Part 2

Pretty soon Colonel J., who is the English member of the R. A. M. C. (Royal Army Medical Corps) who is to escort us nurses to London to-morrow, went and brought over to our table a friend of his, a Major F., also R. A. M. C. This last man was a lean, hollow-eyed man of about 40, who pretty soon got talking, and for the next hour I heard such tales as I hardly ever thought could be true. He had been a German prisoner of war for eleven months. On the way to the prison camp he had been kept in a railway carriage without food or water for three days. At German towns through which the train passed and where they always stopped, he said it frequently happened that women in Red Cross uniforms came to the stations and offered the prisoners cups of tea or milk and held them to their lips, only to snatch them away again and jeer and call them “schweinhund.” He told of the treatment in the camps, where the prisoners in the dead of winter had only the rags of their uniforms to wear, their great coats had been taken away from them, and they slept on sacks of straw without even a tent or any kind of a roof over them. He said he saw men die at the rate of seven a day from starvation. He said he never in all his hospital experience has seen such emaciation from either cancer or tuberculosis as he saw among the prisoners there who were starving. He saw men kiss the shoes of their guards and beg like babies for bread. Not the British Tommies but some of the other prisoners did this. The men had no opportunity to wash and no soap. Their beards and hair hung down to their waists and were alive with lice. He was in several different prison camps. The final one was one where he was sent as a punishment for writing a letter of protest to the American Ambassador. The letter was never delivered, and he was sent to a camp where he was the only British person among thousands of Russians. He had complained because parcels sent to prisoners by their friends were not delivered to them but were allowed to rot and mildew and be eaten by rats. He was exchanged after eleven months’ torture, he called it, in January, 1916. He himself had dysentery and scurvy but not typhus. After he recovered he was put in charge of a hospital ship, which was recently torpedoed. Of the 600 sick and wounded that he had on board he lost only 27.

He told of a hospital ship crossing the Channel just behind his ship on one trip within 500 yards of his ship and of its striking a mine. There were no wounded on board at the time, but 12 nurses and officers and crew. One of the destroyers which was convoying his ship went to the rescue and got alongside the sinking hospital ship and a little French trawler also got alongside. Nine of the 12 nurses and the men all jumped and landed on the destroyer, but no sooner were they on that boat than it also struck a mine and was blown to atoms, and everybody on it and on the trawler was blown to bits. The three nurses who were in the water were picked up by Major F--’s boat. He is here in Liverpool fitting up another hospital ship and will probably be ordered East again to bring back more wounded.

He asked if Miss Dunlop and I would like to see his ship. Would we? We got our coats in a jiffy and flew off with him in a taxi to one of the docks quite a way off. His boat is a big ship that was a passenger ship between here and South America. He has taken out the cabins and made big wards and has accommodations for 800 sick or wounded men. I never saw anything so cleverly done as the way he is making over that ship. He has a splendid operating room, an X-Ray complete equipment, a steam laundry, and absolutely everything that a modern big city hospital has. It will be ready to sail, he said, in ten days, although to us there seemed to be an enormous amount yet to do. They no longer have women nurses on the hospital ships.

We came back from the dock by an “overhead” tram and got here about eight o’clock, although it was as light as four o’clock. Miss Dunlop and I then went to dinner together. Ruth Cobb and Rachel Watkins (our nice dietitian) spent the afternoon in Chester and had a wonderful time, they said. People are so wonderfully nice. The kids on the street salute us, and people come up and ask if we aren’t American nurses and if they can’t do something for us, and take nurses to tea and put them on the proper trams and show them all sorts of courtesies.

I had just come in to start to write, about nine o’clock, when Major Murphy[4] was announced, and I went down to see him. He had called to see if there was anything he could do for us and to find out if we were all right. They are so considerate and good to us. I told him of our wonderful experience this afternoon, and just then Colonel J. and Major F. hove in sight and as I wanted Dr. Murphy to hear some of Major F--’s tales I introduced him, and soon left them, to come up here and write.

It is now almost eleven and Miss Dunlop has been in to tell me the latest instructions she has received from her Majors. We always have to compare instructions and see which of us knows the most about what is going to happen. If we have the same experiences as the nurses of the two previous Units, we are to be much fêted in London, and are to be reviewed by the Queen. We have been trying desperately hard on shipboard to learn how to march and keep step and to right about face without falling over ourselves, but I fear we won’t be much on looks when it comes to being reviewed. I trust we are not expected to curtsy. And now I must hustle to bed, for to-morrow will be an exciting day. Good night and so much love to you all. If only you were all having this wonderful experience with me nothing more could be desired.

J.

Wednesday, June 6, 1917.

Dearest Family:--

I have not written since that day in Liverpool, and now we have been ten days in London. If only I had the ability to write what we have seen and what we have felt. The contrasts have been so great some of us have almost lost our mental equilibrium. We are fêted and cheered and taken from one entertainment to another and made much of by people of every class; and then between such social affairs we visit hospitals, military hospitals, because it is necessary for us to see how such hospitals are run. First we see 1700 men, young men with faces or arms or legs blown off, and then we go to a tea at a fancy club; next we see 500 blinded men fighting their way back into normal life by learning various occupations, then we are taken in a body to the silliest musical comedy that was ever staged. Again we see thousands of crippled soldiers brought out to see the King give decorations to 350 heroes and heroines, soldiers and nurses, or “the next of kin” all in black, and we nearly choke when a blinded officer is led up to the King by his orderly who directs his every move, and lame men go hobbling up to receive their medals, and we watch the King use his left hand to shake hands with one man, because the man’s right arm is gone, and then we go to St. Paul’s and see the Stars and Stripes carried up to the altar with the 64 British flags to be blessed at an “Empire day” service, while thousands and thousands of people sing “O God, our help in ages past.”

Do you wonder that our emotions are wearing us to a frazzle? It is not only feminine emotions that are affected, because there are those of our directors who said they could not go to St. Dunstan’s (the hospital school for blind soldiers) because they would not be able to sleep for nights afterwards. It is a mistake not to see such a wonderful place, however. There never was a more cheerful, hopeful place in the world. Sir Arthur Pearson, the blind man who runs the place and is its inspiration, is doing the kind of reconstructing of lives that probably has no parallel in the world. He is having the men taught not just the trades and occupations that blind men are taught in other places, but all sorts of things. We saw men learning anatomy, who after a year’s most strenuous training will be certificated masseurs. They take the regular examinations that the sighted people take and get excellent marks, and always get positions. There were men learning cobbling and carpentry, and chicken-farming and shorthand and typewriting and matmaking and weaving and basketry. The whole place was full of whistling, singing men who were going about their business as though they were like everybody else in the world instead of in total darkness forever. There were 500 of these men.

People tell me that English men and women have passed the emotional stage and have now settled down to work without the waste of riotous emotions and bursting feelings. It must be so or they would be dead, and they could not be doing the wonderful “war work” that each one of them is engaged in. From the highest to the lowest each woman has her work, her nursing, her preparing vegetables in hospitals (as Mrs. Waldorf Astor’s sister was doing), her making of supplies, her managing a hospital in a private house, her organizing “hostels” for nurses, raising funds, everything that one can conceive of as a job for women is being done, as never before. Of course the street-sweeping by women is a kind of war work, and the bus conductoring, and delivering mail and telegrams, and driving cars and ambulances. The streets are full of women in uniforms of all sorts, all smart and business-like. Women in England are coming into their own. What is to happen after the war when the men come back can well fill the minds of those who are given to prophesy changes, for a change is taking place here that can never be undone. In addition to women taking a new place in the working world, class distinctions are being broken down in a way that is making itself felt to those who a few years ago could never have dreamt that such a change was possible. A few days ago Miss Dunlop and I were lunching with a Lady H. on Carlton House Terrace, overlooking St. James Park. In front of her house is the famous Crimean monument, flanked on one side by the beautiful statue of Florence Nightingale and on the other side by a statue of the father of the husband of our hostess. In the course of the talk at the luncheon, which was most informal and frugal, the conversation turned to the most-talked-of subject at meals nowadays, her “work,” and Mrs. A., who has a thousand-bed hospital on her grounds at C. and who spends almost her entire time in the wards, not nursing but talking and cheering the men up, said the men don’t know it, but they are giving us far more than we are giving them, and Lady H. replied: “Our whole outlook is changing. Take, for instance, us here to-day. A short while ago you (meaning Miss D. and me) and we (meaning Mrs. A., Sir Harry L., the other guest, an elderly man who had recently lost his only son, and herself) would have had nothing in common, and now we have everything in the world.” This was said most simply and sincerely and was what she really felt.

I can’t tell you the number of people who have given us this same impression, and I can’t begin to tell you how they all have tried to express to us what they think about our coming over to help them. Many individuals have talked to us separately with tears in their eyes and the warmest handshakes, and we have had speeches made to us in theaters by actresses and managers, who have led the whole audience in cheers. We have been stopped constantly on the streets by people who have asked us if we were not some of the “American Sisters” and wasn’t there some way in which they could express to us their appreciation of what we had come to do. Could they not take us to their homes and give us tea, and could they not come to our hotel and take us out in groups to sightsee, and could they not send us tickets to this or that, and could they not make special arrangements to have Towers of London, and the Zoölogical Gardens and Lambeth Palaces and Houses of Parliament and such little things opened for us at unusual hours? We have been literally swamped with kindnesses. One officer has made himself almost a nuisance by giving us theater tickets for every single night and has been so insistent that every single nurse should go out to see something every night that we have come to dread his daily telephone calls or visits. Mrs. Page had a reception for us and Mrs. Whitelaw Reid, and the Archbishop of Canterbury asked us to tea, and we spent a wonderful afternoon at Cliveden, and Sir Thomas Lipton sent us all chocolates and invited some of us to motor out to his place. The Royal Overseas Officers Club gave a reception for us, the American Woman’s Club opened its doors to us. We have been sent choir seats at St. Paul’s for special services and special tickets to the Royal Investiture, and there have been a number of other things which lords and ladies of high degree have asked us to in greater or lesser groups.

To-morrow there is luncheon for me at Lady P.’s (a St. Louis woman whose sister I know), then a motor ride to somewhere on the Thames to see a hospital where the nursing is done by New Zealand women. In the evening there is dinner for Miss D. and me with Mrs. F., the editor of the _British Journal of Nursing_, and after that I hope to get out to Elizabeth M.’s to spend the night, as I am afraid that will be my last chance to see her, as we are due to leave Saturday the 9th. I spent a most beautiful Sunday with her last Sunday, going to church with her in the morning and just sitting and talking with her most of the afternoon. She has two splendid boys, Jim just four and John about 18 months. Jim, Sr., is doing three men’s work, it would seem, on the go from early morning till 10 or 11 at night. E. seems very well. She is this year most sensibly putting all her time into taking care of her men folks large and small. I had a little call this afternoon on Lady H.-H., and found her most lovely to look at and charming. We had such a nice talk and wasted no time on preliminaries. I am going to a special service with her in the morning at Westminster Abbey in St. Faith’s Chapel. My nurses are all pawing the ground, they are so eager to get to work.

Lovingly,

Julia.

HANG _Extract from letter from Lady H.-H. to Mrs. L. in New York_:--

“Thank you for sending me a letter by your most interesting and delightful niece. I wish I might have seen more of her and her wonderful contingent of nurses. I went to the Waldorf Hotel to talk to them all at 8:30 on Friday night. I can’t tell you what I said, but they seemed satisfied and I felt that it drew me nearer to you and your wonderful nation, and I wish it were possible to come to you and help you bear the heavy cross and suspense and anxiety. I know every step of the way and what it means, the long, weary march on the road of sorrow. But now God has let me see the glory and the triumph of it all, and I am no longer afraid.”

France, Monday, June 11, 1917.

Dearest Daddy and Mother and all of you:--

We have at last arrived! I wish I could tell you where, but I can’t. This much I believe I can say, that it is on the outskirts of a large city, a beautiful old city. Our particular hospital is on a race course, which looks now like a vast circus establishment or a county fair, for it is covered with rows and rows of canvas tents, each of which holds about 14 beds. All around the edge are lovely thick trees, sycamores and locust they seem to be, under which are small conical tents, small single-room shacks of canvas and paper, and long, single-story “huts,” as they are called. These huts are made of thin wood and roofed with tarred paper and are divided into single cubicles, the whole hut accommodating about 16 or 18 people. This part that I am describing is the nurses’ corner of the paddock. It is really very beautiful, for the grass and hedges and trees are so green, and along the walks are little flower-beds, and pansies and geraniums and roses are all in bloom. If one looked only at this corner of the huge place, one might imagine oneself in some summer camp at home. But just a few hundred yards away are those scores of tents full of wounded, and every night more are brought in and others are sent away. This of course is the most beautiful time of year. The trees are full of birds, who chirp and sing all day long. And every few minutes along the road on the other side of our hedge troops go marching by. Some have bands and some whistle their marching tunes, but all march on and on. There are any number of hospital establishments like this all around here, and also thousands of troops of all sorts are in camp near. We got just a little glimpse of the situation as we were driven out here in huge motor ambulances from the station.

We have not as yet gone over the hospital proper, for our luggage has not come and we have only our street uniforms, and the “Matron” says it is not wise for us to go into the hospital tent until we have our wash clothes. For the last two nights we have not had even our hand bags. When they come, they will be welcome. The lack of tooth brushes is our only serious lack. It is surprising how quickly one can accustom oneself to get along without frills like wash cloths and night-dresses! And as for new titles, I already no longer turn a hair when I am introduced as “Matron” Stimson. My bad and disrespectful children come to me all the time and say “Matron,” may I do this or that? That is the way the English sisters address their Chief Nurse. As we all arrived before we were expected my nurses have not been assigned to their regular rooms yet. Last night they all slept in some of the large hospital tents that were empty. My place was got ready for me and is most attractive. I have two shutoff rooms at the end of one of the “huts.” The whole width of the hut is 15 ft. The depth of my rooms is 11 ft. And there is a partition about 7 ft. high which cuts off my bedroom which is 6 ft. wide, leaving 9 ft., the width of the sitting-room. I will draw a kind of plan on the other side for those who are interested in the details. It is all unpainted, but, just think, there is an electric light in each room. That is far more luxury than I ever dreamed of. The furniture is of the simplest, but quite sufficient. I think the things that are in here now are to be taken away when the English sisters go, and our own equipment is to replace it. There are two casement windows in the sitting-room, and one in the bedroom. There are plain white curtains at them all, and there are small matting rugs on the floor. So you can see I am going to be most comfortable. There is a mess “hut,” where all the nurses eat, and eat very comfortably and well, we have already discovered. All we want now is work to do, and we can see that coming, enough to satisfy the most energetic and ambitious of our number. The nurses are all off wandering around this morning. Some have gone to the city and some are taking walks along the country roads. The roads are so full of soldiers, some of whom wear turbans and carry scimitars, that they feel a little strange and out of place, but that feeling is likely to wear off soon. We hope that our things and our officers will arrive soon, but there is no telling.

Now I must go back and tell you what I can of our crossing. Our last few days in London were like the first, chock full. I was particularly busy in helping make arrangements for sending one of our nurses home. It was a very sad and hard thing to have happened to the poor thing, and it was absolutely not her fault in any way but merely a technicality. When we were getting our passports at the American Embassy in London, those born in England had to go to the British Embassy. Mrs. S. went with the others, and in answer to their question explained that many years ago she had married a German, but that ten years ago she divorced him. He married again and later died. But according to British law she is a German subject, because she married a German. So they refused to let her go to France and she had to be sent back to the States. Rather hard on her? She took it splendidly and waved us off from the Waterloo Station on Saturday in the bravest way.

Both the Philadelphia Unit and ours left together on a special train for Southampton. It is something of a trick to get 120 women into busses and on trains, and all their baggage too. But we have got it down to a pretty good system. Our eight squad leaders each pass on orders to their subleaders, then they each find the three people that belong to them and they are entirely responsible for them, and all I have to do is to ask the eight squad leaders if all of their groups are ready. The scheme has worked beautifully. Yesterday at noon on the boat we had an unexpected order to be ready to disembark at once. And the whole 64 were lined up in squads inside of three minutes. We started out from Southampton in a tender, but were transferred to a large hospital ship. We were wonderfully taken care of on board of her, as we have been on all our travels. They gave us an excellent dinner, and gave over to our use, large wards. So each nurse had a comfortable bed for the night. It was on the hospital ship that we got separated from our bags. They had been brought in “lorries” from the hotel, then put in luggage vans on the train, then transferred to the tender and then to the hold of the hospital ship. We had not known we were going to spend the night on the ship. You see we never know anything in advance for more than a few minutes. It was one of the most beautiful evenings I have ever seen. We got off in the big ship about seven, but the sunset wasn’t really over until nearly ten. We were preceded by a destroyer and followed by one, and flying all around were aëroplanes. Sometimes we could see as many as ten or twelve. We were told that during the evening our destroyer in front rammed a submarine and stove in her own bow and had to be replaced by another, but other than that there was no excitement of any sort. About ten thirty I had all of my flock tucked in, with their dresses and shoes off and life belts handy. There wasn’t an awful lot of sleeping done because at four we entered the harbor of Havre with much blowing of whistles, as it was raining and misty by that time. After breakfast we hung around on the boat, watching the unloading of the luggage and the separation of the belongings of the two Units. We also watched the taking on board of some trainloads of wounded soldiers who were being taken back to “Blighty.” That is what they call England. The Sisters here say that what they want most of all is their “Blighty tickets.” Just at 12, when we were about to go to lunch, we received word to get off the boat at once and get into motor ambulances which would take us to a station, where we were to take a train for about a three hours’ ride. So with a hasty farewell to our friends of No. 10 we went off in the rain. We were pretty hungry and tired when we arrived at our city, but before the big motor ambulances came for us we had time to go to a pleasant little café garden and have high tea. Bread and butter, cold meat, and tea set us up immediately and we all felt like new women when we set off on our four-mile drive. Captain Allison and Chaplain Davis had been ordered to accompany us in our hasty departure, so they are the only officers of our Unit who are here with us. We have just heard that our things are to arrive this afternoon.