Kate John Finze

November 1st. It is impossible to keep note of the daily occurrences. Things move too quickly out here—besides, if the spirit is willing the flesh is very exhausted. Nevertheless, not for a moment do our spirits flag; on the contrary, the worse things grow the more cheerful do we become, the more determined to make the best of things. It is strange that all the years we worked hard to amuse ourselves at home not one brought an eighth of the satisfaction of this.

There is a wonderful dearth of utensils, though the store grows larger daily. It is no infrequent occurrence to have to sally out to the nearest chemist to buy air cushions, eye baths, etc., as they are required.

Night, and the wards are full. Another train disgorges its burden. The stretcher cases have to remain on stretchers. The walking cases are huddled round the stove, extended on the concrete, their blood-stained, bug-ridden greatcoats for coverings.

Without, for a moment the rain has ceased, and in the clear night the moon smiles peacefully over the silver, gleaming sea.

What a contrast to the scene within! The restless figures of the wounded—the busy nurses.

Everyone is exhausted, for it is an almost superhuman task for seven women to tackle by day and by night; but they say the Army Nursing Service will be here in sufficient numbers soon. The lady doctors have been invaluable, their zeal unflagging. They are splendid operators, and in the midst of the worst rushes never careless. Besides their work here they spend much time at the "Women's Hospital" at a chÂteau some three miles out of Boulogne, where everything is run by volunteer women workers, who act as doctors, nurses, orderlies and quartermasters.

The theatre looks quite smart, with the large sterilisers that have been installed and the operating table. What tales those whitewashed walls could tell!

Will those who are knitting away at home ever realise the value of their own handiwork, I wonder?

If they could but see the eager faces of the men as the meagre stores are issued, and they receive those ill-fitting coats, and socks, and card-board-footed shoes (the nightingales they one and all disdain); could they for a single moment glance at the contented expression of the "movable cases" as they wriggle out of their creeping shirts, so torn, so stiff with congealed blood and stained with Flanders mud, into garments that are both soft and warm, all those hours of patient knitting would be well rewarded; they would know they are not labouring in vain.

In spite of the so-called "Red Cross Store Room" that is being replenished daily by stock drawn from all sources, of course there aren't enough things to go round, and although we grouse at the wise quartermaster's inquiries as to whether each article we need is an imperative necessity or not, in our heart of hearts we know him to be in the right.

EXTEMPORISED OPERATING THEATRE AT A CLEARING STATION EXTEMPORISED OPERATING THEATRE AT A CLEARING STATION
"The theatre looks quite smart with the huge sterilisers that have been installed and the operating table"

A strange thing happened to-day. A man came in with a badly shattered forearm. I dressed[Pg 75]
[Pg 76]
[Pg 77] it myself, and can vouch for the fact that in other respects he seemed fit enough.

Not long afterwards one of his companions disengaged himself from the group by the stove and came to me, saying: "Sister, that man has gone blind suddenly."

I remarked it must be nonsense, and told him to go to sleep. Nevertheless, on passing a light before the other man's eyes there was never a flicker. He was blind, as the medical officer can vouch; whether it is temporary or not we shall never know, for the cases pass through so quickly.

November 2nd. Someone has been asked to volunteer to run the military baths. I, being the one whose work in hospital must be of least value, naturally did so, and was accepted.

November 3rd. Most of the men are very subdued, and either loath to talk of what they have been through or ultra-full of reminiscences, many of which have to be taken with a grain of salt.

A large percentage of them stammer or have developed a nervous impediment in their speech, owing, no doubt, to the strain of the past months; and this is very often the case in Territorial regiments, whose members were accustomed to a more or less easy life in peace time.

Quite a number of the London Scottish—whose "charge" has been so boomed by the daily papers as a proof of the efficiency of the Territorial Army—are coming down now. They are very annoyed and very ashamed of the fuss that has been made of them.

"We only did what is done by one regiment or another every day," they said, "and now we hardly like to show our faces for the ridicule that must be cast upon us by the Regulars, who have seen ten times as much fighting and never been mentioned at all."

The "dum-dum" lie is no lie at all. Anyone who has seen the strangely mutilated limbs can vouch for that. In one case the bullet passed clean through one leg and exploded in the other. Bah! the smell of the gas gangrene—shall we ever forget it?

We hear many tales about the Germans from the men. Devoid of honour, they train machine-guns on ambulances, and accredit us with the same devilish tricks. One French civilian ambulance unit was totally destroyed a few days back, and wounded, surgeons, stretcher-bearers and nurses alike were blown to atoms.

November 7th. I am now installed as "Lady Superintendent of Military Baths," an entirely new post!

The scene of my activities is the public baths in the Rue des Vieillards, that have been rented from the old proprietress. With six orderlies to do the rough work—the washing of towels, the cleaning of the twenty baths, and my own spacious office in which to do the men's dressings—things are cheerful enough.

About 100 men come through each day—the convalescents in the morning, so that the whole forenoon is taken up with dressings.

The difficulties at first were many, a fact which considerably enhanced the joy of the work.

1. To get the place clean was a veritable chef-d'oeuvre.

2. Drawing things from the Ordnance is no easy matter. One must not buy what may be drawn; and as I have no notion of what can be drawn there is often considerable delay.

3. Persuading the orderlies that water for dressings must be boiled, and not lukewarm, is likewise far from easy.

The days are no longer so strenuous. I arrive at eight to see that the men are getting on with their work, cut up dressings, leave out and mark towels until ten o'clock, when the convalescents begin to arrive.

By 3.30 I am able to go down to the clearing station to write letters for the helpless.

To-day a man who was brought in with a badly fractured pelvis dictated one to his brother. It ran:

"Dear George,—After going through all the big battles of Mons, the Marne and the Aisne, I am sad to say I've got hit at last, but hope soon to be home with you all. I'm glad to know you've joined to be a soldier, and hope soon to hear you're helping in the fight."

"It isn't true, Sister," he added; "but perhaps it will help him through, poor fellow—if I die!"

Needless to say, none of the hospital personnel have time to sandwich letter-writing for the men in between their medical work, and civilian help is welcome in this matter.

No one who has not seen the intricacies of the office work of a large military hospital can have the least conception what an amount of forethought, what a number of clerks are involved. The distribution of the wounded into the different wards, the notification and specification of each case—each is an art in itself. Whilst in the quartermaster's domain the drawing of rations for an elastic number of patients, ranging each meal from 50 to 400, is wellnigh stupendous.

And although we who know nothing of these matters have often laughed at the theoretical red tape of the Army, there is no denying that, in working order, it is a thing to be venerated rather than scoffed at.

November 8th, On the Ramparts of Boulogne. After the hush of the unornamental cathedral the soft autumn breezes out here are refreshing. Even in the well ventilated baths the pungent smell of segregated humanity permeates. What a strange place is Boulogne now, the city of hospitals, every hotel a hospital, every road thronged with troops and nurses!

Yesterday I had a slight fracas with my corporal, a nice but utterly untrained boy, who has a way of wandering into the office, cigarette in mouth.

Now, there is no law in the Army, so far as I can make out, that compels an orderly to pay the slightest respect toward a nurse. He must stand at attention when addressed by a junior subaltern, but may loll and smoke at his ease whilst taking a nursing sister's orders. Thus it seems that from time immemorial a slight antagonism has reigned, for the men are apt to take advantage of a woman, who, unless she have infinite tact, often enough finds things hard.

However, after two cups of black coffee to give me the requisite courage, I faced the little difficulty boldly. "Corporal," I suggested, "it doesn't matter what you do outside, but I would rather you didn't smoke in the office. You set the example to the others, who are beginning to turn the office into a sort of smoking-room. Besides, it isn't usual in the Service, is it?"

There was an awkward silence, as the poor boy blushed and grunted. Then I changed the subject, and think all will be well, for though surly in manner he is most anxious to please.

One afternoon I was asked to go and speak to some prisoners at the Imperial (No. —— General Hospital), where Miss A—— is now working. A young "Freiwillige" of 19 immediately inquired: "What about Paris?"

"What do you mean?" I asked, astonished.

"When did we take it?" was the somewhat surprising reply.

On the whole, in spite of the rigorous discipline that makes it necessary for German officers to go behind their men to save their own skins and goad on their victims; in spite of the fact that they seem to be treated like cattle and have been found chained to their machine-guns, as a whole (and probably as the outcome of the patriotism that is inculcated into every German from his earliest days) they seem loyal to their superiors; and, relieved though they appear at being captured, are not garrulous on the score of the reign of terrorism from which they have escaped. For not the most warlike can covet the privilege of being driven in massed formation, over heaped-up corpses, into the face of the enemy's fire that literally mows them down like hay. It turns even our own machine-gun men sick.

As we were about to turn in, ten funerals went up without even an escort, as the R.A.M.C. orderlies are too engrossed with their duties towards the living to be spared.

So die the flower of English manhood! Buried in their deal boards in French clay, with only a French grave-digger or two and a cluster of children playing round the massive gates to see them to their last resting-place.

Well might the bells of Shoreditch peal, muffled, on All Saints' Day!

November 9th. The autumn leaves are falling. Before me sit a group of convalescents in the courtyard, basking in what there is of mellow sunlight—awaiting their turn for baths. To say they look dejected is too mild. There is a look of weariness in their eyes that appals one. There is no mistaking a man from the front. They all have it—the trench-haunted look.

"Any man who says he wants to go back is a liar," say most. "It isn't fighting; it's murder, you see." And one is left all the more astounded at the heroism with which they face the inevitable when it comes to returning to the front, the unanimity of their: "Are we down-hearted? Never!" as they march off.

On the whole there is wonderfully little "swinging the lead" or "dodging the column," as the men themselves call malingering; and though some of the medical officers were apt to look upon the early cases of trench feet as much ado about nothing, it has since been found that the acutest pain is often present when all swelling has subsided.

It is a relief to get back in the evenings to the society of the nurses. Many of them already look knocked up. "Fifty patients on my floor, and only two orderlies," says one. And at home thousands of trained workers are waiting for work.

We often wonder that no use is made of the members of the Voluntary Aid Detachments as probationers under the trained nurses. True, in their present stage of efficiency (or inefficiency, for what are a number of first-aid lectures or stretcher drills as compared with the real hospital training?) many of them might prove more of a hindrance than a help in an emergency. Nevertheless, they could be of as much use as probationers out here—where, everything having been improvised, the inconveniences necessitate much extra labour—as they could be at home.

It is ridiculous to imagine that V.A.D.'s, with their theoretical experience, are competent to run hospitals by themselves; it is equally ridiculous to allow the valuable qualified nurses to run themselves to death, doing jobs an untrained woman can do, instead of utilising the many eager workers willing to take over the menial work.[A]

It will not be hard to sift the wheat from the chaff, the seekers after sensation from the genuine workers. For there is no romance in the work of a hospital, no jaunts to battlefields bearing cups of water to the dying, no soothing of pillows and holding the hands of patients; but ten to twelve hours each day occupied in the accomplishment of tasks so menial that one would hesitate to ask a servant to perform them.

[A] This has since been done, and members of Voluntary Aid Detachments are now used extensively in France as probationers in military hospitals where they come under direct War Office control.

November 10th. We awaken to bugle calls, we fall asleep to the sound of tramping feet. Oh, that long weary high road into the jaws of death! The sudden evacuation of Boulogne seems less imminent now than it did, though the German advance on Calais continues. Now that England has declared war on Turkey, we realise how little of the big scheme of things we see in our niche. Sometimes, between waking and sleeping, a vision of home comes back to me, of soft carpets and steaming hot baths, and everywhere clean linen and creature comforts and ease. After all, I should like to end my days as I began them—in luxury.

November 11th. No wonder Boulogne is full to overflowing. No wonder the little out-of-the-way cafÉs have taken on something of the glamour and Éclat of Rumpelmayer or the Ritz. No wonder everyone who can afford to be is in France. One feels it in the air, it is the Real Thing; one is no longer a looker-on, but a moving factor of things who can afford to pity those at home whose activities have not yet had occasion to be called into play.

The town itself consists of the Haute Ville enclosed by massive thirteenth century ramparts flanked by round towers, whose history for years centred round Godfrey de Bouillon, and the four celebrated gates (Porte Gayole, Porte des Dunes, Porte de Calais and Porte des DegrÉs). Crowning all stands the CathÉdrale de Notre Dame, whose dome from the distance, whether viewed from the town or the environing country, brings back faint remembrances of St. Peter's in the Holy City.

There is nothing of great artistic interest or value to be found within (unless it be the seventh century antiquities in the crypt), but the spirit of earnest devotion that characterises all Catholic places of worship, uniting every worshipper and raising the lowliest edifice to equality with the most ambitious building, is more marked here than in any church I have yet visited. The reverence of the bare-headed peasants, holding up their woollen shawls as coverings for their heads, of the shambling wounded, of the smart mondaines, is alike worthy of those Russian allies who recognise no sin greater than lack of veneration to their God.

The legend of the miraculous statue of Our Lady of Boulogne, as depicted in a picture over the altar of the chapel in the cathedral, dates back to the year 636. In that year a strange boat, radiating with light, was seen to enter the harbour, propelled by some miraculous power and devoid of sailors or pilot. When the excited population reached the shore it was to find on the bridge of the barque a beautifully carved image of the Holy Virgin carrying the infant Jesus, beside which lay a silver-bound copy of the Scriptures.

Over the spot that marked the miraculous image's first resting-place in the Haute Ville the oft-destroyed cathedral has grown, and although, after many vicissitudes, the Holy Statue was finally destroyed during the eighteenth century Reign of Terror, many are the pilgrimages still made to the solitary relic of the holy image—a hand that was cut off prior to the burning, which is preserved in a gilt heart, suspended from the new statue.

The fame of its miracles spread abroad so widely that not only did kings and princes hasten to pay homage, but some unscrupulous priests at St. Cloud attracted large numbers of pilgrims by trafficking in the public faith and maintaining that they were in possession of the miraculous statue. Hence the name of the Bois de Boulogne in Paris, and the fact that the image is known as Our Lady of Boulogne-sur-Mer.

Beyond Notre Dame runs the Calais—St. Omer road which has seen so much bloody traffic in the past and may see so much more in a few days.

Guns, ammunition convoys and ambulances rumble along it ceaselessly by day and night, pausing only to answer the challenge of the sentries posted at intervals at every cross-road of importance. The ruined Jesuit monastery lies along this road, alive with wounded Indians, who, when convalescent, are shifted into the outlying tents that form the Convalescent Depot.

Only about one mile away on the same road stands the Colonne de la Grande ArmÉe, that huge Doric column surmounted by the figure of Napoleon, erected to commemorate the expedition against England and commenced 110 years ago, when Marshal Soult (as the inscription on the base tells us) laid the first stone in the presence of the whole army.

Walking townwards one comes across the fisher village built in tier upon tier of squalid, unsanitated streets, as odorous as the Naples of ten years ago—and as picturesque; and pinnacled by St. Pierre-des-Marins, whose lofty fourteenth century Gothic spire is one of the few architectural beauties to be found here, and whose interior, so full of votive offerings, witnesses the toll of matelot lives exacted yearly by the sea from those who would snatch their living from her.

Crowning all stands the revered Calvary to which all wise fishermen pray as they sail in and out of the harbour.

From here the panorama of the whole place is laid bare, the jetÉes, the coast, the Gare Maritime, the Bassin Loubet, the River Liane winding in and[Pg 91]
[Pg 92]
[Pg 93] out of the valley and losing itself finally in the mists; and nearer, the gay flower-market and the Halle des Poissons, where the vendors, almost as soon as the nets of herrings are unladen, are rid of what fish they can get in these troublous times, when every man who is not fighting is trawling for mines.

November 12th. As I sit beside the dying embers of my office fire, in which great valleys and gorges are discernible in the glowing coal and a mountainous summit capped by a fairy castle, I wonder what happiness there is to equal the fireside that one has earned oneself.

It might almost be home (after all, all fires, like all winds and sunshine, or thunder and rain, are consolingly the same!), only instead of soft pile carpets and arm-chairs I have a packing-case for seat and an inverted saucepan on my knee for table. Instead of flowers, the trestled table is adorned with bandages and bottles of lotion and packets of dressings.

Instead of a gong to announce "dressing time," and soft dÉcolletÉe frocks donned before long mirrors, and well-appointed dining-tables and the announcement that "Dinner is served," there are only the promptings of my hungry inside to tell me mealtime is due, and it would be as well to scrub up, remove the mackintosh apron, and smooth my hair under the unbecoming white cap before the dinner is gobbled up!

Yet, until one has worked five hours to earn five minutes' rest, one does not know the meaning of leisure.

Until one has felt the clinging of the helpless hand, or run to the call of a feeble voice, one does not know the greatest of all joys—the joy of service.

The rapidity with which the Gare Maritime Hospital is developing is marvellous. Instead of wallowing to our ankles in a slush of disinfectant and rain-water, the wards are well swept, with two strips of cheery red carpet on either side. Instead of boards and blankets, some 200 real beds have been installed, with sheets of coarse calico and pillows. Instead of empty crates (and those at a premium) there are chairs, whilst towels supplant the red handkerchiefs which now hang desolately from the lamps by night and day.

Just at present the casualty ward, in which an emergency operation theatre has been opened, is lying empty, so are the other wards. One wonders why? The truth is, things are looking fairly bad. The enemy is only forty-five miles from Calais and still presses on to the goal. There is a rumour that the Germans are through the lines everywhere, that we have no men to send (though the French are supposed to be reinforcing) until the 8th Division of "K's" untrained army comes out, and the evacuation of Boulogne is imminent. We are told to be prepared to leave at a minute's notice, for once through the lines the enemy can march here unmolested. Despite the violent storm, all the wounded whom it is possible to move have been sent home (an ominous fact, for their removal should betoken an advance on our part), and still the ambulance trains come back from the front empty. A pestilential battle rages at Arras; Dixmude has fallen (yes, several of the Censor's censors have been dismissed for letting us know this!) A hundred questions assail us. Will the hopeless cases have to be left behind? What will be done to the many millions' worth of stores in this spy-ridden place?

Heaven knows! We can but "wait and see."

We are lost in amazement at the lukewarmness of the masses at home who do not seem to realise the significance of this move.

But let me return to No. —— Stationary Hospital, where the staff is greatly augmented and Army nurses work side by side with those of the Red Cross.

If there is some slight friction between the two it is easily understood, for how can the newly arrived Army sisters be expected to find in a dirty, evil-smelling barn anything but the violation of all the laws of hygiene? Whereas to those Red Cross sisters, who have built it up with their life's blood, so to speak, who have watched it evolve under their weary fingers, it is a place of supreme beauty and first importance.

If there is some slight friction amongst the authorities, too, it is soon explained. For it is as much the duty of the Red Cross to cherish its own rights as it is for the Army to centralise and control, at a time like this, every existing institution to prevent the misuse of public funds.

Both are in the right.

At home no one seemed quite to realise the exact position of the Red Cross and the various Army medical services. Out here, except that a distinct antagonism between the two organisations prevails, the position is equally vague.

The British Red Cross Society and the St. John Ambulance Association were originally formed to supplement the requirements of the military and naval medical services in war time, thus obviating the expense of keeping up an exceptionally large staff in days of peace. On this understanding the War Office took nominal control of the various B.R.C.S. enterprises, supervising the First Aid examinations and keeping a register of all its members. The value of that registration of B.R.C.S. members by the War Office is not quite obvious at present, for the War Office appears to disclaim all responsibility for the Red Cross. There are even rumours that a large portion of its personnel is to be greatly reduced and eventually sent from the base. In fact, no one's work or position is clearly defined.

The work of the Royal Army Medical Corps, the Nursing Service, "Q.A.I.M.N.S.," Reserve, Indian and Territorial, was well defined enough. Field ambulances, clearing stations, stationary hospitals (so-called because they are movable!) and base hospitals were their sphere, and vaguely it was understood that the Voluntary Aid Detachments were destined for use with the Territorial Forces.

Then, when at the outbreak of hostilities there came the call for more workers, many doctors and fully-trained nurses, anxious to get to that mysterious and alluring unknown, the Front, threw up their good posts and sold their patiently built-up practices in order to join the Red Cross.

Many of them are already regretting their impetuousness. Not only the members of the Voluntary Aid Detachments, who have hitherto played at work under War Office supervision and with War Office sanction, but the much-needed trained nurses and doctors (many of them specialists of the first order) find themselves somewhat shelved, oftentimes deprived of the best surgical work by those of their juniors who had had the foresight or good luck to join the Reserve or Territorials instead of a volunteer concern whose position is, as yet, indefinite and whose scope, so far, limited. Many even find themselves on the Reserve Staff and waiting for work. A certain restlessness that prevails amongst these is easily explained, for it is not always possible to console oneself with the idea that inaction is merely a respite and preparation for the next call upon one's energies, when that call is lying all around in understaffed hospitals.

November 13th. Perhaps it was the unconquerable instinct to help lame dogs over stiles that prompted the Matron to ask after some German literature for a prisoner whose two legs had been amputated. I, as linguist and jack-of-all-trades, was deputed to forage for Hun books, and, for the first time, found my conversance with the language a matter of embarrassment rather than of pride.

As I entered the French bookseller's, and asked for what I wanted, the girl eyed me with suspicion. Then, "We are not pro-German," she said with hauteur.

Fearful to return, my mission unaccomplished, I tried shop after shop.

"You can climb on that ladder and see for yourself," said a young girl, pointing to a high ladder and daring me up it with her scornful eyes. I unearthed and returned with an old paper-backed novel for the prisoner, with a heavy heart, wondering if I was unpatriotic to have carried out my orders—but the legless man had died in the meantime.

Such is the spirit of France—vengeance on a ruthless, untrustworthy enemy.

Such the spirit of England, maybe hyper-quixotic—never to hit a man when he is down.

November 15th. Last night Lord Roberts died. The little wrinkled old man, who only a week ago was in our midst, walking round our wards, cheering on the wounded, encouraging the Indians, has finished as he began, in the sphere of action.

November 17th. This morning the mail boat is accompanied by six French destroyers. In the town all flags are flying half-mast; in the station are massed guards, French, English, Indian. The Sikhs are fine-looking specimens of humanity, and objects of great interest to the peasants who crowd round exchanging souvenirs. The smaller hillmen look as if they would be very formidable foes, though at present many of them lie curled up asleep on sacks, and covered with sacks, as peacefully as children.

Later. After the coffin of the great little man, who has, alas! lived to see his worst fears for his country realised, had been borne on board, we went to look at the armoured train that is in hospital. A strange, formidable-looking thing, too, is this vehicle of destruction, daubed with many-hued, very futuristic patches, and guarded by sentries.

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A large legend announced the train's destination as "Berlin," whilst great guns, daubed with their appropriate names, "Homeless Hector" and "Weary Willie," pointed their inquiring noses innocuously at the sky.

This, we were told, was the armoured train which, under Commander Samson's guidance, played such havoc with the enemy and caused the Kaiser to put a price worth having on that gallant officer's head.

November 23rd. The baths closed most suddenly and unexpectedly last night. The owners' exorbitant demands for money—damages for towels which we have not even used, walls, ceilings, windows, etc., that are in the same good repair as when we came—have made it imperative to commandeer the place or, to avoid friction and expense, erect new ones.

After the Major and his interpreter driver (a dentist who volunteered his services) had spent nearly two hours haranguing Madame and her homme d'affaires, we cleared the place out.

Snow fell for the first time during the night, and it is freezing so hard this morning that the hot water thrown over the stones outside for cleansing purposes becomes ice at once.

Having a free day, I explored the place from Le Portel, the quaint little fishing village where fishwives, with their wide, hooped skirts, their quaint poke bonnets or characteristic snowy white headgear and clogs, predominate, to the St. Pierre quarter, cobbled like the new town itself, but built in tier after tier of terraces, characterised by an indescribable, if picturesque, squalor and dirt.

Everywhere we are followed by children begging for "souvenirs." I wonder what the state of our clothes would be had we cut off a uniform button for each one who asked!

The tide is high up over the front to-day. Ambulances and cars are held up on the Wimereux road. It is a wonderful sight, the big waves rolling over the main road, whilst venturesome drivers who run the gauntlet find their cars immovable in three feet of water and subject to the ungentle washing of the sea.

November 24th. Being on night duty with a private patient who is so restless that neither of us gets a minute's peace, I am having an excellent opportunity of observing things as they are; and,[Pg 105]
[Pg 106]
[Pg 107] after all, there is plenty to be noted that will never be brought to light.

November 29th. In the morning when one comes off duty, full of anticipation of the exhilarating morning walk, the joy of the clear, cold sea air, there are usually plenty of odd jobs to be done. At present we are engaged in making sandbags for those hospitals which are destitute of them. In this we have the assistance of two small French Boy Scouts who, having noticed us staggering under the load of our baskets, volunteered to find a wheelbarrow and bring us up a certain quantity of sand every morning.