Part 1

Chapter 13,920 wordsPublic domain

A NURSE'S LIFE IN WAR AND PEACE

E. C. LAURENCE, R.R.C.

AUTHOR OF "MODERN NURSING IN HOSPITAL AND HOME"

WITH A PREFACE BY

SIR FREDERICK TREVES, BART. G.C.V.O., C.B., LL.D.

LONDON SMITH, ELDER & CO., 15 WATERLOO PLACE 1912

Printed by BALLANTYNE, HANSON & CO. At the Ballantyne Press, Edinburgh

PREFACE

The charm of these letters, it will at once be found, depends upon their simplicity, their artlessness, their obvious candour. They present a plain, untinted account of a nurse's career, of the difficulties she has to face, and the problems she has to solve. Those who wish to know something of a nurse's life and times will find in this writing a convincing narrative, unemotional and matter-of-fact.

This is no small merit, since the record of nursing experiences is apt to be blurred by exaggeration or made nauseous by sickly romance. There is pathos enough in the sick-room and in the presence of death, but those who come in touch with it would do better to hush the knowledge in their hearts, rather than to proclaim it on the house-tops. Apart from this, the world must be a little weary of the astute sick child who lisps melodrama into the ear of the "kind nurse," as well as of the bizarre aphorisms of the dying tramp.

The faults of management and lapses of discipline which crop up incidentally in the story are now matters of the past, and are no longer to be found in either the "Children's Hospital" or the "General."

The novice who is entering the profession of Nursing will find in these letters a sensible and exact view of the prospect that lies before her. She may further glean some insight as to the qualifications of the good nurse. These qualifications are to be expressed neither by certificates nor by badges, neither by starched uniforms nor by examination results. They are happily beyond the mechanical gauge of any examiner, and above the platitudes of the official testimonial.

Of the perfect nurse it may be said that "her price is far above rubies," and that her place is high in the company of admirable women. She is versed in the elaborate ritual of her art, she has tact and sound judgment, she can give strength to the weak and confidence to the faint at heart, she has that rarest sight which can see the world through the patient's eyes, and she is possessed of those exquisite, intangible, most human sympathies which, in the fullest degree, belong alone to her sex.

FREDERICK TREVES. _December 1911._

CONTENTS

I PAGE At School--Determined to be a Nurse--Royal Red Cross instituted--Preliminary Training 1

Visit to Tenerife--A Storm in the Bay--The Beauties of the Island 3

III

Up the Cañadas--Voyage Home on a Cargo-boat--Call at Madeira 8

First Experiences in a Hospital--The Food--Some Medical Cases--My First "Special" Case 14

Moved to a Surgical Ward--In Quarantine--A Poisoned Hand--"Kathleen" 19

In the Out-Patient Department--Food improved, and Heavy Work reduced--Act as Night Sister for two nights--Am offered a post as Staff Nurse--My first Certificate 25

VII

To South Africa for a year--Voyage out on the _Scot_--By train from Cape Town to Kimberley 31

VIII

Life on the Diamond Fields--I meet Mr. Cecil Rhodes--The Kimberley Exhibition 37

A Visit to Cape Town--Up Table Mountain--Return to Kimberley 42

On Circuit in Cape Colony--A Visit to Natal--The Doctor's Fee 48

East London and Port Elizabeth--Down a Diamond Mine (Kimberley)--Return to England 54

XII

Accepted for training at a General Hospital--I begin in a Medical Ward--A sudden death 60

XIII

On the Surgical side--A heavy "Take-in" week--Lectures on Physiology 66

XIV

My first Typhoid Case--Diphtheria Tracheotomies--The Rescue of the Cat--On Night Duty 71

Christmas in Hospital--The Dispensing Examination--Acting Assistant Matron--Three Weeks on Duty in an Infirmary 77

XVI

First Sister in the Front Surgery--A Bad Accident--A Dog with a Broken Leg 83

XVII

Temporary Ward Sister--Appointed Night Sister--Interesting Work--Join the Royal National Pension Fund for Nurses--I spend Christmas warded as a Patient 89

XVIII

Chloroform for a Cat--I Volunteer for Plague Duty (refused)--Appointed Ward Sister--A Fire Alarm--A Holiday in Switzerland--A Bomb in Paris 95

XIX

I go to Egypt--Nursing at Sea in rough weather--At Helouan--Ride out to the Pyramids--The Kasr-el-Aini 102

Up the Nile by Tourist Steamer--At Luxor--"Hare and Hounds" on Donkeys 109

XXI

War in the Soudan--Night and Day Nursing 115

XXII

Sent up to Assouan--Down the Nile on a Post Boat--A Saunter Home across the Continent 120

XXIII

Back to my old Hospital--In a Ward for Women and Children--Christmas in a Men's Accident Ward 126

XXIV

Scarlet Fever--At Marlborough House with R.N.P.F. Nurses 132

XXV

The Boer War--A Lucky Meeting at the War Office--Joined the Army Nursing Service Reserve--Choosing fittings, &c., for a Hospital of 100 beds 137

XXVI

Voyage out on the _Tantallon Castle_--Some Military Hospitals near Cape Town--We land in Natal 143

XXVII

Inoculated against Typhoid--We begin to build our Hospital--Increased from 100 to 200 beds--Unpacking--A Hospital Ship at Durban 149

XXVIII

Our Food Supplies--Washing Arrangements--Snakes and other Creatures--A Railway Accident--Our First Patients 156

XXIX

The Princess Christian Hospital Train brings us some Bad Cases--Men from Elandslaagte--Some Officer Patients--The Bishop of Pretoria 162

XXX

Dengue Fever amongst the Staff--First Death amongst the Officer Patients--Mafeking relieved--Our Hospital officially "Opened"--Colonel Galway--The Trappist Monastery 169

XXXI

A Spion Kop hero--Orderlies knocking up with Enteric--Worsted work, &c., to amuse the Convalescents--Death of an Orderly from Enteric--Poem by Officer Patients 175

XXXII

Some distinguished Visitors--We become a Military Hospital--New Orderlies arrive--"Imperial Bearer Company" men--Our Major 183

XXXIII

Changes on our Staff--The Arrival of Sick Convoys--Our Servants--The Hospital Commission--The Difficulties of Transport 189

XXXIV

I visit the Battle-fields--At Colenso--Ladysmith--Up Spion Kop--Tin Town Hospital--On a Red Cross Ambulance 196

XXXV

The Tugela Falls--Pieter's Hill--Hart's Hill--Chieveley--Mooi River--Maritzburg--Back at Pinetown 203

XXXVI

Prisoners from Pretoria--Our Gardens--We start Poultry Keeping 209

XXXVII

The Natal Volunteers return home--"John"--Flying Ants and other Plagues 215

XXXVIII

The Buckjumper--The Excellence of the Boer Ponies--The Home for Lost Dogs! 221

XXXIX

Sudden Orders for Home--Voyage with Lord Roberts on the _Canada_--Call at Cape Town--A Funeral at Sea 228

Lord and Lady Roberts visit the Hospital--Christmas at Sea--We anchor off Cowes--Lord Roberts visits Queen Victoria at Osborne--Sixteen days' leave--Rejoin the _Canada_ to return to the Cape 235

XLI

The Death of Queen Victoria--Lodgers at Wynberg--The Plague at Cape Town--Up the Coast with Boer Prisoners 242

XLII

Up Country--Under Canvas--The Sisters' Horses 249

XLIII

Our Tent Flooded--A Cow shares my Tent--Night Duty in the Rainy Season--Afternoon Duty 256

XLIV

In Charge of Medical Tents--A Present from the Queen--Within Sound of the Guns--"Kit Inspection"--The Horrors of Transport in the Ambulance Waggons 263

XLV

A Sudden Collapse--The Winter Begins--Tired of the War 270

XLVI

Night Duty again--A Sick Convoy arrives in the Night--A bad Pneumonia Case--Nearly Frozen 277

XLVII

Mentioned in Despatches--Ill with Dysentery--A Night at Pinetown--With my Brother to Uitenhage 283

XLVIII

At Port Elizabeth--Down the Coast to Mossel Bay--We drive, _via_ George, to Oudtshoorn--Martial Law--Under escort to Prince Albert Road--By Train to Kimberley 290

XLIX

Tales of the Siege--"Long Cecil"--Refugee Camps--A Picnic under Arms 298

By Train to Cape Town--Night Sister on a Troopship--Some Sad Cases--Home Once More 305

A NURSE'S LIFE IN WAR AND PEACE

THE SCHOOL, LINCOLN, 1888.

This is my usual day for writing letters, and I have nothing but the usual things to write to you about. Each day we get up at the same time, do the same sort of lessons (not very difficult), eat the same sort of food (not very interesting), and go for the same dull walks, with an occasional game of tennis on a badly-kept lawn; but I have been thinking, and the long and short of it is, that I am going to persuade my people to let me leave school.

I think you know that some years ago I determined that I would be a nurse. To be exact, it was in 1883 that Queen Victoria instituted the Royal Red Cross, and in the same year I was grieving over the fact that none of the professions in which my brothers were distinguishing themselves would be open to me, as I was "only a girl"; so I at once decided that I would try to win the Royal Red Cross.

Well, I am not thinking so much about the decoration now, as wars seem to be few and far between; but still I think the nursing profession is the only one I am a bit fitted for, and lately I have been reading everything I can get hold of on the subject.

You see, I am not a bit clever, and I am no good at music or languages; so I could never teach. And, on account of having been so delicate when I was small, I am behind most girls of my age in many subjects; but in the two terms that I have been here I have won two prizes, and I think I can work up any subject that I want to as well as most people can.

I know I am not old enough to begin nursing yet, but when I am, it may be necessary to pay for my first year's training, so I very much want them to save the money they are now paying for my education to pay for that, as it seems to me that I am being stuffed with many subjects that, after I leave school, I shall have no further use for.

I have not yet quite decided which hospital I shall go to. It is clear that if I want to join the Army Nursing Service, I must go in for three years' training in a good-sized General Hospital first; but the best of these hospitals won't accept candidates till they are twenty-three, and that seems such a very long way off. So perhaps I may take a preliminary year in a Children's Hospital, or some other special hospital first, but I am not old enough even for that yet; and as I think F. is going out to the Canary Islands for the spring, I think it is very likely I may go with him, as you know I love travelling.

I like this place very well, and I have many friends here; but one thing is quite definite, and that is that I mean to be a nurse, and with that in view I think I might be employing my time more profitably than I am doing here.

PORT OROTAVA, TENERIFE, _April 1889_.

Here we are, in comfortable quarters and in glorious sunshine, the grand old Peak of Tenerife (with its cap of snow) looking down upon us.

I wish you could be transplanted to this warmth and brightness; but you would not have enjoyed our experiences on the way here.

You know how cold it was when we left London on the _Ruapehu_; and all down the Channel it was very cold, but fine and calm. We called at Plymouth (such a pretty harbour); then, after we left there, our troubles began. The next day there was a heavy swell, and very few people appeared on deck. Our stewardess, they said, had "happened of an accident," but we were well waited upon by a nice little steward. M. was bad, and stayed in her berth; but with the steward's assistance I struggled up on the upper deck, and I would not have missed it for anything. Towards evening it was really blowing hard, and the waves were grand. We took such plunges down into the trough, and then the great ship trembled, and seemed to pull herself together to rise on the crest of the next wave and then take another plunge.

The men were on the trot all day, making everything fast. It was Sunday, but there was no service--the crew all too hard at work, and the passengers chiefly in their berths. Towards evening I was wondering how I should "make" my cabin, when the purser came along and asked if he might help me down below, as the wind was still rising, and he had been appointed "runner-in" by the captain, who said we had all better be down below.

That night and the next day were really very bad indeed. We were battened down, and the dead-lights were screwed on about 4.30 P.M., and the electric light supply did not come on till after six; so for that time we were in darkness, and some of the passengers were really very much frightened.

Tons of water poured on the main deck and down the companion-ways, and men were bailing it out near our cabins all night long. I kept feeling in the dark to see if there was water in our cabin, as it rushed past the door with a great "swish"; but the step was high, and it did not come over.

There was no sleep for any one that night; it was all we could do to keep from being pitched out of our berths.

The men were very funny as they bailed the water out and mopped up. "Reminds one of washing-day in our backyard--pity my old woman ain't here," "Sometimes we see a ship, sometimes we ship a sea"--and heaps more to the same effect. Our steward said he had never had to bail out so much water before, and he had been six years on the ship. One of the sails was carried away; and when we got to Santa Cruz the engineers discovered that part of the rudder had gone.

Two cooks and one of the sailors were knocked down and injured, but I think not very badly. Two of the boats were washed out of the davits, and one of the heavy deck-seats (next to the one on which I had spent the afternoon) was smashed to bits.

Sleep was quite impossible, as it was most difficult to keep in one's berth, and every now and then there was a great crash as things were broken in the saloons and galleys. We are still bruised and stiff from the knocking about.

I have always wanted to see a storm at sea; but I am now quite satisfied, and I shall never want to see another. It is most unpleasant to be battened down, and the engines sound to be so fearfully on the strain and tremble that you feel you must listen for the next beat of the screw, knowing that if the engines should fail your chance of weathering the storm would be a very small one indeed.

After that the weather improved, and also became warmer, and the passengers one by one came crawling up on deck; but most of them looked as though they had been through a long illness, and could talk about nothing but their alarm in the storm; and the captain owned he had had a very anxious time.

We landed at Santa Cruz early one afternoon--a very unsavoury town, with dirty beggars exhibiting various loathsome diseases and following you about.

After a little delay we secured a carriage and three horses to drive across the island to Orotava, twenty-six miles distant--a pretty, winding road, cool up in the hills, but becoming hot as we descended to Puerto Orotava. The hotel was full, but we secured rooms in a dependence; and when we had rested and changed, we found a _carros_ ready to take us across to dinner. A carros is a kind of sledge on broad runners drawn by two oxen. They are much used in the town, as the roads are paved with little cobbles, which would pull the wheels about a great deal.

This is a nice hotel, cool and airy, and the garden is lovely--such quantities of roses, bougainvillias, and bright trees of hibiscus. There is a good billiard-room we can use, and it is open all down one side (only matting blinds). That shows how dry the climate is, as the table is perfectly "true."

The waiters are Spaniards, who know a little English and like to use it. "This is jarm, very goot," &c. We go about with our little red book of phrases, and sometimes get what we want, but more often fail to make ourselves understood. The natives are most interesting, the children such pretty little things with very bright eyes. Up in the hills they still consider it is winter, and the men go about with blankets tied round their necks; and when they squat down on the ground, the blanket flows out and makes a little tent round them. Down here it is really hot, and the small children wear nothing but a little chemise. The women are pretty, and they wear brilliant-coloured handkerchiefs tied over their heads.

We are close to the sea, and it is such a gorgeous blue; I have never seen anything like it before. I suppose it is very deep round here, and the Peak rises 12,000 feet, straight from the sea.

There is no English church yet, but the chaplain holds services in a large room fitted up as a church. Every one rides when he goes anywhere here, even when going to church; so during service there is a large company of ponies and donkeys outside, with the attendant men and boys (all in white suits, with bright-coloured sashes), and now and again the donkeys lift up their voices.

I have found a good chestnut pony ("Leaña") that goes well. They are sure-footed little beasts here; and it is necessary for them to be so, as there is only one "made" road, and for the rest we scramble up mountain paths. But when we get on the road they simply scamper along.

M. has not done much riding; and sometimes, when we are scrambling up a steep place, I look back, and find her holding on for dear life with a most resigned expression on her face. But I think she is enjoying it all immensely.

We walked up to the Botanical Gardens the other day, and they are perfectly beautiful--arum lilies and many of our choicest greenhouse flowers growing like weeds, and the ferns here are so beautiful too. Up in the kloofs (here called _barrancos_) we find maidenhair growing wild, and in such enormous fronds. I measured one, and it was two feet high. At the gardens a very handsome young gardener--a Spaniard--gave us huge bunches of roses to bring away. All the natives we come across are so polite and friendly (every man you pass raises his hat), we wish we could talk Spanish to them; but so far, if we can ask for what we want, it is quite as much as we can manage. The better-class people often speak French, and I get horribly mixed. The other night a solemn señor asked me if I spoke French, and I said, "_Un très mui poco_"!

The word they seem to use the most is _mañana_ (to-morrow); as our nice waiter explained when a gentleman said, "Antonio, the coffee is cold," "Ah, it shall be hot to-morrow. With the English it is always now, to-day; with us it is _mañana_."

We hear that Laguna is the fashionable resort as soon as it becomes too hot down here, but that Icod is the fruit-growing village of the island; so we think of driving over and spending a night there.

III

SS. "FEZ," ENGLISH CHANNEL, _June 1889_.

Since my last letter we seem to have been chiefly engaged in wrestling with steamship companies in the vain endeavour to persuade them to remove us from the island. F.'s leave was up early in June, and as we had return tickets by one line, we wrote to them in good time to secure berths. At first they made us various promises; but soon we learnt the truth--namely, that all their boats were full in every berth long before they came near the island.

Then we began to tackle other lines; but, you see, nearly all the boats come from New Zealand or the Cape, and this is the favourite time for going home; also there is the attraction of the Paris Exhibition. So I cannot tell you on how many ships we have applied for berths, and always in the end received the news, "Every berth full."

Personally I did not mind, as I enjoyed every day on the island; but it was awkward for some things, and eventually we had to decide to sail on board a small cargo steamer that calls at Orotava instead of at Santa Cruz, and carries a few passengers home at a leisurely speed. But before I tell you of the voyage, I must tell you a little about our last few days on the island.

One day we drove over to Icod, a pretty little village about two hours' drive from Orotava. Much coffee is grown at Icod, and also plenty of fruit--oranges, lemons, figs, &c. We rode from there to Gerachico (a pretty ride along the shore), where a whole village was engulfed when the Peak last erupted; but it is now again built over, and we could not see much of interest remaining.

Señora Carolina reigns at the small Icod hotel, and made us very comfortable. But neither she, nor any one we met in the place, spoke any English; so it was good practice for us, and our Spanish came off better than I thought it would.

We decided not to climb the Peak, as you cannot do it from Orotava without spending a night somewhere up the mountain; but one day M. and I joined a party for a day on the Cañadas--the range from which the Peak rises. We mounted our ponies at 7 A.M. in brilliant sunshine, and at different points picked up our friends, till we were a party of ten, with a crowd of attendant boys to carry our lunch, &c. The first part of the ride was easy and pleasant; then, as we got higher, it became more of a scramble over loose stones, that any English pony would have said were only fit for a goat to be asked to walk over. Just as the path was becoming really steep we left the sunshine, and found ourselves in a thick bank of clouds, cold and damp, and had to go very cautiously, in single file. The chattering pony-boys were very silent (their spirits are easily damped), and said it was "_mucha frio_." Soon we emerged above the clouds into a scorching sun, and, finding a piece of fairly level ground, some of us took a little canter to try to get warm; but we came to a sandy place, and there Leaña took it into her head to lie down and roll. I saw what she was up to, and managed to roll out of her way; so my saddle was more damaged than I was. But as my clothes were very wet with the mist, the sand adhered!

We had a pleasant lunch, at a height of 8000 feet, while the ponies were off-saddled and fed; and some of us thought we should like to camp for the night and climb the Peak in the morning. But when we had finished lunch we had only two ham-sandwiches left between us, so concluded we had better return before night.