature and the M. O. said I could take him the next day: so we told them to have him ready at 10A.M., and left. He did not look very badly, and, although his back is very painful when he moves and he finds it difficult to stay in one position very long, we could tell that the trip down would really not do him any greater harm than to tire him very much. There was no danger of hemorrhage.
Then we went back to No. 12 Unit and were each of us given the greatest hospitality. I had my first tub bath since I left London, though I took it by the light of my electric torch. The quarters up there are better than ours, but our location is much better than any of the others that we saw. We came back even more satisfied with our station than we were when we left. We got a good start in the morning, having the personal attention of Col. Patterson of the Boston Unit and Col. Collins of the Chicago Unit and theM. O. of the 20 General and several other people. The pillows that we fitted around Phil’s back made it quite bearable for him, and frequent turnings and readjustments and feedings and pleasant converse made the hours go pretty rapidly. Capt. Veeder spelled me on sitting inside on the little hard seat between the two stretcher places. It was fearfully dusty, but I had plenty of nice cloths and could keep the boy fairly comfortable. We stopped for lunch coming back at E. Capt. Veeder and I went inside to see about ordering and to let Phil rest quietly a few minutes while we had our lunch. We were near the window of the dining-room, when suddenly I saw the wife of the inn-keeper climbing into the ambulance with a large loaf of bread in one hand and a plate of something in the other. I rushed out to stop her and pulled her out looking quite horrified and saying “beaucoup malade.” Phil had wakened up from a little nap and was convulsed to see her standing there holding out the loaf of bread to him. I took the food back inside and in a few minutes the Captain and I fed him comfortably with a nice little audience standing around with much curiosity. Then we went on our way, stopping once more about 4 to get some hot tea and to have a little lunch.
We reached here at 6:45 and really I don’t think Phil was much the worse for wear exceptvery dirty and pretty tired. Col. Fife and Major Clopton met us and made arrangements to have him put in an empty tent, so the stretcher bearers pulled him out of the ambulance and carried him in and we got him into a nice, clean, comfortable bed, and you can imagine he was pretty glad to get there. His dinner was soon sent down to him from the officers’ mess and he was cleaned up just enough to make him comfortable. Major Clopton decided not to do his dressing until the next morning, but to let him rest. He had a fairly comfortable night, he said, sleeping at intervals, but he had not been sleeping well before he left C. The next morning his temperature was only 99.6, so you see the trip really did not do him any harm. When Major Clopton dressed him at 10, I went down to watch. He has what to you would appear to be a pretty nasty wound, but what compared to so many of the things we see here is really a very small matter. A jagged piece of shell about an inch long entered just below the lower angle of his right shoulder blade and tore right down through the muscles to the sacroiliac joint, which is where the pelvic bones join the spine. It did not injure his spine at all, for he can move very well except that he has pain. The doctors at the Clearing Station opened up the whole tract almost, which was of course necessary for free drainage.
Phil said that after the dressing the wound felt very much more comfortable. He eats finely and is now having the time of his life, having all his old friends visit him and make much of him. I have not had much time to talk with him since I have been back, for of course there was accumulated work for me to attend to, but I am so relieved to have him here it does not matter whether I have time to spend with him or not. I have seen that he has plenty of magazines and picture puzzles to do, and he has been reading to-day all the letters from the various members of the family that I have received in the past month, and also the copies of all my letters to you all. I shall see him to-night probably. We shall have him up in a chair out in the sun to-morrow; in fact he may have been out to-day. He is occupying a tent alone although there are 13 other beds in the tent where he is. I have said that he does not need to stay alone, but while we are light it can easily be managed. He has a convalescent patient as his personal servant, a “blue boy,” as we call them, a “light duty patient” who is so proud because he has an officer to wait on. There are American orderlies in his division of course, but the blue boy fetches his meals and putters over him, etc. Of course my nurses are in charge.
I brought all his kit and belongings down with him in the ambulance. I have his metalhelmet hanging here in my office. You can’t really imagine what a narrow escape he had until you see the dent in the edge of the thick steel hat that was made by the piece of shell. It broke the edge and made a curved dent about an inch wide. It is a perfect miracle he was not killed. It was the helmet that saved his life. He is so marvelously fortunate, for no permanent damage has been done, and Major Clopton does not think he will have any permanent disability, and he might so easily have been killed or paralyzed by that little piece of shell.
Friday, Sept. 28, 1917.
Yesterday afternoon I was writing a little note here in my office when I heard the bugles sound for calling the convoy party and I finished my note saying, there comes the convoy we have been expecting and I must get busy. I must tell you how busy we got. It is now a little more than 24 hours later. On my way to the receiving tents I met a sergeant, who said to me that the men coming in were in very bad shape. They were being carried out from the receiving tents as fast as possible, after their cards had been made out and their throats examined for diphtheria suspects. We have had a lot of diphtheria brought to us and a number of our own people have caught it. We now have four nurses away in the contagioushospital near here, one has diphtheria and the other three had positive throats without any clinical symptoms, so they just have to be kept away from everybody until they are negative. So all suspected throats are isolated in a special line until cultures can be made and examined.
Capt. Rainey, who is Acting Chief of the Surgical Service in the absence of Major Murphy, and Major Clopton, spoke to me in the tents and said we have a big night’s work ahead of us, for many of these men will have to be operated on at once. They have had nothing done to them but their first-aid dressings and they are in pretty bad shape. He then asked me to go with a special case that was in very bad condition and see that he got a saline stimulation at once. This boy, a head case, was scheduled for Line B, tent 2, and as I went into the tent with the stretcher bearers, another patient was being brought in by two more bearers. The nurse spoke up and said that she had only one empty bed. It was apparent then that the assigner had made a mistake. I told the bearers to put their patients down on the floor, and giving a hurried glance at the other patient and a hasty feel of his pulse, I decided that my patient was in the poorer condition, so I got the bearers to put him into the empty bed and sent one of the other carriers back to the receiving tent for instructions about the other man. Meanwhile I got things started for the saline subcutaneous infusion. In a couple of minutes, the bearer came back and said he had been told to put his patient in the nearest vacant bed and report later where he had put him. We had a vacant bed in B 2, so we carried him in there and got him into bed. We asked the man if he could help himself at all as he was huge, and there is always great difficulty lifting patients off of the stretchers because there is so little space between the beds and the two carriers can’t do much more than hold the stretcher at the bed level. Mrs. Hausmann, the Supervisor, came along just that moment, and an up-patient; when the patient said it was his back that was hurt and he could not help himself, we knew then how to proceed and between us we lifted him on his blanket and got him on the bed until the bearers could put down their stretcher and then help us get the blanket out and make him comfortable. While doing this I noticed that one of his legs was crossed over the other and I straightened it out and saw big purple spots where they had been in contact. Realizing from this that they had been crossed a long time, we discovered that he was totally paralyzed from his waist down. On his card it said “Penetrating wound of spine, not operated on.”
The poor fellow immediately went off into heavy sleep, as they almost always do, they are so gladto stop being jiggled, and I went to report to Capt. Rainey and to get extra operating-room nurses ready. We had taken in 130 patients from that convoy, but every one is immediately examined by the staff men who make their report to Capt. Rainey, who in no time had a list of 15 needing immediate operation.
A steady stream of patients is carried into the X-ray room and from there either directly to the operating room or back to their tents. The plates are developed almost immediately and are examined while wet and stuck up in improvised holders on the windows of the operating room. They all showed foreign bodies and often bubbles, indicating the dreaded infection by the “gas bacillus,” which causes such dreadful gas gangrene. All these cases have to be opened up and the necrotic tissue cleaned out. Then we began in the operating room. Miss Taylor was on duty in the office, so I was free to help in the operating room. The supervisors were each on their side of the hospital, and the nurses were all getting the poor creatures as comfortable as possible. One patient who was too far gone from bloodlessness to stand operation was made as comfortable as possible and the minister sent for; they were all given tea and partially bathed. This was about 4:30P.M.Then we began in the operating room, taking out foreign bodies and incising and draining. I scrubbed up and helped, not so much because they needed me but because I wanted to be in it. We kept three tables going all the time. The medical students gave ether and even some of the medical men were helping. Out in the little hall there were always three or four patients on stretchers on the floor. My friend, Dr. (Sgt.) Voorsanger, the Rabbi, was in charge of the records and stretcher bearers and worked like a Trojan. We took pieces of shell out of necks, hips, knees, skulls, ankles, shoulders, and out of the spine of my poor paralyzed man. Some of the men took the ether badly and screamed and fought and cursed; some thought they were in the battle and called out to their comrades “There go the 61st, after them, after them.” But most of them took it pretty quietly and just went off to sleep.
About 7 o’clock a message came in from the connecting “Theatre Hut,” a ward at the other end of the hut, where the operating room is, that a man who had had a fearful hemorrhage from the wound in his shoulder that morning was very much worse. It was decided to transfuse him, a complicated job under the very best of circumstances. An up-patient was sought to volunteer to be the donor of the blood, and promised as a reward that he would be sent to England and not back to the Base (how good a promise I do notknow, but at least he might get a glimpse of Blighty for a few days if our men send him there, but of course if found fit there, he would be sent back to the front). He was brought, wide-eyed and wondering, into the brilliant, messy operating room filled with strangely garbed and bustling people and put on a table and his arm prepared. Some doctors got busy with him and I went with another doctor to get ready the vein in the patient’s arm. In a few minutes we were ready and the other doctors came to insert the tiny point of their glass tube into the hole in the vein we had ready. A nurse was holding a droplight over the bed, another nurse was holding the arm, a doctor was adjusting the tourniquet so that the vein would show up well, then the two men who were working were bending over the arm, I was handing them instruments, for I was scrubbed up, since everything must be sterile. The patient was just gasping, rapidly growing worse, but the point went in successfully and the blood began to flow into his vein, when all the lights went out and the patient stopped breathing!
I knew where a whole batch of candles had been put for use at the next air raid alarm, so I dashed for them, knowing I could get them more quickly than by sending any one. They were not far away. In about two minutes we had candles stuck on every available spot, and the operating teams whohad to stop dead and wait, began to go on. The orderly who was working over a miserable acetylene lamp which is supposed to be all right for emergencies, finally got it going. It is quite all right for emergencies if you have about ten minutes in which to start it. A couple of oil lanterns were brought and given to the patients who were on the floor in the hall to hold, so that they would not be stepped on. The ether bottles were moved as far away from the candles as possible so that we would not have an explosion to add to our difficulties, the doctors came in from working over the dead man, and we all “carried on.” It was now near eight, and Capt. Rainey said when these cases are finished that are on the tables, we will stop for dinner. A couple of nurses who had had their dinner reported just about then and we set them to cleaning instruments and boiling and fixing up. The others of us went up to a belated supper by candle light. The night nurse and orderly for the theatre hut came on duty just in time to help with the gruesome duty to be done there, and supper was kept for the day nurses from there when they should be able to get off.
By 8:30 we were back again refreshed by scrambled eggs and coffee. The operations continued till 3A.M.I sent one day nurse off about 10, because I knew she would have to have a fullday to-day and would need to be at her preparations early. Another nurse and I left at 1:30 after getting some of the night nurses’ supper which I had ordered heavily reënforced. Another nurse left at 3 and one stayed all night. In these last 24 hours there must have been 34 operations. I haven’t the exact list here. I was on duty here in the office at 9:15A.M.Two nurses did not come on until noon, and the one who was up all night (as well as being up all day yesterday too, though not working, as she was just coming off night duty and had expected to sleep that night) has been sleeping all day. I have just been notified that 160 more are to be brought to us at 6A.M.to-morrow. That 6A.M.will mean some time during the morning, for the convoys are almost always several hours after they are scheduled.
One of the night Supervisors has just been telling me that last night, after that patient died, before he had been taken out, he was of course behind the screens, the patient in the next bed said to her, “Sister, is my pal all right? I haven’t heard him speak for some time,” and she had to tell him what had happened. But only this one and that very bad one have died so far.
It is now Sunday afternoon, Sept. 30. We are having a little respite from our busyness andno convoys have been received since yesterday morning when we received 140. The doctors are getting a little well-earned rest, and the nurses, who have not lost so much sleep as the doctors, are catching up with their work on the wards. Operations were going on in the operating room till 1:30 again last night, but to-day there have been none, but there has been much sterilizing, glove mending, and preparing of supplies.
It is a beautiful sunny afternoon, and we would hardly believe that this morning, up to almost noon, it was so cold that everybody was complaining of the cold.
I have just had orders to have my next nurse ready to go up to the front with a surgical team. They will probably go in a couple of days, three men and one woman. It was my turn to go with this team, but a few days ago Col. Fife told me he would not let me go. I am tremendously disappointed because I wanted above all things to go. I want the great interest and excitement of the work, which is hard but thrilling; operating 16 hours on end, then off for 8 hours. These are the hours while the rush is on. Then I wanted to find out how I would react to real danger. I can’t ever remember being frightened, and everybody who goes to a C. C. S. admits that he or she is frightened most of the time, and especially when there are raids, and bombs and shells aredropping about. Of course these are just selfish reasons, but there were others too. I think Miss Taylor could run my affairs perfectly satisfactorily in my absence for a month. But now I must wait. We learn to do that with considerable success in the army. I hate to let the nurse I have appointed for this team go. When the first one went up, we did not know much about what it meant, but since she has come back to us, we know more. Also Phil’s accounts have been enlightening. But it is her turn to go. She is ready, has had all the preparations, and she is most eager to go, so I must not make any change in the schedule, but we shall all miss her and be worried about her until she gets back to us. All the teams have a two days’ ambulance ride to begin with, then when they get there, they have to pretty much rough it. They take their cots and blankets and sleep in bell tents. When they have air-raid signals, they all have to lie down flat on their stomachs wherever they may be. One of our teams had a special hole in a cemetery they had to hop into all the time. Phil’s fellow officers had a little drainage ditch full of mud that was their hiding-place.
I suppose that long before this you have learned that our Unit was not bombed. There seems to have been an official confusion between ours and the Chicago names. Officially, until it can bechanged, we are the “No. 12 (St. Louis U. S. A.) General Hospital.” You see Chicago was American Base Hospital No. 12 to begin with, and it is easy to see how the confusion arose. They are 18 General Hospital, B. E. F.
I have been sitting with Phil out in the sunshine beside his tent. He has not had much attention paid him lately, neither from me nor the surgeons, but he has not needed it. He is getting along slowly but well. I saw his dressing yesterday, the first time for ten days, and I could see a great improvement. He is not being allowed to walk more than the few steps to his chair, and I find he has not much desire to. He is anxious to get back to work, but he won’t be able to do much for a long time. He is now finding out how closely his legs are hitched to his back.
I meant to tell you about a curious little incident that happened on our trip to C. I told you we escorted a sick Chinaman up to the British Hospital for Chinese at N. Dr. Veeder had been given the envelope he was to turn over to the authorities of the hospital. When we arrived just outside the hospital compound and stopped, a British sergeant came out to help the patient out of the ambulance and a lot of blue-hospital-garbed Chinesers gathered around to see what was doing. Capt. Veeder and I had gotten out to stretch our legs and were standing by thetail of the ambulance. Dr. Veeder handed the papers to the sergeant, who opened the envelope, read the paper twice with a puzzled look, then burst into roars of laughter. He handed the paper back to Capt. Veeder, and this is what we read: “6 cups, enamel, spitting.” It was an “indent” for some necessary supplies that had been put in the envelope and addressed to the C. O. of the hospital instead of the transfer papers of the poor Chink. Fortunately we did not have to take him on with us, as he was properly tagged himself. It’s a comfort to me to know that even the British Army can sometimes make mistakes.
Next week, not this week, Thursday, I am expecting to go up to Paris to attend the first conference of American Chief Nurses in France. There are about sixteen of us, and Miss Russell, the representative of the American Red Cross Nursing Service, has asked us to meet with her in Paris. It ought to be good fun to get together and compare notes after four months of this life, and we ought to get some really definitely useful suggestions from our getting together.
There are to be various festivities of a heavy and enlightening sort. I think the little change will do me good, as I find I am a bit tired. The London trip is off, since Philip is here with me, and this Paris one is on. I am asking for five days’ leave, but if things here continue to be asheavy as they are now, I shall not stay the five days.
When a page stops abruptly at the bottom of the sheet and there is no proper ending, don’t be worried that something has been taken out by the censor. It often happens that when I have finished a sheet I have to stop and don’t try to wind things up properly, though I usually try to put in a few personal remarks at the end on a separate piece of paper, and answer questions from letters, etc.
Now I must close, so good-by for now.
With loads and loads of love from us both.
Jule.
Rouen, October 9, 1917.
It is so good to be back at work and with my own people again. I could not lay down my responsibilities for that short time I was in Paris, and I could not help thinking about everything here all the time and wondering about everybody, so it wasn’t so very restful, and then when I got back last night, I found it so restful to be back, and all day with all the many things to do I have been peaceful and contented and so very glad to be back. I just wish you could have seen this place last night when I arrived in the pouring rain and pitch blackness. Our train gotin about 8. My telegram had not been received and there was no ambulance to meet us and there are never any taxis to be had at the station. The station was full of poilus going out, and as the R. T. O. (Royal Transport Officer) had his hands full, I didn’t have the heart to ask him to telephone for our ambulance for us. I could not. So we decided to try a tram to the quay and there hoped for a taxi. It was still pouring but finally we got on to a tram with all our bags and bundles and at the quay we had the very good luck of catching the only taxi which just tore us out here to the camps. At the gate of our quarters I got out in the mud and waded through the darkness to the door of my own room, and how good the old place looked. To an outsider I imagine it would have looked like the abomination of desolation, the camp and our quarters. For it was so dark, and the rain was pouring down and there were such pools of water everywhere, and only such weak glimmerings of light here and there. As Miss Taylor had not come up from the office, I stopped just long enough to get my rubber boots, rubber hat, and coat. My big great coat was soaked through. Then I paddled happily off to talk things over with Miss Taylor. The hospital had been very, very busy all the time I was away, but everything had gone smoothly. We have over 1200 patients.Then afterwards I went down to see Philip. He was no longer in a tent alone, as the hospital had become so busy it had been necessary to fill up the beds in his tent. As he was on the shell shock line the cases with him were not bad surgical cases. We had a nice talk over in his corner and read the letters that had come for both him and me in my absence.
It has been raining here every day for the past ten days and is very cold. We all are wearing sweaters and all our heavy things. The dampness is so penetrating. The sweater Mother and Bab made arrived safely and is exactly right. I have it on this moment and shall probably not take it off until it falls apart. The bloomers are very nice too and I think will be useful with the serge uniform in rainy weather when I pin my skirt up. We are soon to have gray wash uniforms, which will be much more suitable than these white ones, but they won’t be so very much warmer. We are to have “spencers” or “woollies” to wear under them.
Phil has now been moved into a bell tent which was an office of Dr. Schwab’s. It is a tiny little affair, but looked most cozy last night when I was down to say goodnight to Phil. The rain was pouring down on the canvas with a pleasant sound and coming through the opening on the wood floor, but Phil was as warm and comfortable as can be.He has no electric light, but my candle lantern held on his lap not only makes sufficient light to read by but warms his hands. This cold is no joke. I suppose we shall get used to it, but these first days of it are very trying.
My children at the front are having such wonderful times. They are working terribly hard, sleeping with helmets over their faces and enamel basins on their stomachs, washing in the water they had in their hot-water bags because water is so scarce, operating fourteen hours at a stretch, drinking quantities of tea because there is no coffee and nothing else to drink, wearing men’s ordnance socks under their stockings, trying to keep their feet warm in the frosty operating rooms at night, and both seeing and doing such surgical work as they never in their wildest days dreamed of, but all the time unafraid and unconcerned with the whistling, banging shells exploding around them. Oh, they are fine! One need never tell me that women can’t do as much, stand as much, and be as brave as men. And to-morrow another of my finest goes up, keen as keen to do her bit and only hoping she will be equal to it. It’s Miss Claiborne to-morrow. She is packing her things to-night after a hard day in the operating room here. First, she has a long, difficult trip, then plunges into the maelstrom up there. Five more went for the gas training to-day to be ready to substitute if any of the nurses at the front have to be relieved for sickness or accident. And all these five are just pawing the air for a chance to be sent up, even after knowing all they do about what it is like up there, and in all this cold. And oh, how I want to go myself.
Our meeting in Paris was very pleasant, and worth while too. There were thirteen of us Chief Nurses there. Six are with the B. E. F. and the others with the American Forces. They, the latter, have not had any real work yet. Some of us Britishers could not help laughing when some of the others said they were beginning to be right busy as they had about a hundred patients! The night before I left here we admitted over 200. To-night on several lines one nurse and one orderly are taking care of over 100 patients (not the sickest). We have so many awfully sick patients now. But to go back to the meetings, we had lots of things to discuss. We sent back to Washington suggestions about uniforms and equipment. We decided on what we wanted for distinguishing marks for Chief Nurses, black bands on the white caps and red bands on the cuffs of the uniforms. We had to take up the matter of the Army Efficiency Records, which were open to many interpretations. Then matters of social life, dancing, going out with officers, leaves, a hotel in Paris, etc., were talked over. The question ofdancing is a very warm one. The English nurses in military hospitals are not allowed to dance. Some of us think our nurses should be allowed to do it for their good and the good of our own officers. The question was left over unsettled until our next meeting in February. It will now go on according to the ideas of the heads of each Unit.
Mrs. Sharp, the wife of the American Ambassador, entertained us at dinner elaborately. The Lyceum Club gave us a reception, after an open meeting when we heard of the Red Cross baby work, tuberculosis schemes, surgical dressings, division, etc. I saw several very nice people that I know, and had various meals and doings with them, so the time we were not at meetings went very pleasantly. It is surprising how one can enjoy fancy food when one gets it, even though all along you have been thinking that food is very unimportant. I noticed that lobster and sweetbreads and soufflés and oysters, and once, really, corn on the cob, made a pretty big hit with me. But all the same I was so awfully glad to get back to my job. The day to-day has been pretty full of problems and I am a bit tired, so I guess I’d better turn in.
Phil had a nice little walk to-day in his clothes, but he is pretty well used up to-night after a long, mean dressing done in the operating room, from which he walked back alone, which he should nothave done, but insisted to his nurses that he wished to do. I am furious that I was not on hand to prevent it. But he was warm and cozy and comfortably reading in bed awhile ago when I went to say good night. This is not much of a letter, but it must go as it is, I think, without waiting for additions.
Thanks so much for the book and for your dear letters. “Carry On” is wonderful, and we love to read such things over here. I’m lending it around now. Bab’s music came to-day; it was dear of her to send it. It has been played already with much success. The violin is such a comfort. I played last evening right straight through the book. I’ve never enjoyed playing so much before.
Oceans of love,
Julie.
Sunday evening, October 14.
Dearest Dad and Mother:—
Miss Taylor and I are in our cozy office waiting for the time for the evening report, which won’t be for about half an hour yet. We have both been to first supper and will now rest ourselves a little for this half hour. She has decided to do a picture puzzle. I wish you all could see how nice our office is. We have the tiniest coal stove that ever existed, and yet it is just the right size for this place. We have been having a fire in it for thepast few days, for it has been very cold and raining almost every day. An orderly with a lantern has just come in out of the darkness to tell us that sixty cases are on the way to the hospital now and sixty more are coming at midnight. We are just about full to capacity, but every day we send out some, so every day we can take more in. I have been off duty a couple of hours late this afternoon, the first time off since I got back from Paris last Tuesday.
Phil, who is walking a little with me every day, came up to our mess for tea this afternoon and afterwards I walked with him around the race track. He was pretty glad to get back to bed after this rather lengthy expedition. His wound is very nearly closed. It has done remarkably well. After I left him being put to bed by the nice convalescent patient who looks after him, I went down to the evening service in the Y. M. C. A. hut, the Sunday evening Episcopal service that comes just before the Non-conformist service.
Dean Davis conducted the service, and how I wished that some of his St. Louis parishioners could have seen him. His audience in that rough hut was about 200 convalescent patients in their blue suits, with heads or arms bandaged, or coughing, coughing the way so many of our poor gassed men cough. There were a few English Sisters and V. A. D.’s there, but I was the onlyAmerican, this evening. I wish you could hear these men sing. There is nothing like the singing that I’ve heard the Tommies do. Their deep voices singing in unison, and with great earnestness such words as “Plenteous grace with thee is found, Grace to cleanse from every sin, Let the healing streams abound, Make and keep me pure within,” can never be forgotten. The Dean spoke briefly, but right out from the shoulder to them from that chapter in the letter to the Ephesians about, “Lie not, for ye are members one of another, and let him that stole, steal no more but rather let him work, that he may have wherewith to give to him that hath need,” etc. There was more about tenderness, and growing in grace.
Speaking of tenderness, I have never in all my life seen such tenderness as these men show to each other. If you could see, as we so often see, men with horrible leg injuries reaching way over to feed the man in the bed next to them, who may have arm injuries and be helpless. And always the up-patients are so good to the bedridden ones. Our hospital simply could not run without the help of the patients themselves. They fetch and carry and bathe and scrub and hold legs and arms for dressings, and joke and jolly each other along till it would break your heart, for they themselves are sick men. For our up-patients here have been mighty sick or theywould have been sent on to England, unless they are some of the few that are going back to the Convalescent Camp and from there back into the lines. So often, too, we see a man reach way over from his bed to give his neighbor a puff at his cigarette.
I have felt so rich recently, for I got such a wonderful lot of letters, all in one batch. How I did enjoy them. All the family ones I took right down to read with Phil in his little tent. We had a regular orgy.
It’s now Friday, the 18th, and such a lovely day as it has been, clear and sunny and cold. I had a little walk with Ruth just after lunch and it reminded us of November days at home, except for what we saw. For all we saw was camps, camps, camps and soldiers of every sort. We did not have time to go beyond the area of camps, but off in the distance we could see the lovely ridges that make the edge of this little basin that Rouen is in. When we came back, I walked a few minutes with Phil. It takes a long time for his strength to come back, poor boy. He is awfully good and patient and as little trouble as a person could be. I think he is a little depressed to-day by his feeling of mimsiness, and the being out of things. He finds it harder to be up a little every day, for, as he says, when he is dressed he looks like every one else, and then he can’t do like them at all. Whenhe was in bed all the time, he did not mind his incapacitation so much. Now is the time that he needs petting and amusing and fussing over. His injury was no little thing and he is being a marvel of goodness about it all, but it is beastly hard for him, to have to hang around and wait to get strong. After a little while I am going to see what can be done about convalescence in some better place. It is hard to know whether a convalescent home for officers in the south of France, alone without his friends and me, would do him more good than these plain doings and all of us. When he can get about a bit more, he will find it more interesting; for then I can go down town to meals with him and take walks, and he can do those things with other people too. He has had a hard experience, but it is doing big things for him, I can see that plainly. I am so glad he is here with me. I can never be grateful enough.
Our great busyness has continued all week though we have not been quite full to the limit. On Monday last, Major Murphy and his team, and Capt. Post and his team, returned from their Clearing Stations. Each team had one nurse. I wish so much you could know what those people have been doing and going through. You really would hardly believe their tales. They are all absolutely tired out. Major Murphy seems to bein the best condition, but he said he was dreadfully tired. The nurses are almost all in. We made them stay in bed 36 hours and have started them off on the easiest places we could find for them. But it will take a good many weeks, I am afraid, before they will sleep properly and not dream about stopping hemorrhages, and stop smelling the smells they smelled up there. What with the steam, the ether, and the filthy clothes of the men, which they had to cut off before they could begin to start, the odor in the operating room was so terrible that it was all that any of them could do to keep from being sick. One of my nurses was sick at her stomach all night long the first night she worked there, and just ran in and out all night, but kept right on with her work, though she says that if she lives to be a hundred and fifty years old, she will never forget that night. One doctor and one nurse work at each table and you can imagine what surgical work the nurse has to do, no mere handing of instruments and sponges, but sewing and tying up and putting in drains while the doctor takes the next piece of shell out of another place. Then after fourteen hours of this, with freezing feet, to a meal of tea and bread and jam, and off to rest if you can in a wet bell tent in a damp bed without sheets, after a wash with a cupful of water.
The trip down from the front was very hard.They all came by train this time. One team after a long train trip arrived at a fair-sized coast town at 2P.M.The doctor tried to get a room at the hotel for the nurse, who was dead with cold and fatigue, but all the rooms had been taken by officers going through on their way to posts. Their train was to go out at oneA.M., so the doctor only wanted the room for the evening for this nurse. Finally the proprietor said he would let the nurse have the room of an officer who had gone out for the evening but he was expected in at twelve. But that seemed fine, so the nurse had a little rest in this man’s room, but at twelve was called, for the officer had come back and was waiting outside the door. The rest of the night she sat up in a freezing French railway carriage, the only woman with her doctor, her two orderlies, and two Tommies. The Tommies and the orderlies piled up on each other and went sound to sleep, but she and the doctor waggled and jolted through the miserable, damp, cold night. They reached here at one o’clock the next afternoon, and really had come so few miles as the crow flies. How I wished for a warm bathroom and a quiet cozy sleeping place for these weary, dirty, splendid women of mine. But willing, eager hands brought pitchers of hot water and put hot-water bags in little beds that are clean if small, and brought trays of food, and now after two days both ofthe nurses are looking a little less green and black around the eyes. And how glad and grateful we are to have them back. There are two more away, and another is probably to go soon, and she is none the less eager after hearing the tales of the others. Major Murphy says the experience is, of course, very wonderful, but it is brutal. He means brutal on the teams. But English men and women have been doing this for months and months. This was a very big push that these two teams have been through. It is a marvel to me that human beings can stand it all.
October 30, 1917.
Dearest Dad and Mother:—
It is quite a long time since I last wrote anything more than just short handwritten notes. It was the 14th that my last letter was dated, I find. Since that time we have been pretty hard at work. We had very little let-up at all for about six weeks. Our numbers have kept over the thousand mark all along, which means for us very little time for play.
I guess I will tell you about to-day which was rather typical. It was bright and shiny when I went over to the Mess hall for breakfast. I can tell you it is good preparation for an Arctic exploration expedition to be living as we are. I sleep every night in woolen stockings andknitted bed socks, woolen pajamas, that lovely light blue sweater mother made for me, my Jaeger sleeping bag, which has two layers over and one under, and then three folds of blanket on top of all that, topped off by my heavy bathrobe, all this on me, the regular old hotbox that I always used to be. Well, after a nice warm night in all that, with a hot-water bag inside, it is not the nicest thing in the world to get up into an utterly unheated room. The water from my hot-water bag makes very comfortable bathing water (for all the bathing that I do then). But a few vigorous arm exercises start up my blood enough to make me fairly comfortable by the time I have on all my woollies. Over in the Mess hut there are two nice little coal stoves, which make the place very cheerful. There is a big coal stove in all our sleeping huts, but none of the heat from the one in my hut can get as far as my end room. I hope to get some kind of an oil stove that will heat things up a bit. I now have a little single-burner coal-oil lamp on which I can heat a small kettle of water, but it doesn’t do anything in the way of heating.
By the time we had finished breakfast (bread and butter, coffee, scrambled eggs, and marmalade this morning) it was pouring, so we all ran for our raincoats and hats, and then the six of us, Miss Taylor and I and the two day and two nightsupervisors, walked down to my office in the grand stand. There the batman had already started my tiny stove and a cheerful little heat was beginning to make itself felt. It takes about half an hour or more to read about the admissions, discharges, operations, the condition of all the “S. I.’s” (Seriously Ill) and “D. I.’s” (Dangerously Ill), and to hear that there did not seem to be enough blankets for the outgoing convoy, many of whom were stretcher patients, that there is difficulty about coal for some of the tents at night, about this or that nurse’s good work when so and so had such a terrific hemorrhage, and that an incoming convoy is just being unloaded, apparently very badly wounded cases, but no report on them as yet. Then the day supervisors go off to their lines to see about the new admissions, see if the head nurses have everything they need, tell this head nurse to send one of her assistants, who has such bad chilblains on her hands that she can’t do the surgical dressings that she has been doing, to report to a head nurse on one of the medical lines, where she won’t have to be doing quite so many wet things, etc. At nine Capt. Rainey, the acting head of the surgical side, comes for the written report that the Night Surgical Supervisor has made out for him of the most important cases. Then Major Fischel comes to ask about sick nurses. We had told one nurse,who had reported a sore throat, to be here at nine, and she was and was examined and advised. We had heard of another nurse who had lost her voice, so she was sent for. Miss Taylor got her figures of number of nurses on duty, number of yesterday’s operations, etc., ready and took that and our big Night Report to the C. O.’s office and came back to check up her list of the new S. I.’s and D. I.’s, to all of whose families it is her job to write a personal letter. One day she wrote as many as 25 of these letters. She had been out for “last hours” yesterday, so there were a number for her to add to her list. The official telegram is sent to all families, but it is one of the regular jobs of this office to do all the personal corresponding with families. Miss Taylor has learned to use a typewriter since she has been over here and can write very fast on it. She does not like to have the little secretary write these letters, for she often sends messages from the boys to their families and likes to do them all herself. I begin by writing my regular army form about nurses off duty. Then I made out several formal communications to the Colonel, about the need of a sink in the Nurses’ Mess, the need of a special new hut for sitting-room purposes for my 104 women. We now have just the 12 feet at the end of the Mess Hall which is quite inadequate. All the other hospitals in this vicinity have special sitting-rooms, and I am going to keep at the R. E.’s (Royal Engineers) until they give us one.
At 9:30 the nurses and V. A. D.’s begin to come up from the lines for Red Cross supplies, which are handled through this office and a little supply room we have next door. Pajamas, socks, mittens, old linen for handkerchiefs for the patients, oilcloth, treasure bags, writing paper, gramophone needles and records, razors, shaving soap, tobacco, record books, magazines, cologne for rubbing backs, chewing-gum, back rests, picture puzzles, cards, draughts, pipes, toasting forks, metal polish, brad boards, sweets, irrigator cans, etc. All these things are actually handled by us, not all the time, but some at one time and some at another. The British Red Cross sends us these supplies on our requisition every week. This morning we had very little to give out, for our supplies for this week had not come. We keep store only from 9:30 to 10:30, but this morning there were a number of other things than supplies that various nurses wanted to see me about. A V. A. D. wanted to see me about special leave to England because her aunt is dying. Another V. A. D., who knows better and should have reported at 9A.M., came to tell us of another bad boil on her arm and had to be sent to the operating room and Capt. Rainey looked up. Several wanted to know if they could go to aspecial concert to be given in a neighboring camp to-night. The general invitation to all had come, but had not been posted, or these need not have asked for permission. Then it was time for the mail, which was huge this morning, and always has to be sorted in this office, because no one else knows just what to do with a number of letters each day that have to be specially looked after. This of course is just nurses’ mail. We still get a lot of mail for the English Sisters who were here before us. We often get many letters intended for other American Units. I have the lists of nurses of all of the Units that are with the B. E. F. and can readily send on straying letters. We have nurses away at C. C. S. and some in the Contagious Hospital and we must see to their forwarding. The mail this morning took a long time. As soon as it is sorted it is sent up to the Mess, where the nurses will get it at lunch time. My own six or seven personal letters I could not look at till near one.
The Red Cross Supplies came along about 11:50 and had to be put away. Miss Taylor had gone down to the lines to see the supervisors, see how we needed to man the operating room for the afternoon, etc. Simone, the little secretary, had been helping all morning with supplies, letters, etc., and very quickly we got the things put away. Then a sergeant from the O. C.’s office cameto ask about a missing package of “knickers” which should have arrived from London. He had found it and had that too dumped in my office. As it contained some instruments that I wanted right away, I wanted it unpacked here. Then Phil came along to share some mail with us, but I told him he would have to come back later, for it was just time for the O. C. to come for this morning’s interview, so just as he and Ruth C., who had also dropped by to tell me about her wonderful birthday mail, cleared out, along came Major Murphy. There were several matters to take up with him, such as the possible removal of a bed or two from several too-crowded tents, the matter of the insufficient blankets, a little misunderstanding that some of our American boys had had with the British Y. M. C. A. people, about which the latter had come to see me yesterday afternoon. When the Major left, I had to see about some notices for the nurses that I wanted them to read at their lunch. Miss Taylor came back, Simone went off for her lunch, and we sat a moment or two and looked at the headlines of the two-sheetDaily Mailand ParisN. Y. Heraldand read our home letters.
At one we went up in a pouring rain to our lunch. We had baked beans, cold bully beef, which is canned corn beef and not half bad, lettuce salad, tea, bread and butter, and cheese,and stewed prunes. Miss Taylor was to be off from 1:30 to 4:30 to go down town to do some errands, so I came on back to the office and started some accounts, writing of checks, etc. They were to have a big afternoon in the operating room, but all was working out smoothly. For the next two hours I worked steadily at my desk, acknowledging supplies, doing accounts, and writing business letters. Simone was doing all sorts of routine things for us on her typewriter. She is very useful and saves many steps as well as many minutes. Miss Taylor and I have been trying to be very punctilious about going off duty these days. She has been after me most severely, and the only way to keep her quiet is to do as she says, so off I go every day, alternating her.
Nov. 1, 1917.
I had to stop on my account of day before yesterday before I had finished the day. At five I went off in the rain with the Ford with one of the nurses I like very much—to bring some mail and things to our isolated nurses in the Contagious Hospital up the road. (They are diphtheria carriers—three of them.) On the way up the road we met an ambulance convoy bringing in wounded men. There must have been over a hundred of them from the long line of ambulances. And passing them, marching out,were companies of men walking along in the mud and wet and thinking of course that that was the way many, many of these would be coming back, as those mangled things were in the ambulances. One can’t get used to these sights. It chokes me every time I see the men march away. We can always tell when they are going to the front, for on top of all that they carry on their backs is a little white bag—containing limited rations.
After we had left our things at No. 25, we went on down town, did our errands, left a gramophone to be repaired for one of the wards—then went into the Cathedral for the evening service at 6. It is most wonderful, for only a few low lights are lighted, and the shadowy arches, the several hundred kneeling black figures, the clear tenor voice of the priest, who sings most of the service, the hundred responses, make it all seem like something unreal—till one realizes that the unreal part is that it seems so strange and unusual to us, for there have been going on just such services as that in that Cathedral since before America was discovered! Many of us go there often to the six o’clock services, the only trouble is that one gets frozen stiff after a few minutes. After leaving the Cathedral we wandered about the little narrow, wet streets, looking into windows,—clattering along in ournailed boots, so that we sound like soldiers (but our feet are dry, though the streets are very wet). Then came a nice supper of hot, thick soup, steak, crisp fried potatoes and a salad,—then back to the camp in time to hear the evening report and see the night supervisors before they went on duty. That evening I wrote in the office.
To-day is Nov. 1st, and Phil’s birthday. I can imagine how you all are thinking about him. I am going to play somewhere with him this afternoon and do whatever he wants to do. Yesterday I could hardly speak to him at all, I was so busy all day. At 5.30 I went with him for three fourths of an hour to hear a lecture in the Y. M. C. A. tent—It was by that fine Dr. Kelman—the Edinburgh Presbyterian minister, who has been talking in the U. S. He spoke on “Why America Is in the War”—spoke most wonderfully—to the British the evening before when I was in town, and Phil could not go because he wanted to attend a medical meeting here—But to-night we will have dinner down town.
Loads and loads of love,
Julia.
Nov. 2, 1917.
Dearest Mother:—
You are all so good about writing—I cannot thank you enough and if only there were more free hours I’d write everybody, but I just can’t.
Our hospital again is almost full to capacity, and such badly hurt men,—amputations, two or three of them, every day out of sixteen or seventeen operations every afternoon. Day before yesterday they had a man on the operating table before they decided which of his legs they had better take off! Such a price as is being paid for the new world—but it is not too big to make the new world and liberty and peace and brotherhood and democracy mean something. And how small a share we are having in that price and how we’d give more if we could. I wish E. wouldn’t think that anything we are doing is worthy of admiration—it isn’t—we are doing so little. We love being here and would not leave our jobs for anything that could be offered us. I am writing in bed; it is very late but I don’t feel like sleeping yet. It is very comfortable here in my little bed with my good light hanging beside me. The light is such a comfort. I have bought an oil stove to try and heat this room. I think it will make things more comfortable.
Please tell B. the music she sent me was dandy—the Kreisler piece is a beauty. I cannot play the double stops well yet, but I’ll do better with them after a bit. It’s a stunning thing and stays in the mind. One of our nurses made a hit at a concert for the privates singing “Over There,” which was new to us all here. We’d like to haveall the patriotic new things you can send like “Goodby Broadway, Hello France”—we haven’t that yet. Tell B. I love the College news and want to know all she is doing.
Now I guess I’d better try to sleep a bit. I’ve had a lovely time talking to you. God keep you all, my dear ones.
Julia.
November 16, 1917.
It has been a pretty long time since I last wrote a regular letter. It has not been because we were so terribly busy, for in the last ten days our census has come down a little and things stopped being quite as strenuous as they had been since the first of October. Sometimes, however, I find it hard to write and I put it off, thinking that I’ll be feeling more like doing it the next day. I usually love to write. These last few days, however, we have been most busy, for on the 13th at noon we had notice that our long-expected 31 nurses would arrive that afternoon. Capt. Johnston and I went down to meet them, leaving the people here scurrying around trying to get enough food to feed all those extra people and to work out the plans we made long ago, as to how we would house them until the V. A. D.’s were taken away.
The next day most of the V. A. D.’s were takenaway to the different hospitals in this neighborhood, and to-day we are beginning to settle down. The details of the records that are necessary, both for the outgoing people as well as for the new-comers, have been very numerous and complicated, but Miss Taylor and I and the little stenographer have put things through in fairly rapid shape. I have yet many payrolls and traveling expense vouchers and pay allotments and lists galore to attend to, but the most immediate and important ones are finished.
We have started the new ladies all off on the wards and they seem very much interested and thrilled and glad to be here. Since it is almost three months since they left St. Louis, they are mighty glad to arrive somewhere and get started to work. Poor things, they have to go through the adjusting that we all had. They never will get used to some things, such as the awful wounds, the appalling cheeriness of the men, and the sight of the troops marching off to the front.
There is a perfect hubbub outside now, for the new enlisted men who arrived to-day with the officers are celebrating with a couple of drums. I have been so occupied all day I have not had a chance to see the new officers, but I have seen Dr. Thomas for half a second. So E. may know that her package will doubtless be forthcoming pretty soon.
One of my children has just been in here. A little while ago she received a cable that her father is not expected to live, which she can’t help interpreting to mean that he is dead, as she does not think her family would have cabled otherwise. She is a night nurse and is, of course, going right on with her work to-night. She is the first of our group to whom a big sorrow has come. Of course, we all know they must come, but when they do, we feel so far away.
I have been making many speeches this week. Just a little while ago I had a long talk with all my American nurses; then of course I had to have a farewell talk with the V. A. D.’s; and then all the poor new nurses had to have me tell them, not rules and regulations, for they can read those on the bulletin board, but a little about the way we all feel after six months and some of the processes we have been through, which they are pretty sure to have to go through too. It is very curious with a group of people such as I have here, how they light up and are moved when they are interpreted to themselves. It is the greatest delight to me to try to make them see themselves and what they are doing, in large terms. I try to fit the daily trials and depressions and difficulties, and the way they take them, into their right place in their sense of patriotism. I tell them how they felt when they were atthe wonderful service at the Cathedral at home, and at places where the bands played and the flags waved, as in London, and such places, and then I try to show them how their daily work can be a part of such feelings. And when I told them of the change that had come over most of us in the six months we have been here, I surprised them so much. I told them we had come glad to pay that part of the price that was convenient. We had been quite willing to give say six months’ service, and give up our big pay for a while, and to stay as long as our future plans were not interfered with, and as long as our health did not suffer, and so long as it really was not a hardship to any one. But I had seen the change coming to us all, that a bigger price than that was expected of us. I told them how proud I was to see them all coming to the conclusion that no price would be too big to pay for what we were working for. I told them of the peace that I knew had come to them because individually they had decided that their future plans did not count, their hopes deferred were of no importance, or their health, so long as their efficiency was not impaired, or their families, or their salaries, or their whole lives.