A Volunteer Nurse on the Western Front (22 page)

For a time no one speaks. Then, ‘What a wastage of human life!’ comes somewhat bitterly; ‘a useless waste!’

‘Never!’ comes another voice passionately, the tone indicating the strain endured during the long, long day.

‘How can the gift of those lives be called a “useless waste”? Is it a waste for men to fight, to suffer, and to die for all that they hold dear – their liberty, their ideals, and their loved ones? God made man in His own image, a little lower than the angels. I’ve realised that fact anew to-day. I’ve seen that Man can ascend to almost Godlike heights, to realms of sublimity unsuspected.

‘To-day’s stories of the fighting, told to us red-hot from the lips of the boys who have lived them, those stories and the many little incidents we have all witnessed, have shown us that, while war may be a great wastage, it is also a great purifier. It has brought out valour indescribable, self-sacrifice unforgettable, patience and magnificent endurance untellable. And are these nothing worth?

‘I have heard little scraps of conversation to-day; I have seen little acts of self-sacrifice, kindliness and thoughtfulness between the men, that have made me
feel reverent. There may be brutality, bestiality, fiendish recklessness, devilish remorselessness, anguishing mutilation and destruction in war, but to-day I have met fortitude, devotion, self-abnegation, that has brought with it an atmosphere of sanctity, of holiness.

‘I am too tired to sleep, too tired to do anything but lie and look up at the wooden roof of the hut, too tired to do anything but think, think, think, too tired to shut out of sight and mind the passionate appeal of two dying eyes, and a low faint whisper of “Sister, am I going to die?”

‘But, oh, how glad I am to have lived through this day! With the stinging acute pain of all its experiences raw on me, I say it has been a privilege to undergo these sensations. For the pain will pass, since all pain ultimately dies, but what will endure for ever is the memory of the nobility, the grandeur, the approach to divinity we have all seen. It has made better women of us all; it has brought knowledge to our understanding, life to our ideals, light to our soul.’

‘THE HOSPITAL HAS
been accepted by the Americans, and will be taken over within a fortnight.’

The official news came like a metaphorical 5.9, notwithstanding the fact that we knew the offer had been made. We had not, indeed, attached a great deal of importance to the fact, for the floating of rumours and the discussion of possibilities, many of which latter never even reach the stage of probabilities, are quite the recognised thing in the army.

Having lived happily, and worked still more happily in the one hospital for twenty strenuous and crowded months, we had all grown to love, if not actually ‘every stick and stone’ of the place, at any rate their equivalent marquees and tent-pegs. So we had deluded ourselves like the Micawbers, with the idea that ‘something
would turn up’ in our favour, that the Americans might not accept our particular hospital, that it was too large for a unit new to active service, that it might be too far from their base – any old reason would do.

A CORNER OF THE NURSING QUARTERS WITH A ‘WIGWAM’ AND TWO ‘HEN COOPS’ IN THE DISTANCE

Then following on the news came the order to hold ourselves ‘in readiness to proceed forthwith.’ What did ‘forthwith’ mean? It might mean two hours, half a day, a day, three days. At present it couldn’t be translated as anything more explicit than ‘forthwith.’

Meantime the nursing staff was sent about its business of packing, and while the hut resounded with the scuffliings of twelve busy inmates reminiscent of the tossings and pawings of twelve unruly horses in twelve circumscribed loose boxes, one sister told the historic tale of the nurses who had received similar instructions to ‘proceed forthwith’ to the War Office. No. 1 went immediately in a taxi, No. 2 presented herself in the evening of the same day, No. 3 arrived next morning, while No. 4 came at the end of three days.

It is all very well in song to pack up your troubles in your old kit-bag, but it is the packing of the kit-bag with overflowing kit that is the trouble. One collects a wonderful accumulation of impedimenta – word deliberately chosen – in twenty months, even if one does live in a bell-tent or in a bunk which measures
only 6 ft. by 10 ft. Hence vacillating owners stand indecisively over piles of clothing and equipment, keeping articles ‘that really might prove useful’ – and frequently don’t – while discarding others for which ‘there is absolutely no room whatever,’ only to find that they are the very articles most required a couple of days later. The Belgian scrub-women receive enough discarded garments to set up an old clo’ establishment.

‘Can any one lend me anything to poke out drawing-pins?’ asks a voice, the owner betraying a typically active-service disregard of the nature of the article supplied, or the person who supplies it.

All penknives and scissors seemingly being already engaged, ‘Use a safety-pin,’ she is advised. And so armed she sets to work to take down her Kirchner girls, her Bairns-father drawings, her khaki portrait gallery, and her family snapshots.

‘Lend me a tin-opener or a safety-pin, Baby,’ calls another voice.

‘In a moment,’ ‘Baby’ replies. ‘I’ve just discovered that all my stockings are holed and I’m deciding to wear two pairs, so that the holes of the one may not coincide with the holes of the other. Like most riders, it takes a little working out.’

‘I’m glad it is cooler weather,’ remarks the Sensible
Girl, who always gives us good advice. ‘We can wear more clothes and so save packing.’

‘Packing! I’m fed with it, and yet I’m surrounded still with things,’ grumbles one voice.

‘Oh, it’s the limit!’ growls the second.

‘I would I were a daisy,’ croons the third sadly.

‘You’d still be liable to be uprooted,’ comes the level tones of the Sensible Girl in well-timed reminder.

Clothing and personal equipment packed, the camp furniture is next induced into the kit-bag. Certain sturdy wenches undertook this onerous task of inducement themselves, but, remembering the treacherous behaviour of beds that fold in concertina fashion, and of camp baths that collapse like a violin stand, I seek out skilled labour in the person of a long-established batman who has helped very many sisters to ‘proceed forthwith’ to hospital train, hospital ships and casualty clearing-station.

He deals firmly with the furniture and summarily with the kit-bag, so much so that it and the two other bundles regulations allow are soon quite ready.

‘Your orders have come through tonight, movement orders to-morrow,’ I am told subsequently, a list of other nurses ‘proceeding forthwith’ being enumerated.

‘We’re lucky not to be moved
en masse.
Remember
the night sixty-four sisters left No. Q?’ We are not likely to forget it, for the quarters were a second Caledonian Market of trunks, valises, suit-cases, spare deck-chairs, spare tables, buckets, washbasins, vases, straw mats, small rugs, homemade stools, packing-box furniture, great sausage-like kit-bags strained to bursting point, inadequate holdalls and self-advertising contents, discarded hats, boots and lingerie overflowing the refuse bins, a perfect plethora of impedimenta surrounding the mess, the huts, and lying round under the trees.

‘A few parrots in cages would complete the picture,’ remarked one flippant V.A.D.

Early on the morning following the coming of our orders, the cars drew up at our quarters, and it became our turn to ‘get moving.’ Our own kit-bags, stuffed to the furthest limit with our beloved Lares and Penates, are dragged out. Our own holdalls demonstrate an expressive and contradictory title, for they give positive proof of holding much, and they give evident signs of allowing much to escape. Suit-cases, attaché cases, wooden boxes, coats, mackintoshes, and lastly ourselves are packed into the various waiting cars.

We have said good-byes, and give a last look round at our dearly loved hospital, where we have been so happy, at the grey, sun-glinted marquees wherein we
have spent so many wonderful, life-pulsating months, at our wooden shacks, our Hans and Gretel ‘sugar houses,’ ‘wigwams,’ ‘hen-coops,’ and ‘rabbit-hutches’ nestling under the trees. The sorry feeling, a bedrock sorry feeling, will not be gainsaid, when:

‘You’re forgetting your iron rations,’ excitedly calls one of the home sisters. ‘You will be glad of these about eleven o’clock to-night when you have drowned your grief and are ready to sit up and take nourishment.’

She hands up to us an active-service size biscuit tin tightly packed with sandwiches, another, – also out-size, – filled with bread and butter, together with a bag of hard-boiled eggs. These we ourselves have supplemented with a supply of fruit, one or two cut cakes, and the contents of sundry thermos flasks.

The foremost driver cranks his car, the rest follow suit. A group of sisters, batmen, and dogs are speeding us on our parting way.

‘Good-bye, good luck, and cheerio,’ calls some one. We bid more good-byes, and wave others. The car starts. Peter, the camp pet, a ‘dog of sorts’ – several sorts, including, more especially, a good sort – jumps on the seat beside us and licks frantically our faces which we have just washed. We caress him ere we regretfully bundle him out, and away we go, Peter
with flopping ears and lolling tongue racing after us in a cloud of dust.

We are proceeding forthwith.

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