FINDING THEMSELVES (continued 4)

Then they had a scene to show how we would appear. It was killingly funny and brought down the house. Then we wound up with a dance. Lots of the group said it was the nicest Christmas they could possibly imagine. I was so glad, for it might have been so different, for Christmas is a lonesome time and nobody had time to be lonesome here. We have not had any mail for ages. Some packages came through the week before Christmas, but I have had no letters from the States since those that came written about November 24th. We keep hoping every day that a big batch will arrive.

All the hospitals around us are entertaining a lot this week. They are having “at homes” or concerts or little plays, and there seems to be something doing every afternoon or evening. It is an awfully good thing, and I really suppose we ought to give some sort of an affair here, but how I don’t want to!

Now good night and loads and loads of love to you all, you very dear ones. The Red Cross card Mother sent nearly broke me up,—especially what she wrote on the back.

Jule.

January 22, 1918.

I have just realized that it is about three weeks since I last wrote. I don’t know how it happened to be so long, except that I guess there has not been very much of special interest to say. I have not done all my thanking for Christmas presents yet and I have been getting along with those little by little and so had not noticed that I had not written a regular for so long. The past two weeks have been very mild, in great contrast to the month before. The warmish, damp weather has not been any too good for the general health of the group, for we have continued to have a good deal of the “flue,” as the British call the influenza. But the chilblains are all better.

The hospital has continued to have about the same number of patients right along. We vary between eight and ten hundred, sending out some every day and getting in convoys nearly every night. We get such a lot of medical cases now and such a lot of trench feet, which are such dreadful things. They are the result of wet and cold and are often very serious. They are very painful and sometimes result in gangrene. To-day one poor lad had to be told that he would have to lose both feet because of this trouble, and he is simply crushed. To-morrow he will buck up, but to-night it seems too much to be borne. We have some terribly sick men, but not so large a proportion of them as awhile ago. I am sending as many nurses away for their leave as I possibly can while the work is not so dreadfully heavy. I have had about thirty away for their fifteen days already. Ruth Cobb is in Paris now with Miss Watkins. Most of the nurses go to Paris. Three have been down to Cannes, but they were sent through the British authorities. In a few days my splendid assistant is going to Paris with three of her pals. I shall miss her very much as she is a wonderful right-hand man, and one I depend on a lot. After she gets back, which will be Feb. 8th, I expect to go for my leave. I am planning to go to London, for I want to see Elizabeth M. and I want to get away from nurses. I could not do that in Paris, nor at Cannes, nor at Mentone; besides which I don’t want to go to any of those places alone, and I can’t go very well with any nurses from here. So it’s London for me. I don’t mind the Channel trip, nor possibilities of air raids, nor bad weather.

I find I am right tired though it is not from hard, physical work of any kind, for I certainly am not doing that. I guess it is from responsibility, and more or less of a long-continued strain. Anyway a change will do me good. We all get fifteen days every six months if we can manage it. You see we are all overdue here, and there are so many of us I can’t possibly get around before the second fifteen days will be due. I will cable from London some time while I am there just to let you know I am there safely.

More strange gifts still come along.... I am not properly grateful for cast-off clothes, I’m afraid, especially when they are flung at one without a word. However, I ought to be ashamed to growl. But so many, many people have been so wonderfully good to us and have sent us such superlative things with dear notes saying that the best was none too good for us, I am afraid we are plain spoiled.

You can’t imagine what fun we have talking about what we will do first when we get home. It is a favorite game. Some want theaters, some want real concerts, like symphonies, some want warm, marble bath-rooms, some great big soft beds, some lovely fluffy evening clothes, some automobile rides in parks, some ice-cream. A whole lot want some kind of bread stuffs, muffins, biscuits, popovers, waffles, pancakes. That is what I want among other things, but most of all I want to see my family and my friends. The days go by rapidly, but it seems years since we left, and it is going to be a long, long time before we get home. We play games at the table about the food, pretending that it is something else. We have awfully good food considering, but of course it gets monotonous and tiresome, and one needs to be good and hungry all the time to enjoy it. But most of us are very hungry at meal-times and have good appetites; it is when you are a bit off your feed you think how nice it would be to have some good milk toast with real butter, real milk, and real bread. To-day, for instance, I’ll tell you what our food was. Breakfast: good oatmeal with boiled milk and sugar, coffee, war bread, which one of the group toasted before the fire for our table, “bacon” the eternal, which is fried ham, and not very good. Lunch: a kind of meat loaf, rice, with cheese (which we have about every other day), bread and butter, cocoa, and stewed figs, stewed without sugar. With the meat and rice was creamed yellow turnip. Dinner: brown meat and gravy, boiled potatoes and beets, coffee and a kind of chocolate bread-pudding, which somebody said was bread soaked in left-over cocoa. This really was not a very good day for food, but you see it was all nourishing, and it was cooked well, but it is not fancy. After lunches and dinners like that, if we have some candy or fruit cake in our rooms, we go and have some of that for dessert. Mother’s box from Charles with all the fancy things for a tea-party came yesterday. It had been opened and not very well repacked, so that the crackers and cookies were a bit the worse for the journey, but I think I can freshen them up. It is queer that any one should have found it necessary to open a box of crackers to see what it contained.

The music E. sent and the songs that Mother sent all came safely and I am so glad to have it all. Sunday night I had a beautiful time with one of the nurses, playing through the new book of duets. The new songs are being used constantly. Mrs. McB.’s box of books arrived this week after its long wanderings. It was most welcome. The books are already giving the greatest pleasure. I have already read three of them myself. Even the doctors come to me for books every now and then, so it is fine to have some good ones on hand to lend to them as well as the nurses.

I see Phil every once in a while. He was down last night at a little dance in our mess which I did not attend. I have learned both the onestep and the foxtrot over here in my old age! I was down to dinner twice the week before with him. It is very pleasant to walk down with him late in the afternoon, wander around a little, get a good dinner, then walk back again, talking over all the latest news from letters or camp gossip. He seems to be enjoying his work at No. 25 Stationary Hospital very much, though he does not find the work at all arduous.

This is a very dull letter, but it is meant to tell you that we are all “carrying on” as usual, are all “in the pink” and feeling “champion.” A few of our number have been a bit “seedy,” but are “going on fine.” We are all wondering “where do we go from here,” but rumor says that we won’t be moved before Summer, which we hope is true. We have very few among us who are “grousers,” but even they would not like to leave this place.

Tell Elsie, please, that I use her brown jacket every night and it is the nicest thing. I don’t need anything for my sitting-room now that it is so comfortable and attractive. It has a little coal stove in it now, which makes it awfully nice for evenings. I am not there much in the daytimes except for French lessons. I am always having some flowers there, people are so nice. I have some white lilacs (!) there now—lovely forced things that are really sweet.

It is getting late and I must beat it to bed. I’ll try to write sooner this next time.

With loads and loads of love,

Jule.

Dad’s letter dated Dec. 25th is the latest I have heard from you, I think. A nice letter from Isabelle dated Dec. 13th arrived a few days ago.

Feb. 6, 1918.

A draft of men is marching by singing and whistling and shouting, which shows us that they are off to the front, for that is the way the troops leave to go to the trenches. I am very tired and spunkless to-night, and I haven’t any lofty thoughts and inspirations, for the needs of the flesh are seeming to predominate, and what I want more than anything else is a wonderful hot bath in a beautiful warm bathroom, and then such a long sleep in a beautiful big bed, where I cannot hear any bugle-calls, any breakfast bells, any coughing nurses, or anything except perhaps soothing, joyriding automobiles. You can see my state of mind. Miss Taylor has been away on her leave for almost a fortnight, which has meant that things have been a good deal harder for me, even though I have had a very capable nurse to assist me in the office. But I am edgy and irritable and need to get away myself.

We have had a lot of perplexities to deal with, and I have needed to use continuous alertness of mind to keep up with the details. For instance, it requires five separate papers for each nurse who goes on leave, and I have had fifteen gone at a time for over two months, the group changing every day or so, and I must see that every paper is correct or something will go wrong; the Ford won’t be there to take them to the train, they won’t have the papers which enable them to get the military fare on the train, or they won’t have the proper form of request for a new serge uniform which they can order and get fitted in Paris, or they will arrive back at the station with a heavy suitcase and no way of getting home except with much difficulty; or some one won’t be scheduled to take their work in the wards, or they won’t have received their salary before they left, or they have not told at which hotel they were planning to stay, etc. etc.

Ah well, I will be a much nicer person when I get back from my leave. I am due to go on the 11th to London to be with Elizabeth M.

The present group that are on leave, at least most of them, had the experience of being in a bombed city. Ruth was there and thought it all most interesting. Their hotel was near enough to the bombed district to make the experience unforgettable, although they were not in any way alarmed or hurt.

Will Elsie please thank little Alice for her fine letter? I didn’t know that she could write so well and use such big words. I hope she will write me again soon. I am crazy about my little service flag. It is quite a curiosity here. The cold you have had over there has been far worse than ours. So far we have had only about a month of really cold weather. Some of my Jewish nurses—I have three or four—were much interested in the “Chosen People.” I am so glad that there is a chance of Dad’s getting the song-books for us. We had a great sing a week ago Sunday evening, only such hymns! regular revival ones.

It is late and I must get to bed. I do feel your love and I need it so much.

Loads and loads of love.

Feb. 10, 1918.

It is a glorious, sunny, mild, Springy day here. The patients who can walk are crawling out into the sun. Many beds have been carried out so that some of the sickest may have the benefit of the warm rays of the run. The nurses walk around with a kind of sauntering air that shows that they are able to appreciate the lovely day and the precious lack of rush. This afternoon there will be many walks. Last Sunday afternoon I had a perfect walk. We were gone from two to six-thirty, and walked miles through lovely country roads and lanes. Pussy-willows are out and bushes show budding leaves, and it feels as though Spring were really here. But we are likely to have more cold weather yet, we are told. I am on until about four-thirty. Miss Taylor is back and I am due to go to-morrow. Phil is coming down soon to play basket-ball with our officers against some Canadian officers. There is a good place to play right in front of the grand stand on the track, which is all turf. I am looking forward most eagerly to my leave. I need to see new faces for a while. Phil and I had dinner together down town a few days ago. I had many errands at the Base Cashier’s, banks, etc., and met him at our favorite rendezvous—the Cathedral; then we wandered around together, did little errands, had a nice dinner, and were back here by eight-thirty.

That evening we had a lecture in the Mess by one of our young officers—a very brilliant young fellow—on the war. He has been giving a series of talks to us. The first was on the Western front and its changes, and the second was on the Balkan States. The nurses were much interested. We are too near to be able to get any kind of a good view of the whole situation, and we have not time to hunt for it in periodicals.

We have no further word about the Vassar proposition. It would be a fearfully hard thing to leave this Unit.

I shall have such a nice time with Elizabeth in London. Food is scarce there; the paper says they in London can have only one meat meal a week! But what do I care? I’m bringing E. a present of sugar! I’ll write you from there. Loads and loads of love.

Jule.

London W. Friday, February 15, 1918.

I want to tell all the details about going on leave to England, for it is something of an experience. On Monday morning the eleventh, when I left, I had to report at the office of the D. D. M. S. in Rouen to get my travel warrant. Although I had asked for leave to England with permission to go on my own expense, because we are not asking leave permission from the British, I was told that that was not going to be possible, but that I would be sent through just as the English Sisters are. The Havre train left about half past ten and reached Havre about twelve-thirty. I was held up at the station when I wanted to leave and had to show my identification papers, but was soon let through. I learned afterwards that if I had been with some English Sisters that were going to England too, I’d have been met and conducted as the others were. As I did not know that and was not with the others I went off by myself and was rather glad I did as I had a very interesting time. I went to a near-by hotel, that I had heard was the best, and had a very good lunch. Strangely enough, in the dining-room I ran into Mrs. Christy, the Chief Nurse of the N. Y. Presbyterian Unit, who was on her way to Cannes. I had only two words with her, as she was just leaving, but when I told her I was going to England, she said she wasn’t allowed to. It is most strange how different rules and regulations get through to the different Units.

As I had the whole afternoon before me to spend in Havre I went to the nice women at the office and asked their advice as to the best promenade. They spoke no English, but we were able to understand each other beautifully. They directed me by means of two trams and a funicular railway to a very high part of the town, with a lovely view over the city and harbor. It was a glorious, sunny day so I had a beautiful time wandering about by myself. After walking quite a long way I found myself near a cemetery as a pitiful little French procession was entering. I followed just to see how this sort of thing was done in the French way. The funeral was for two tiny babies which were borne in tiny boxes on small litters carried by two men each. Two priests walked ahead and behind followed the relatives and friends. This was not really a cheerful way to spend part of one’s holiday, especially as I could see at a little distance the interment of an Australian soldier, but it was interesting. I wandered around and talked to little children and watched people and gazed at aëroplanes sailing over the town for over three hours, then I went back to the hotel and had tea and then read until dinner time.

At dinner a Frenchman engaged me in conversation, much to my interest, as he spoke not a word of English and was just going over to England. He was as nervous and excited as could be and seemed so glad to talk. He had been wounded and was now permanently out of the army. At dinner we had had, among other vegetables, something called “soissons,” which I had discovered to be a kind of bean. In the cab which the Frenchman and I took together to go to the quay he told me that he had been wounded at “Soissons” and that was why he always took “soissons” when they were on the menu. He showed me the watch charm he had had made from the piece of shell that had been taken out of his chest. They are so cunning, some of these French people. I lost him on the boat and didn’t see him again except in the distance the next morning.

On the boat I found that by paying a reasonable sum I could have a stateroom by myself instead of having to share with six English Sisters the ladies’ saloon, which has had berths put into it which are perfectly comfortable, but which afford no privacy. I had a splendid night and slept like a top almost the whole night through. I woke once to find that the boat was tossing a little, but I was too tired and sleepy to care and promptly went to sleep again. I had not undressed very much, but even the discomfort of day clothes could not keep me awake. I was quite surprised when the stewardess called me at six-thirty, and we were approaching the docks of Southampton. I don’t know what time the boat left Havre. We went on board at eight-thirty and I was asleep before we left. After a breakfast of sorts on the boat we landed about seven-thirty. As the train to “town” didn’t leave till nine-thirty there was plenty of time to send telegrams back to Rouen and on to Elizabeth in London. I came on to London with the English Sisters, who told me they had been met and taken care of and put on the boat and fed with a spoon almost every minute since they got off the train at Havre. I was awfully glad I was not with them, but was also glad to know that that was the way nurses traveling to England are looked after ordinarily, if they are not as exclusive and standoffish as these English ladies thought I was. I took pains to show them that I had not meant to be, but I simply had not expected to be looked after.

London is just as fascinating as ever. There has been no sunshine since I have been here, but the weather has not been at all bad. It is just dark and smoky. It is wonderful to be here with Elizabeth in a home. Jim is so awfully busy with his hospital work we scarcely see him at all. He often does not get in for meals, and so far he has had to be out every evening. Elizabeth is doing some very hard work on the American Committee at the Embassy. This is regular social service work for Americans in difficulties and is a part of the continuation of that big committee that did such splendid work at the beginning of the war. The committee that E. is on takes care of the women and married men with children and it still has plenty to do.

I have just been reveling in the civilization and comfort of this home. E.’s china and silver and linen are a perfect joy which I never appreciated in any home so much before. The food question is getting pretty serious, but at present there is enough to eat, though Jim says he doesn’t know how long there will be. It is very difficult to get things, as only small quantities can be sold at a time. There is no milk to be had except for invalids and children, there is scarcely any butter, sugar is sold by cards, and in a few days almost everything is going to be rationed. The sugar card that was issued to me before I left France allows my hostess to buy for me sugar not to exceed one and one seventh ounces a day for the exact time I am to be here. I brought E. a present of some domino lump sugar which you would have thought was a box of diamonds. When one is to lunch out anywhere one produces one’s own sugar from one’s pocket; otherwise the meal would be sugarless.

I have been sleeping and sleeping ever since I arrived. I have my breakfast in bed almost every morning and lie abed afterwards in lazy sloth. The roar of the city is utterly soothing to me. Am I not an urbanite? Sometimes it is too dreadfully quiet at our camp at Rouen. My room is very high up in this narrow, tall English house, so that the noise of the streets is somewhat less than it would sound down lower. I have not wanted to be energetic yet, but I have been having such a good time, mostly doing nothing. E. and I have made pleasant pilgrimages out of the need of doing several small errands, and we have been to the theater twice already. I just ache for the theater and am leading E. a quite willing martyr right up to as many shows as I can get in. We have seen Charles Hawtrey in “The Saving Grace,” which was very entertaining, and not too much about the war, and this afternoon we went to the Colosseum to a variety show which included Mrs. Lillie Langtry and Vesta Tilley. To-morrow we are going to see Mrs. Patrick Campbell in “The Thirteenth Chair”—all of which you see is the greatest dissipation.

I have not seen a single American nurse so far as I know, and I have not visited a single hospital and don’t mean to. This morning I went to pay my respects to the British Matron-in-Chief. She was less formidable than the last time I saw her and was really quite cordial. She took me to see General Goodwin, who is to be Director General of the medical forces and who has recently returned from the States. He was most charming and I had a delightful talk with him. I was glad of a chance to tell these British officials how fortunate we think we are to have been sent to work with the British, and to tell them how we have appreciated all the innumerable courtesies they have shown us and the way they have helped us.

E. and I have had lunch down town one day and we have had her mother-in-law and brother-in-law here to dinner. I have had a splendid real shampoo for the first time since we left London last June. We have several pleasant little things planned to do next week, but I like best just sitting around here on real, soft-cushioned sofas. E.’s two little boys are darlings. I don’t see them much as most of the time they are off with “nurse.” Jim is four and a half now and John just two.

You see I am having a wonderful rest. Good night, and loads of love.

Jule.

Rouen, March 14, 1918.

Here I am back with my children, very happy that I am not to return to the States, and perfectly content to stay here where I know I am needed and can be of use. The future is on the lap of the gods. If I get orders to go to Paris, or anywhere else, I will go, leaving these dear people with the greatest regret. But I have nothing to worry about and can go about my work with the greatest peace.

We are having a great number of the most pitiful cases these last few nights; gassed men in terrible condition. Nearly three hundred the last two nights, and a hundred and fifty due to-night. Major Murphy said that last night’s convoy was the worst he has seen since we have been here. Ambulance load after ambulance load of stretcher cases with bandaged eyes and burning lungs. The men tell awful stories of whole companies affected so that not a man, an officer, or a doctor is able to do a thing for anybody else. It seems to be a new kind of gas. At any rate the effects seem to be different from those we have observed before. The masks have not seemed to protect the men. We have had so many put on the Seriously Ill and Dangerously Ill lists to-day, Miss Taylor has been writing letters to families all day.

March 18, 1918.

Dearest Mother:—

It is such heavenly weather here and things are so beautiful. Everything is quiet and happy and peaceful here with us though our work seems to be increasing pretty steadily. I cannot help feeling more or less agitated inside, for I know that an order to leave this Unit and go to Paris may come any minute. When the order actually arises, there is not going to be anything but approval, I think, among my nurses as far as my action and my duty go—for they’ll know this is an order and not a choice in any way—but there is going to be a bad time when it comes to parting. I dread it fearfully, for I know they all care for me and won’t want me to go from a personal point of view, and I shall feel dreadfully about leaving them. We have all been through so much together we feel very close. Same way about the officers. I shall hate to leave them. But it is coming. Phil won’t like it either.

Such is life in the army!

Loads of love, Jule.

March 25, 1918.

This typewriter is almost hot, it has been worked so hard to-day. I think Miss Taylor and I have written over forty Dangerously Ill and Seriously Ill letters to-day, from which you may infer that we are busy. We are busier than we have ever been before. I am snatching a few moments while the day and night shifts change to tell you a little about things, then in a little while I must go down to the lines and see how things are and send off to bed the many day nurses I am sure to find on duty still. The nurses all hate so terribly to go off when there are so many things remaining to be done, but I cannot have them working both day and night, for in a few days, if they keep that up, they won’t be able to work at all. No one has had a minute “off duty” for five days now and they are beginning to show it, but they have got to keep this up for a while longer and so I drive them off with many things left undone. Of course there are always night nurses to go on with the work, but they are usually only one to a hut or line, where in the day-time there may have been four or five.

Our excitement began last Thursday the 21st with an order that for all ranks Rouen was to be “Out of Bounds.” This was because they had Smallpox there. We have maids, French teachers, stenographers, and sewing-women coming back and forth every day and things looked complicated—and were. But only for a while. Everybody was vaccinated, and the important civilians were given daily passes, and so our work goes on about as usual. I made temporary arrangements for four maids to stay here on the grounds with us.

That very day we were given an hour’s warning in getting our next team off for a Clearing Station. The people had been designated but they were not packed. You never saw any woman packed in more double-quick time than our dear nurse was. We have been a bit worried about her ever since she left, for disquieting reports of great activity in her vicinity have been coming to us every day since she left. She has six good American men to look after her, which is a comforting thought to us.

That day patients began to pour in upon us. We were told to be prepared to receive unlimited numbers. Well, they have been coming. Day before yesterday we operated on fifty cases, yesterday fifty-one, to-day they had seventy-three scheduled. I have just been down on the lines and to the operating-room. You would not believe me if I told you how that place looks. They have at least forty more cases to operate on to-night. Both the day and the night shifts of nurses are there, but the day shift promises to go up in an hour. As more convoys are due to-night, there may be even more to be operated upon than are scheduled. The doctors are about dead. They are working in shifts as much as they can. The stretcher-bearers are dead tired, but as cheerful as monkeys. I was just at the “Point,” where ambulances are loaded and unloaded, and a convoy of stretcher cases was just going out to be shipped to England, I think. Our American boys were jollying the Tommies who were on the stretchers, and it all sounded so cheerful.

It is not so cheerful when the convoys come in. Last night we had a convoy come in that seemed to be all D. I. cases, many were too badly off to be operated on. It still makes one sick at the stomach to read on a man’s card: “Gun-shot wound, face, chest and right arm, amputation both legs.” Major Fischel has just been in to say that since there must be two hundred “walking wounded” ready to go out by ten A.M. he wants to know if I can have nurses to help dress their wounds early in the morning. I said “Yes, if he meant by early, 7:30” because I wanted the nurses to have something to eat before the start. Seven-thirty will do, so 200 walkers who came in to-day will have fresh dressings put on their injuries and be ready to be shipped along at ten.

So it goes. We have no time for sore vaccinated arms, but fortunately I have heard of only one that is sore so far. People are such bricks under pressure like this. It is perfectly marvelous. I cannot say how glad I am that we managed to give every nurse a whole day off a week or so ago; they certainly needed any reserve strength they could store up. Two nurses just got back from leave in Paris this evening. For the past three days they have been bombed and raided. Most of the past three nights they have spent in cellars. But they have had a wonderful vacation and are so glad to get back. We need them here all right. All leaves for all ranks are now stopped until further notice. I don’t see Phil at all these days, for he too is très occupé. He was here a minute to-day and left mother’s letter of Feb. 28, but I did not see him as I had dashed down town in the Ford (with special duty pass) to do some necessary banking and to get some Carrel tubing from the British Red Cross stores. Our supply is exhausted and new lots have not come through and we are using it by the mile. I got some, and other necessary things too.

You ought to see the way we are using up supplies. But so far we seem to have enough of the necessities. We have long since ceased to attempt to change sheets between patients. A good many patients have been in beds without sheets at all, but that is a minor matter. Major Fischel just gave me a guess on the number of patients we have taken in or sent out to-day. I said five hundred, and he replied, “nearly double that.” We have taken in and sent out all day long, and to show the spirit of the men, Major F. repeated the remark of the head Sergeant of the records, who said he wished we could get in a few more before midnight so that he could say it had been over a thousand. It is a stupendous piece of work and it all goes so smoothly. Now I must go to bed for I am weary, but first I must see about the nurses for the morning.

It is the next evening now and we are waiting for the Night Supervisors to come to get the evening report and to be told the arrangements for the night. Things have been keeping up the same way ever since last evening. Only, two of our men have died and we were so glad to have them die. The sister of the man with the double amputation has arrived from England after such a rough, cold trip. We have had a case of diphtheria develop to-day among the nurses and she has been sent off to the contagious hospital, where Phil will probably have charge of her. She had a throat yesterday and we isolated her until a report from her throat-culture could be obtained. Of course we are taking cultures from the “contacts,” but hope there will be no more positives. Still no bad arms from the vaccinations!

The men tell such dreadful stories and are so glad to get into bed and to be made clean. Often we cannot get them bathed even the least little bit before they have to be taken to the operating room, but we try to wash them up as soon as possible. Just think of the problem of hot water to bathe five or six hundred patients in a camp where all the hot water has to be heated on camp stoves after being drawn from about a single pipe. The “walking wounded” are so pathetic. They go limping off to the tents to which they have been assigned, leaning on each other and helping each other all they can. A nurse told me a few minutes ago that one of her incoming patients who walked in was a young boy who had had his right arm amputated four days ago! Another one said he had had nothing to eat but cigarettes and tea for four days! Another with an amputated arm was so troubled to have a sister bathe and shave and shampoo him. She is a crackerjack at shaving, and all the orderlies are carrying stretchers. But oh, she was so glad to make him clean and comfortable. Our dietitian, Miss Watkins, is doing regular nursing work and doing it so well. One of the nurses told me that before Miss W. gave her first bath she said, “Now, I’ll just pretend that this is my brother.” She takes temperatures and pulses and bathes and feeds but does not do dressings yet. She is so fine, but says she does not ever want to go back to cooking. Here are the night people, and I must stop. I have been down to the camp since I started to write.

Much, much love,

J.

April 6, 1918.

I last wrote on March 25th, and now it is nearly two weeks later. Our rush has kept steadily up until day before yesterday. Yesterday was the very first day in two weeks that any nurse had any time off duty. Yesterday, because of reënforcements that arrived, we were able to send every nurse off to rest for three hours. It was the most extraordinary Easter anybody ever spent. For two nights before we had over two hundred patients sleeping on the benches on the grand stands. These were “walking wounded,” but wounded, you will notice. On one of those days we had over fifteen hundred patients. We never kept any “walkers”; they were sent right on to the Convalescent Camps, where they were able to expand more. We dressed every case here, though, before they were sent on. We certainly found out not only what we can do in an emergency, but what the British Army system can do. We are constantly marveling at the efficiency, speed, and lack of waste with which the English manage their business.

We all physically were so hard pushed Major Murphy wired for help, and just a day before this lull we received a mobile Unit from the A. E. F., fifteen nurses and thirty-odd enlisted men. You may be sure we were glad to get them, though fifteen nurses were just lost in the shuffle and did not seem to make the slightest difference. They all were very young, inexperienced, little things from Kentucky, who had only recently landed and had not seen a patient since they had been over. Some of them are only twenty-one (the age limit has been lowered; it was twenty-five when we left) and have only been out of a training-school a very short time, and had only been in very small Kentucky hospitals. So it seemed a heart-breaking thing to thrust them into this unbelievable hell of a hospital.

Such a baptism of fire as they got that first afternoon! I tried to prepare them all I could, but no words could convey anything like the reality to their inexperienced minds. It was pouring when they came at 12:30 A.M. (and me to meet them here, and feed them, and find them a place to sleep with a half-hour’s notice of their coming!) and it was pouring rain the next afternoon when the Supervisor started off with the little rubber-coated-and-hatted group to drop one here and another there according to assignments we had made here in the office. A little later I had occasion to go down in the lines, and I looked in one of the huts just to see what the little new thing looked like. Just before I got to the hut a little procession had come out of the door. First two of our men carrying a stretcher covered with a Union Jack, then a second stretcher also covered by a flag, then our Supervisor walking behind accompanying them to the mortuary. People along the line stood rigidly at attention as they passed, and saluted. Then I went into the hut. The odor that hit me as I entered was terrific, for most of the cases in this hut have penetrating chest wounds which drain. The little nurse was standing by the stove stirring something in a cup on it with a spoon. She was green-white and looked utterly nauseated. I did not dare speak to her, for fear she would lose any control she had left, so I told the weary head nurse to be as gentle with the little thing as she could and try to realize what she was going through.

That evening I spoke to their group for about ten minutes and told them that it was not going to be like this always, and about the mitigations and the happy part of it all. Then I asked them if, after all, this was not what they had come for, and weren’t they glad they were here. A most sincere response made me feel that they would be all right soon. Like all young things, they are adjusting wonderfully and are already making themselves felt, and are going about as chipper and happy as monkeys. But oh, the poor little dears, they will never forget that first day.

The night after these fifteen arrived another contingent appeared at 1:15 A.M. in the pouring rain! This time I had known it about three hours, but at that time of night there was very little I could do to make preparation, for I simply insisted that my poor tired nurses should not be disturbed. I lay on my bed part of the evening, but as a nurse was sick and I had to get Major Fischel for her, it was not for long. When they arrived, weary and miserable, I fed them hot soup, made from bouillon cubes that some kind person had sent us, and gave them bread and cheese and jam, and then put them to bed in the night nurses’ beds in their separate huts. They could not even have a wash, but they said they did not care, all they wanted was sleep.

These poor souls had been ordered to leave their Unit that morning with a couple of hours’ notice only and were sent off in several different directions, fifteen to us here and fifteen to the Cleveland hospital up the road and somewhere else. Naturally they are the homesickest, bluest group of nurses you ever saw. You can just imagine how we would feel if we were suddenly ordered to scatter. The reason for their scattering is pretty obvious to us here, but I cannot write about it. These nurses are a real help, for they have been in a busy British hospital as long as we have and they are all experienced, well-trained nurses. But how they are all hating us at present. For my ways are not their Matron’s ways and everything about this hospital is far inferior to theirs. I have seen their hospital and they are right in lots of ways. Their former quarters were far superior to ours, and of course all these last comers are having only make-shift quarters. We have erected three marquees for them, but they are pretty dreary. They have no lights but lanterns as yet, and their luggage has just come and some of it has been lost, and it rains, and you can see the picture. They will settle down pretty soon, and my people are being as kind as they can be to them and are trying not to mind their grumbling. I tell them they would grumble worse if the positions were reversed, or I don’t know anything about them.

Well, so much for the war, except that to-day we have had no convoys in and are catching our breaths. I cannot tell you the details of the days that have passed since I last wrote. There were so many deaths and so many awful cases and such pitiful things going on all the time it was hard to keep steady, especially as every one was much over-worked. Miss Taylor and I had to stick pretty tight to the office work or it would have swamped us; so we tried to keep up with ourselves each day, and never left at night until we had every S. I. and D. I. letter written. Of course the end of the month came along just then, and all the regular monthly things had to be tucked in also. And of course there was no possibility of having a clever man-stenographer for two days to do my complicated British payroll, as I have had before, for every available man was working night and day, hence I had to squeeze that in also. So a job that takes about two solid days of an uninterrupted clerk’s time had to be put into the midst of an office where people were running in and out every minute; but it got done, and I was a bit proud when I finished the thing at ten o’clock that night when the first reënforcement arrived.

We have certainly learned what we can do. I don’t mind for myself, but it breaks my heart to see my children get hollow-eyed and white, and see them one by one succumb, at least temporarily, and have to be sent to bed. They have done wonders. To-day, for instance, with 130 nurses here, after all they have been through, I have just three in hospital; one with diphtheria, one with a kind of trench fever due to exhaustion, and the third, my dear, brave soul who came down from the evacuated C. C. S. She has just “exhaustion” for a diagnosis. She was sent down without baggage or the rest of the team, 48 hours after arriving. The last ten hours of her trip were standing in a freight car packed with refugees. She arrived here at five one morning dead to the world. She had slept on the floor the two nights before as much as she could and been operating sixteen hours straight before that. We were so thankful to get her back safely. The men arrived safely later. Her C. C. S. was captured. She went on duty 36 hours after she arrived here apparently as good as new, but she could not stand the strain and could not eat, so we sent her to the Sick Sisters’ Hospital for a rest. In quarters I have one nurse recovering from gastro-enteritis and another with a bothersome knee, and all the rest are working! Isn’t that doing pretty well for women? After my two nights up until after two and going each morning as usual for very, very busy mornings, making arrangements about new nurses and seeing to their records, I had a bit of an upset myself and felt pretty miserable. So one afternoon I went to bed at four and stayed there until the next morning and have been much better since. It has all been something of a strain.

Then the morning after the second night up (April 4) Major Murphy brought me in my order to go to Paris to be Chief Nurse of the American Red Cross. It was almost too much, but I was too busy to think about it, so I put it in my pocket and tried to forget it. To-night I am going to tell my original group. I am appointed by the Chief Surgeon and am still in the Army. It is an order, and there is no disputing it. When I get away, I shall be glad of the opportunity it presents, but just at present I cannot seem to bear it. These were just the American orders, and I must wait for the British ones, which will probably come through in a few days. I am “relieved from further duty at No. 12 General Hospital B. E. F. and will proceed to Paris, France, reporting on arrival to the Chief Surgeon, Am. Red Cross in France, for duty as Chief Nurse with the American Red Cross.”

I saw Phil yesterday a moment and told him of my order, and strangely enough he had just received an order to go to Paris for duty with Dr. Blake’s hospital. Curious, isn’t it? But won’t it be nice for us both to be there? Paris is not such a sweet little health resort just at present as it has been. But bombs and long-distance guns are nothing to me.

I guess you don’t need to be told how I feel about leaving my children here after all we have been through together. It is quite beyond words. I am just trying to steel myself to it, and to get it over as fast as possible. Now it is time to go and break it to them. How can I make them glad to have me go? For I must do that.

It’s the next day now—a quiet, sunny Sunday. Everything went all right last night, and my nurses are bricks. They weep, but they are glad to have me go. I am trying to get ready to leave in a few days. I am so sorry for all your uncertainty about me. It was a grand mix-up. Miss Taylor is to be Chief Nurse here.

Loads and loads of love,

Jule.

It was getting dark as I went down between the A and B lines of tents. Ducking under the entrance of A. 3 tent, I stopped just a moment inside the door, to get used to the darkness in the tent. The fourteen beds in the tent were all full and I thought at first that no nurse was there. Then I saw her. She was kneeling beside the low cot of a lad whose whole head was bandaged. The tight starch bandage covered his ears and his eyes, and came down under his chin. A glance at his face showed that he was not far from the end. “Robert, lad, what are you trying to say?” she was asking, bending over him with her arm across his shoulder and her face close to his lips. “Say it again, boy, so that I can hear you. Did you want me to do something for you?” Slowly pulling his arms out he reached up and drew her head down to his and kissed her on the cheek. “I think,” he said, “you must be like my sister.” Just then she saw me. “Oh, excuse me, Matron,” she said as she rose, “I didn’t hear you come in.” We walked through to the connecting tent while the other thirteen men stirred and pretended to wake up.

A nurse stopped at the office to leave the notices of two new “Dangerously Ill” cases. As she handed me the slip she said, “Of the sixty-four new stretcher cases we got in last night, all have bandaged eyes. They are the worst gassed men I have ever seen. I’ve done nothing but irrigate eyes all the morning. One man discovered that he could see a little when I got his lids opened and his eyes washed out, and he burst out ‘Oh, sister, I can see, and I am not going to be blind after all, am I?’ Then I realized what an agony of fear there must be in the minds of those sixty-four motionless men, not one of whom had even whimpered—so since then I’ve been saying to each one that he was sure to see after a while, for you know if they live they nearly all do get back their sight, and probably not more than those two D. I.’s will die. But think what they have been suffering!”

Another nurse was giving a bath to a man who had just been brought in on a stretcher, “Oh, but you are the dirtiest man I ever saw,” she laughed at him, “absolutely the very dirtiest.” “Oh, sister, don’t say that,” he said. “How could I help it? I haven’t had a bath nor a change of underclothes for twenty-two days.”—Quick came the answer, “If that’s the case, I call you clean.”

The orderly came up to the sister and said, “May I have a piece of gauze and a bandage?” “Surely,” she said, as she handed it to him, “and what do you want it for?” “For the Hun there at the door who has cut his finger.” Looking down the hut to the door, she could see standing just outside a Boche prisoner and his British guard. The orderly took the dressings outside and bandaged up the finger. When he came back, some of the patients who had been watching said, “I wish his finger were off, and why didn’t you cut off his head? etc.” Then a man in a near-by bed, whose leg was stretched out in a weighted extension, said, “Oh, boys, don’t talk like that; we are fighting the Huns up the line, but we are not fighting them down here.”

When he came up with the rest of the blue, hospital-clothed men for final inspection before being signed out for Convalescent camp, the Major noticed that he had a D. S. M. ribbon on his coat. “How did you get this, Jock?” the Major asked, pointing to the ribbon. “Oh that, sir,” he said, “there were a few occurrences, sir,” and he went on his way.

His right leg had been amputated, his right hand was badly wounded, and his left foot had a hole right through it, but he was always smiling and cheerful, and had a come-back for every foolish thing that was said to him. One day the Padre asked him how he could keep so cheerful all the time when he must have so much pain. “Oh,” he laughed, “it’s in the book, Boy Scouts Manual, page 8, paragraph 3, ‘Smile and keep whistling.’”

Here’s the copy of a telegram I got Major M. to send last week. “Director General of Voluntary Offerings, Scotland House, London: Number Twelve General Hospital urgently needs three thousand each, two, three, and four inch roller bandages, thousand each abdominal, chest, shoulder, hip, elbow, head triangular and T bandages. Two hundred each, elbow, arm, and leg splints, two hundred sand-bags, three dozen pairs crutches, five hundred limb pillows, thousand pneumonia jackets, five hundred arm slings, five cases each absorbent wool (in America, ‘cotton’) and absorbent gauze, also unlimited gauze dressings.” The next day we got the message: “Bulk of all articles named being shipped immediately.” Pretty good business? We have received notice of twenty bales sent from London already.

Paris, April 12, 1918.

If I don’t hurry and write I shall not be able to remember a single one of the really memorable things that have happened to me since I last wrote. I am getting new impressions so fast I can hardly straighten out one from another. I last wrote April 6 just after I got my orders to move. On Sunday the 7th the British orders came, and I decided that I would be ready to leave Wednesday the 10th.—Just then Philip was announced and I went down to see him. He had just arrived in Paris. It was a curious coincidence his being ordered here, too, just as I was.

Sunday evening we had one of the finest sings up in our mess that ever anybody had. Every Major, including the two English ones, was there, and all the young officers too, and the mess was full, and there was much amusement, as they all tried to ask for their favorite tunes at the same time. We used the new Y. M. C. A. service hymn-books that Aunt M. sent and they proved most acceptable, and everybody seemed to find his or her favorite hymn in it. I played my violin and a fine player played the piano, and I can tell you we made the welkin ring. It was a bit hard for me, especially when some idiot asked for “God be with you till we meet again.” But nobody could know how badly I was feeling.

Monday was very busy all day. That evening was our usual little family dance, which I attended. The next day I finished turning things over to Miss Taylor, went up to Sick Sisters’ Hospital to say good-by to the nurses up there, and the afternoon, packed. The D. D. M. S. came to say good-by and the Acting Principal Matron, which was nice of such busy people at such a busy time. The nurses were full of mysteries all those last days and that afternoon I found in my room a wonderful fitted dressing-bag, the kind my soul has always longed for. It is like a small suitcase, is black, and has a cloth cover and is a perfect beauty. That was from my whole family. Then the original 64 gave me a lovely little gold mesh-purse to go on my watch chain with my other dangles. That too was another thing I had been hoping to have some time.

I forgot to say that on Saturday evening I had talked to the 64 and told them about my going. They were all splendid about it and are glad that I am going to have this position which they think needs me. They told me individually and collectively how badly they felt about my going, but they all think it is the right thing and there has not been one murmur or horrid feeling about it. They are giving me to the bigger cause freely and gladly, though with truly sincere sorrow, I know. So that has made things easy for me, in a way.

That last evening they all had a big reception for Miss Taylor, Miss Claiborne, the new assistant, and me. The officers sent wonderful bunches of roses to all three of us. The party was a wonder. After everybody was there, three Majors came for us three over in my sitting-room and escorted us over to the mess, where we were lined up, and everybody came up and shook hands and said nice things. After some general talk we all sang songs out of the back of Aunt M.’s books, “Old Oaken Bucket,” “Swanee River,” “Auld Lang Syne,” “Juanita,” and the like; then Miss Taylor and I ran away and it was all over. My four dear Majors gave me the most beautiful charm to wear on my watch chain. It is a round, flat unpolished crystal, about as big as a quarter, with a red cross in the center, made of large garnets. It is a perfect beauty. Major Clopton got it at Tiffany’s in Paris for me, and the four of them all signed the dearest note that went with it. They have been such wonderful friends to me and I am so horribly lonesome without them. No woman leaving a job ever had such things said to her as I have had, this past week.

But, oh, I need to remember them now, for if ever there was a desolate soul, it is I. My predecessor left before I arrived. Her assistant has been sick and away from the office ever since I have been here, and I have been simply floundering. Miss Morgan is a great help, but, I wish it was a month from now and I knew something of my job, which is huge. One can only sit tight and not let oneself be discouraged. It’s got to come out right. Our job is, I am sure, to do our job and wait patiently.

Lovingly,

Jule.

Paris, May 17, ’18.

Now to go back a bit. Last Sunday I was down in Rouen! By Friday the 19th I was so homesick and lonesome for all my children and the hospital that when some of the officers blew into my office and said they were going back Saturday evening at five, after their meetings were over, I decided I would go with them. It was very easy to arrange, and oh, I was so glad I went. Our train was late and we did not reach the camp until about nine-thirty, but I got a welcome all right! It did me more good than anything else possibly could have done, and I came back renewed in courage and strength in a most remarkable way, and perfectly sure if so many dear people loved me so much and had such confidence in me, maybe I could manage this awful job after all. Sunday morning I played with Ruth and talked with lots of other people. That noon we had Maj. Murphy up to dinner with us. Before that I went to the office and talked “shop” with the “Little Matron,” as my children, who are now her children, lovingly call her. I stayed with her in my old rooms that night and we talked long into the night, much to the easing of my heart and mind. She has a bed in the sitting-room, used as a couch, which she says is ready for me any time I want to use it. Later I met lots of people, officers and nurses, for tea in the mess. Then M. T. (Miss Taylor, the little matron) and I had early supper together in her sitting-room. Then Maj. Murphy said that he had been planning to go up to Paris the next day, and he would go a day ahead, so he came along with me. We left at seven and arrived at ten. Phil met me and we came home to this nice apartment into which Phil had moved all his and my things that day. I am going again to Rouen just as soon as I possibly can, because I need so much to see them all. They don’t need me, for everything is going wonderfully smoothly, but I need to see them. We don’t talk about their shop, for naturally I am not doing a single thing about their local business, but M. T. talks over my shop with me and helps me lots. That is certainly the most wonderful group of men and women it has ever been my privilege to work with. The more I see and hear of other groups, the more I realize how exceptional ours is. And oh, how good they have been to me. Most of them, I feel, will be my friends forever, and a few of them will be some of the most precious possessions that a person could ever have. Sundays are my own, and so I want to go down there often. The anniversary of our leaving [May 17th] will be my next visit, I hope.

Printed in the United States of America.

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FOOTNOTES: