Part 7

The story of the Matron’s day is an endless chronicle: ceaseless care for the critical cases under her charge, a hundred daily problems to be solved in organisation of personnel, stores, equipment, not forgetting entertainments, which form a great feature. Besides coping with the daily round, she must always maintain an open mind for fresh ideas and arrangements and new experiments in nursing. Above all, she must keep the serenity, rapidity of decision, firmness, and sense of humour which are essential in her responsible office. Miss Holden manages to combine these qualities--she is a woman who must be obeyed without question, but who may yet be approached by the humblest worker in the hospital with the certainty of finding sympathy and justice.

Work in a base hospital is perhaps the most unselfish of all hospital work to-day. There is none of the excitement and constant change of the work nearer to the front; day by day the routine of the wards goes on, unceasing in its calls on body and mind, unending in its responsibility, demanding and receiving in its fulfilment the best that women know how to give.

Colonel Bruce Porter paid his women workers a well-earned compliment when he reported recently: “Since the early days of the war the standard of nursing and care of the wards has been maintained by means of the loyalty of the reduced staff to their chiefs, and the whole of the women here have been and are magnificent. To keep this big crowd of women workers at their best could only be done by a woman of exceptional ability, and I am fortunate in having that type of woman as my matron.”

XIX

MRS. GASKELL, C.B.E., AND THE HON. MRS. ANSTRUTHER

The supply of literature to our soldiers has been an undertaking of gigantic proportions. It was a woman who in the first few days of war had the insight and imagination to realise the part that books would play in the soldiers’ lives, and the organisations for their supply which have grown up to keep pace with the ever-increasing demand have been carried on almost entirely by women workers. The collection and distribution of books to the troops is now undertaken mainly by four organisations. The Camps Library works under the War Office to supply the troops quartered both at home and in every theatre of war abroad. The War Library of the Joint Societies of the British Red Cross and the Order of St. John supplies the sick and wounded soldiers in hospitals, hospital trains, and hospital ships. The Chamber of Commerce supplies the Grand Fleet, and the British and Foreign Sailors’ Society sends to the merchant ships and smaller ships.

The need for books in hospitals speaks for itself, while for our fighting men reading is often the only form of recreation. In the various theatres of war abroad they are entirely dependent for reading matter on what may be sent to them from home. The need for light literature and fiction is endless, to turn their thoughts from the horror or the monotony of war.

The ways in which the books are obtained are many and varied. After some months of war, the question of keeping up the supply for distribution by the libraries became a momentous one. At first the newspaper appeals brought in many thousands of volumes, financial contributions for buying books were sent, and generous gifts were received from publishers. But these supplies could not continue indefinitely on a sufficiently large scale. A wonderful solution to the problem came in August, 1915.

The Postmaster-General (Mr. Herbert Samuel) was struck, on visiting some of the camps and on seeing the men in the trenches, by the great value to them of the books already sent out. It occurred to him that the post-offices of the country might be used to become collecting depôts for the Libraries, and in consultation with Colonel Sir Edward Ward and the Hon. Mrs. Anstruther a scheme was evolved by which anyone could hand a book or magazine, unwrapped and unaddressed, over the counter of any post-office in the kingdom for the benefit of our soldiers. The collections thus made are divided in agreed proportions between the four societies already mentioned.

The War Library started work quickly. In the first week of the war, Mrs. Gaskell, her brother, Mr. Beresford Melville, and a small group of friends, made an appeal in the newspapers for literature for the sick and wounded. This was the first of all the great war appeals. The response was so rapid and so overwhelming that, even in the large house lent by Lady Battersea for the accommodation of the books, problems of space and of methods of distribution at once arose. But a satisfactory system was quickly evolved, and with the assistance of Dr. Hagberg Wright, librarian of the London Library, it has developed into an organisation of clockwork perfection.

Started entirely as a private undertaking, the War Library reached such proportions that by November, 1915, it was considered advisable to affiliate it to the Joint Societies of the British Red Cross and the Order of St. John, thus ensuring financial support and official facilities of distribution. The work, however, has been carried on throughout by Mrs. Gaskell and a voluntary staff of women helpers, whose duties include the unpacking and sorting of the books; the cleaning and mending of soiled and torn copies; the selection of books by a careful system which ensures that each package shall contain a choice of books and magazines to suit varied types of readers; and the packing, addressing, and despatch to the hospitals. Under the present arrangements 1810 hospitals are supplied in England and a fortnightly consignment of books is sent to 272 hospitals in France, besides the cross-Channel hospital service and hospital ships for the Colonies and foreign service. Hospitals in East Africa, Bombay, Mesopotamia, Egypt, Salonika, and Malta receive every month thousands of books and magazines, the continuous supply travelling smoothly to its destination of ambulance, casualty clearing station, or base hospital. Under the post-office scheme, several thousand books, papers, and magazines are received weekly, but in addition many gifts of books are sent direct to the War Library. There is also a large department of the War Library for the purchase of new books to mix with those given. A touching and remarkably successful feature, a suggestion of Mr. Rudyard Kipling, is a thin scrap-book for men who are very ill, made by devoted helpers amongst the public, in answer to a special appeal. A small department for games and puzzles has also been started in response to urgent requests from the hospitals.

Efforts are always made by the workers at the War Library to meet the individual needs of special cases brought to their notice, and this personal touch with patients in hospital is of infinite value. Men with long months of life in bed before them have been enabled, by means of the books thus provided, to study for particular professions and trades. “It is our special boast,” says Mrs. Gaskell, “that no request for literature has ever been refused by the War Library, even to selecting and packing 20,000 books in twenty-four hours, or again such a request as we had from no less than three Colonial hospitals, who asked for the _Encyclopædia Britannica_ in forty volumes!”

The effects of the work of the War Library are so far-reaching as to be incalculable. It is safe to say that no small group of women, such as Mrs. Gaskell and her helpers, can have done more throughout the war to cheer the lonely and depressed, to amuse and interest the weary, and to turn the minds of men in pain to fresh channels which help them to forget their suffering.

The work of the Camps Library was started in October, 1914, and now consists of the colossal task of providing a systematic and regular supply of literature to the whole of the British Army. No application is necessary--a box or bale, varying in quantity according to the number of men, is sent out automatically about once every month or six weeks to every unit--however small--in every theatre of war. The scheme was originated by Colonel Sir Edward Ward, when making arrangements for the reception of the Overseas troops on Salisbury Plain. He then saw how necessary it was for the men to have books and magazines, and he asked the Hon. Mrs. Anstruther to assist him in forming libraries for the use of the men in their leisure hours, to relieve the monotony of the long evenings in isolated camps. From this comparatively small beginning the present system has grown up, and now every commanding officer can form a lending library of bound books for the use of his men, in every camp or regimental institute at home or abroad. These libraries of bound books are in addition to the bales of general literature which go out from the Camps Library to all units serving with the British Expeditionary Force, the Mediterranean Expeditionary Force, and the Indian Expeditionary Force. Each box or bale contains the greatest possible variety of literature, from a classic or standard novel to the most highly coloured penny novelette. Magazines and picture papers are always included--in fact, there is in each box sufficient variety to suit all tastes. Books and magazines are passed from unit to unit--till they literally fall to pieces, for the life of a book under war conditions cannot be a long one,--and the request for “more” is loud and persistent.

Besides these automatic consignments, special applications may be made by the chaplains of all denominations attached to the armies in every theatre of war, who then receive for distribution fortnightly boxes in England or France, or monthly bales on the remoter fronts. The Camps Library also supplies light literature to those soldiers whose need is greater than any others’--the prisoners of war; and large libraries have been formed at most of the prisoners’ camps in Germany. Prisoners’ literature is further supplied under the Board of Education, which has started a special department for sending them books on educational and technical subjects, and prisoners’ individual requests are dealt with there.

When it is realised that since the beginning of the war over 9,000,000 publications have been handled at the Camps Library, some idea of the scope of the work may be gained. It speaks worlds for Mrs. Anstruther’s powers that she has been able to establish a smooth-running organisation on such a gigantic scale, but she and her helpers are more than rewarded for their efforts in the realisation of how much their work has meant to the soldiers. Appreciation and thanks pour in from all parts of the world. The reception of the books can be best described in a soldier’s own words: “It was a very wet day, and most of the men were lying or sitting about with nothing to do. When I said I had a box of books to lend, they were round me in a moment like a lot of hounds at a worry, and in less than no time each had got a book--at least, as far as they would go round. Those who hadn’t been quick enough were trying to get the lucky ones to read aloud. It would have done you good to see how the men enjoy getting the books.... Can we have more, as many more as you can spare?” Another officer writes: “My battery has been in action since the beginning of November, 1914, and I can honestly say that no enterprise, public or private, has helped us more to keep the men amused and contented than the books sent by the Camps Library.” Letters such as these are eloquent testimony to workers whose labour has accomplished such a fine achievement.

XX

MISS LILIAN RUSSELL AND MISS ALICE BROWN

Miss Lilian Russell and Miss Alice Brown are amongst the ladies who are working in one of the branches of the Y.M.C.A. work in France--the hostels for the relatives of the wounded. The medical officers in the various hospitals in France are empowered to telegraph to the parents, wife, or sweetheart of any soldier whose condition they consider critical. At the request of the military authorities, the Y.M.C.A. undertook nearly two years ago the work of meeting, housing, and caring for the relations during their stay. The sight of their own people has undoubtedly saved the lives of many patients by reviving their desire to live, even in cases which the doctors had thought to be hopeless.

Many women are giving themselves with the utmost devotion to the work of managing these hostels. The following accounts are given as typical workers’ experiences.

Miss Alice Brown and her sister, Mrs. Ballantyne, have been in charge of a hostel for many months, and no more poignant human experience can be imagined. At the end of ten months over 1200 people had stayed with them, though there is accommodation for only about twenty people at a time. Miss Brown and Mrs. Ballantyne look after their visitors entirely during their stay, and with two or three voluntary helpers they keep the house and cook for a household which sometimes numbers fifty. Writing of her life at the hostel, Miss Brown says: “We have all our meals with our visitors, and family prayers after breakfast bring a quaint and cosmopolitan household together. They come from all parts of Great Britain and Ireland. There are also wives who have followed their husbands from Canada to England, and brothers of New Zealand and Australian boys who have been sent straight down from the line. They stay with us as long as the O.C. at the hospital thinks necessary. The patients are not usually told that their relations are coming until they are actually on the spot, and then great are the joys of meeting.”

Sometimes visitors have stayed with Miss Brown at the hostel for many weeks, and on one occasion a baby was born there, whose mother had come out to see her badly wounded husband.

From time to time there come the tragedies of the relations who arrive too late, and then it is that the ladies of the hostels can comfort and befriend these poor stricken people, go with them to the military funeral, and help them to return to England. Indeed it is mostly sad work, for the relatives are sent for only in the very dangerous cases, and sometimes they stay on through weeks of anguish and suspense; but Miss Brown strives to keep up an atmosphere of cheerfulness and courage, following the wonderful examples from the hospital wards, and there is an unwritten law in the hostel that no one must break down. As an illustration, Miss Brown once described an occasion when she found a girl sobbing bitterly in the hostel sitting-room. On asking what was the matter, she was told that the girl’s brother was to have his foot amputated. “Oh, that’s nothing,” said Miss Brown, and was astonished afterwards, when she had comforted her visitor, at what must have seemed heartlessness on her part; but the loss of a foot is indeed nothing as compared with many cases.

Miss Russell’s work is somewhat different in character, for the hostel which she manages is at one of the chief bases, and is the clearing station at which all the relatives coming to France arrive. From this base they are then posted on to the various hospitals, some having to be sent eighty miles by motor. The work here is very strenuous, for it means perpetual comings and goings, and there are always twenty to thirty relatives resident at this hostel, besides those who pass through. The workers can never, at any hour of the day or night, feel safe from fresh arrivals, for whom food and accommodation have to be provided pending the uncertain departures of boats and trains. Miss Russell reports that in most cases the relatives are touchingly grateful. A welcome for all who come is never lacking, but the work of hostel helpers is exhausting, physically and mentally, and relentless in its demands on their sympathy. One of Miss Russell’s privileges is a permit giving her the entry into all the hospitals, so that she is able to keep in touch with some of the soldiers after their people have returned, if they are, as she says, “homesick, and in need of a little extra spoiling.” In a letter to a friend she writes: “The opportunities this bit of one’s work gives are inestimable, and the example of the patient, faithful work the sisters do is the greatest help and comfort. Everything, I think, pales before their glory--second only to that of the soldiers in courage, sacrifice and devotion. As to the men themselves, I can’t write of what they almost all are--how self-forgetful, modest and unselfish down to the very gates of death.”

To those who wait in the shadow of suspense and anxiety which hangs over so many English homes, it is indeed a consolation to know that, if their soldier should be lying in danger, his own people will be able to go to him. This privilege is available for rich and poor alike, the Government being responsible for the cost of their journey and visit, however long the relations may stay.

XXI

MISS DOROTHY MATHEWS AND MISS URSULA WINSER

At a great women’s meeting held recently in London, Mr. Prothero, the Minister for Agriculture, used the following words:

“I do not pretend that work on the land is attractive to many women. It is hard work--fatiguing, backaching, monotonous, dirty work in all sorts of weather. It is poorly paid, the accommodation is rough, and those who undertake it have to face physical discomforts. In all respects it is comparable to the work your men-folk are doing in the trenches at the front. It is not a case of ‘lilac sunbonnets.’ There is no romance in it: it is prose.”

But in spite of all the difficulties which agricultural work presents for women, they are taking it up in ever-increasing numbers, in view of the country’s necessity. The success of women in agriculture is largely due to a splendid organisation, the Women’s National Land Service Corps, formed privately, but now working in close co-operation with the Government departments. This corps first advertised the necessity for the employment of women on the land, and initiated opportunities for their training on a large scale.

Miss Dorothy Mathews and Miss Margaret Hughes are two typical workers, educated women used to comfortable surroundings, who have come forward to fill the places of the men who have gone to fight. Miss Mathews and Miss Hughes are engaged in the heaviest forms of agricultural work, which, however, they report to be quite within the power of women. The healthy outdoor life and the work itself naturally tend to increase strength, “and,” said Miss Mathews recently, “we are astonished at the ease with which we do things that seemed almost impossible some months ago.”

The usual farm day starts with milking, and when this is done the serious work begins, varying according to the season of the year. The field work is of course the heaviest, but Miss Mathews and Miss Hughes each takes out her own team of horses for ploughing and harrowing, and as they are working in a very hilly part of the country, in Herefordshire, this is exceptionally hard. Writing to a friend recently, Miss Hughes said: “On our first morning at the farm we were put straight on to ploughing a field up on the hills, with a glorious view across the Wye Valley and right on to the Malvern Hills. Happily, we managed quite well, though we were in a ‘blue funk,’ having only our one month of training-college experience to go on. We went on ploughing practically every day, and our last piece of work before the frost set in was to help plough up an eight-acre piece that had been under grass for eleven years--it was a business!”

As well as ploughing and sowing the fields, these girls do manure carting and spreading, grinding, and root-pulling. They also groom the horses, mix the food, feed the stock, and clean out the cowsheds and stables. Describing another branch of her work recently, Miss Mathews wrote: “During the severe weather we had a strenuous time thrashing. All hands were requisitioned, and the engine was kept going from 7.30 a.m. till 6 p.m., with only an hour’s break for lunch. This, of course, meant very hard days and long hours, not to mention the dust. Miss Hughes and I were put on to pitching from the rick, and mighty strenuous work it is. It was amusing to discover that we had the most tiring job; naturally there wasn’t a rush for it by those who knew.” In addition to their farm work, Miss Mathews and Miss Hughes do their own cooking and housework; therefore they are really doing a man’s work outside, but without the prepared meal and the immediate rest that most men can look forward to after work.

Another branch of agriculture which women are beginning to take up with success is work with heavy motor tractors.

Miss Ursula Winser and Miss Mollie Jameson are good examples of women who do this sort of work. These girls have been driving a tractor-plough in Shropshire. They volunteered for the work at a time when the local farmers were in despair at their inability to use the only tractor in the district, the last available driver having been called up for military service. The girls had had some experience of motors, Miss Winser having been “chauffeur and odd man” when working as a V.A.D. in a hospital at the beginning of the war. She was not accustomed, however, to a type of car of which the starting-handle alone weighs many pounds. Moreover, in order to be taken along a road from one field to another, a tractor requires to have the “spuds” taken off the wheels. These are strips of steel, put on with two bolts and nuts each, and there are twelve spuds on each wheel, usually thickly covered with mud and oil, so their removal is no drawing-room job. But Miss Winser and her friend were not to be daunted. In spite of their lack of experience, and further hampered by a large audience, which assembled, in a spirit inclined to mockery, to watch their efforts during their first days of work, they ploughed on in the most literal sense, conquering their difficulties and gradually acquiring mastery over the tractor. Miss Winser and Miss Jameson take the work of driving the tractor and managing the plough by turns, the former being very hot and the latter very cold work. They have now worked the tractor for some months, taking it over considerable distances to farms all through the district. They are able to plough from four to five acres of land in a day, and have recently started training some of the local girls in this work.

XXII

MISS EVELYN LYNE AND MISS MADGE GREG

In addition to their great hospital work, the Joint Societies of the British Red Cross and the Order of St. John have established many of what may be called the additional links in the long hospital chain which stretches with such perfect organisation from the spot where the soldier is wounded on the battlefield to the point where he is able to return with renewed strength to duty. The accounts which follow of the experiences of two workers illustrate the similar lives of many other “V.A.Ds.”