A Volunteer Nurse on the Western Front

by Olive Dent

  ‘Pewcy’ the other boys called him, though that was not the N. or M. given to him in his baptism. ‘A regular entertainment he is,’ said a Kiplingesque soldier, ‘a fair Daisy,’ – a criticism begot by the fact that Pewcy talked in italics. He used the latest slang, he brushed his hair an alarming number of times a day. He used to say ‘Excuse me,’ ‘Allow me,’ ‘Will you please?’ and ‘Do you mind?’ In a word, Pewcy was genteel, and gentility is the one thing at a discount on the Western Front.

  The other men laughed at and made a great butt of him, and one of them used to imitate how Pewcy would say in the trenches, ‘There’s a beastly Boche, haw. What shall I do, haw? Shall I kill him or shall I smack his beastly face, haw?’

  Poor Pewcy! When the July push came his regiment ‘went over,’ and he was one who proved himself a soldier and a man.

  ‘Canada’ had been blanket bathed, and duly installed in bed before I had had time to give him more than the briefest attention. Then, however, I went to see if he was warm and comfortable.

  ‘Comfortable, sister,’ with a blissful sigh of contentment. ‘I’ve never slept between sheets for four years,’ a circumstance which I asked him to explain.

  He had been in Canada three years before war broke out, had ‘had it pretty rough,’ had been fur-trapping three hundred and ninety miles north of the Hudson Bay. On the outbreak of war he had come south, and joined the army without having a night in an hotel, so one could quite understand how he and sheets had been strangers for so long.

  He came at a time when we were having a short-lived lull, and I had time to listen and to beguile him to talk of his trails, his shacks, the habits of the bear, the wolf, the lynx and the sable. He used to tell me of a snow-clad earth, a racing dog sleigh, the cold pinge of an atmosphere fifty or sixty degrees below zero, until I imagined it was a book of Jack London’s to which I was listening.

  Then, unfortunately, the lull came to an end. Convoys were arriving, beds were wanted, ‘Canada’ would take longer to get well than A.S. conditions can deal with, so he was regretfully evacuated to England.

  He came from the Midlands, and described every one as a ‘card.’ Certainly he himself was a ‘card.’ He was transferred to the surgical hut from a marquee via the operating theatre and was placed on the bed, a limp figure reeking of chloroform. A few minutes later he had shot up in bed, and astounded us all by demanding in a loud voice, ‘Who’s swinging the lead?’ this evidently prompted by the remark of a passing orderly.

  ‘Here, lie down, colonel,’ said this same orderly, helping to suit the action to the word with considerable dispatch, for the patient had a head wound.

  ‘I’m not a colonel, I’m a full-blown private.’

  ‘All right. Lie down, full-blown private.’

  Quietude for a while as he gazed round. Then, – for he had been transferred to a ward where we had all the head cases – ‘I’m in the wrong dug-out. Who brought me here? I want to go to the other dug-out for my tabs. I left two hundred tabs there. Can’t I go, sister?’

  His memory for a few days was rather uncertain, and one of his idiosyncrasies was to affirm that he had had nothing to eat. One afternoon he was telling me he was ‘starved,’ and I said ‘Oh, come, now, surely not. Tell me what you have had to-day.’

  ‘Well, I’ve had my temperature and my pulse, some medicine and a pill, a bath and my bed made, and a needle in my arm. But that’s all.’

  I admitted that it certainly wasn’t a very satisfying diet, but since I had personally fed him at dinner time with a large plateful of minced chicken, mashed potatoes, and bread, followed by two plentiful helpings of delicious custard pudding, I really did not feel unduly anxious about any dietetic deficiencies.

  After a few days he got along in truly marvellous fashion, and to our inquiries was always ‘A.1 at Lloyds, sister,’ ‘Splendid, I’m only swinging it now. I’ll be able to put off my turban’ – his head bandages – ‘indoors very shortly, shan’t I, sister?’ He ‘chipped’ the other men ceaselessly, and soon was in such good form that, to our loss and his delight, he was whisked off to Blighty.

  There are lots and lots of other boys, too, whom it is a pleasure to remember.

  ‘Ike’ – he had somewhat of an out-size in noses – was a delightful man, just a common every-day sort of Tommy, with no ‘birth,’ little education, and, on the surface, nothing particularly attractive about him. Yet there was something extremely likeable in his nature. I suppose it was ‘jest his way.’

  There was a boy, too, who hailed from ‘Noo Yark,’ and who guessed he wasna goinga stay outa precious scrap like this, especially if he could help a Britisher and do down a durned German. The dressing tray he alluded to as ‘this dope,’ and the Medical Officer as ‘the quack.’ He used to talk of handing people the lemon, and one night when he had toothache, he expatiated on the virtues of a dandy dentist of his down Pittsburg way. A man he suspected of swinging the lead he referred to as a great husky guy, and the Blighty cases he spoke of as the men who were recommended for shipment to England.

  ‘Call ’em live freight and be done with it, Yank,’ the other boys suggested.

  There was an acute gastritis boy, too, one who was so ill he could not take the bananas I was handing round to all the other patients, so as I passed his bed I dropped a half-blown rose on his pillow.

  ‘Oh, sister, it reminds me of home and my garden,’ and he picked it up and kissed it – a pathetic little action I pretended not to see.

  Then again there was ‘Chikko’ – as the men dubbed him – aged seventeen, who laughed his way through life, and who refused to cure himself of the excellent habit even if there was a silly old war going on. ‘Wings’ was in the ‘Royal Flying Corpse, sister. I hope you’ll always keep a bed ready for me here, as I’m sure to drop in one night, accent on the “drop.” Possibly I’ll come through the roof of the sisters’ mess, and won’t there be a mess! Pardon, sister.’

  Excellent boys all of them. It has been an education and a pleasure to know them, and to work among them.

  Chapter XVIII

  Active Service in the Rain

  THE MORNING DAWNED bright and warm, so warm that the up-patients took out their chairs and sat on the grass which does duty as lawn, while the tent walls were rolled back for the benefit and pleasure of the bed patients.

  The sun was so ingratiating that it wooed one or two boys into doing ‘a bit o’ weeding’ in our ‘garden,’ and into transplanting some horticultural specimens, so anaemic and so badly suffering from debility that their genus could not be determined. ‘And good transplanting weather, too,’ prophesied the rheumatic patients. ‘We shall have rain before the day is out.’

  About noon the rain comes, sending us all on duty after lunch, fully armed against its torrential attentions – two pairs of stockings, gum boots, shortest dress, belted mackintosh, together with sou’wester in place of, or over, our cap, since diving in and out of dripping tents soon gives one’s stiffest, starchiest cap the appearance of a time-worn dish rag, added to which is the obvious danger of achieving a portentous cold.

  One goes on the rounds with a medicine basket filled with half-a-dozen bottles, a couple of medicine glasses, towel, and small rinsing bowl. No sooner does one leave the tent than a particularly spiteful gust of wind comes, raises one’s mackintosh like a balloon, and flaps the towel – which has hitherto been folded, but is now rebellious – with stinging lashes on one’s hand, the rain pinging on one’s face with seemingly delightful venom.

  One struggles along and nearly tumbles into each tent, the wind is so typically March. Then another round is made with mouthwashes, gargles, and inhalations, the while one gets nicely soaked dipping under the tent eaves, and has rivulets running off one’s sou’wester and down one’s back. Next follows the round for straightening, and possibly remaking beds, with the consequent stripping of the mackintosh and, perhaps, sou’wester in each tent. Meantime the rain has gained in vigour and persistence, so much so, t
hat it finds out the faulty parts in the tent roof and walls.

  The orderly is called, and together we go round seeing to the closing of those ventilators which are allowing the rain to enter, placing bowls to catch innocuous drippings, pulling forward beds out of harm’s – and the rain’s – way.

  Teatime comes, and so does the ward sergeant with ‘warnings’ for the England cases – ‘a quarter-of-an-hour, sister.’ One hurries from tent to tent, completes the filling-in of Blighty tickets, sees that the quite naturally excited travellers have had a plentiful tea, and that their kit is quite correct, hurries to the duty tent for a better scarf than the one with which a departing hero is contenting his happy self, bids goodbye all round, and splashes back to a tent, where an orderly has just reported four new admissions.

  Temperatures are taken, blanket baths set in progress. Then one wades back to the nursing quarters through a paddock pied with rain-spattered daisies, dripping cowslips, and celandine. A gust of wind and rain considerably assist one’s entry into the hut containing our bunks.

  One throws off sou’wester and mackintosh, draws off gum boots, and attempts to remove, at least, a small portion of the thick clayey mud with which they are richly encrusted. Then comes a change of stockings and dress, leaving the other woefully bedraggled skirt spread out to dry over one’s camp bath, and enviously commending the forethought of the wise virgin who has had an over-skirt made from a ground sheet. Then off to the mess room for a much appreciated cup of tea before going back to duty.

  Here trouble meets us at the outset, for a particularly energetic gust of wind has blown down the duty tent, and we find an orderly and a medical officer crawling under the flapping tarpaulin preparatory to righting matters. The pole is soon hoisted, and while great execution is being done with a tent mallet, every human being in sight begins chasing after the diet-sheets, temperature charts, Blighty tickets, and laboratory slips which, presumably glad to escape from the privacy of the duty tent, are rioting giddily overhead. A tantalising chase it is, for many of the papers settle just long enough for us to almost reach them before whirling waywardly up, and successfully out of reach again.

  A return to the duty tent shows us, oh! what a fall was there. We look round, and ‘I would that my tongue could utter the thoughts that arise in me.’ Inhalers and measures have been broken, medicine bottles overturned and smashed, the medicine cupboard has suffered in the encounter and has disgorged much of its crowded contents, so that on the floor in an unsavoury-looking stream of tincture of iodine, tine. benz. co., methyl sal., and mist, alba., are to be found one-grain tablets of calomel, No. 9 pills, No. 13 pills, A.P.C. powders, soda bicarb. tablets, and similar little delicacies.

  THE ORDERLY OFFICER TO THE RESCUE

  A comparative degree of order being restored in a superlative degree of haste, the marquees are once more visited. Ground sheets are pulled across the doors of the tent, the lights are lighted, gramophones tinkle. Darkness has come, the planks laid between the tents to serve as footpaths become sodden, and hurrying feet occasionally skid and sideslip on them.

  Once something furry scuttles by within an inch of one’s toe, and one has visual example of the familiar expression, ‘a half-drowned rat.’ Another round of the tents with gargles, inhalations, and medicines, and then an hour’s work with beds. This up-patient has not noticed that the rain has been falling on his pillow. The position of his bed is altered, and a new pillow obtained. Drippings have been falling on the overturned portion of sheet on another bed, so that must be remade in part, and a clean, dry sheet substituted. Another bed has had its counterpane slightly splashed, but a folded towel inserted between it and the blanket meets every possibility of danger.

  And so on we go until we are assured that every patient is warm, dry, and comfortable, and likely to remain so.

  ‘A dirty night for you, sister,’ the boys remark as we scramble into trench-coat and sou’wester.

  But we have grown quite philosophical and stoical about the weather, besides isn’t rain good for the complexion? And one day, I suppose, we shall remember we once possessed a complexion and will want to regain it, – in those far-off coming days après la guerre.

  Chapter XIX

  Sounds of Hospital Life

  OF COURSE IT would be comme il faut and according to tradition to say that the sound that reached one’s waking ears was the crowing of the cock, but, primarily, I am a truth-at-any-price person, and, secondarily – no, primarily, again – I am of the dormouse variety.

  Thus, it takes a heavily footed batman with big army boots to parade the hut several times and splash relays of water into several waiting jugs before my sleepy ears are assaulted. Then, indeed, I do hear the cock crow, for in the nursing quarters we possess two spoiled darlings of bantams, Christopher and Emma, and Christopher is very vociferous, very lusty in the lung.

  A hurried douche and dressing, with sundry scufflings in adjacent bunks, reminding one of the sound of so many horses tossing in loose boxes, then comes the mess bell. Breakfast and then another bell, for our staff is so large that a later breakfast had to be instituted for ‘two-stripers,’ a concessionary half-hour which has led sleepy V.A.D.s to wish they had had the perspicacity to make a profession of nursing.

  In the wards in the early morning one loses the sense of sound of outside things, but when temperatures are taken, medicines given, beds made and tent walls rolled back, one becomes conscious of ‘Lef … wheel,’ ‘Eye … srite,’ ‘Form foss,’ and the dull thud of marching feet.

  Bang, bang … snap, snap, snap … spit, spit, from up the Bull-ring way, continues so evenly one loses the realisation of it. The medical officer, gargles, inhalations, foments and special medicines close one’s ears until the clatter of crockery warns one for ‘Come to the cook-house door, boys. Come to the cook-house door.’ We hurry to cut thin bread, and butter for a patient who would like ‘something to help down the milk,’ to get toast snippets for another to coax down some beef-tea, and to see that certain special diets are duly administered.

  In the afternoon ‘another letter from Martha, another letter from home,’ urges one or two boy-blues to put on their long overcoats – invariably to be greeted with ‘Chelsea pensioner’ – and go for the mail. ‘Let’s get out the gramophone and have a tune,’ suggests one of the boys.

  What a boon gramophones are! – as great a boon as that of card games. We are eternally grateful to the French king for whose benefit the card game was originated, and we equally bless the inventor of the gramophone.

  Our gramophones suffer from the common complaint of most people and things on active service – they are sadly overworked. So much so that after a few very crowded hours of glorious fame they grow capricious, wilful, and finally stubborn.

  But the boys are capable of marvellous achievements in the way of repairs. Once the spring of the gramophone broke – I need scarcely use the word ‘once,’ for this is a most frequent accident. On this particular occasion, however, I was rather distressed about the occurrence, for the gramophone was borrowed, and to acquire another spring takes much persuasion, a wait of three or four weeks, and, incidentally, twenty or so francs. The boys assured me it would probably be very easily mended, and I left the matter so.

  Returning later to the marquee, I was horrified. A couple of newspapers were spread over the table, and, apparently, a kind of engineer’s bench was strewn all over the papers.

  Every screw in the gramophone which would unscrew was unscrewed. Every pin that would come away had come away. Every fitted part that would undo was undone. Practically every patient had his finger – or, worse still, his ten fingers – in the mélange, while the two bed patients at either side of the table were tendering much unwanted and disregarded advice, and soiling the sheets by their examination of loose nuts.

  Then, cook-house bugle sounded, and they gathered up the scattered fragments and wrapped them in the newspapers.

  Tea presumably refreshed and strengthened them
from the fray, for after tea they got the spring from its easing and put it in the fire. Then they brought it out and hit it with a tent mallet, and the spring recoiled and hit one of them. They broke a pair of scissors and a jack-knife, bent a tin-opener and a bed-key, utilised the end of a milk tin, some string, and a bent safety-pin – but they mended the gramophone.

  The men quite often whistle and hum to the tune of the gramophone, and sometimes they sing and harmonise so sweetly. Once they did so to the music of – a mouth-organ! Now I had always been trained to a great aloofness and something of an intolerance with respect to the mouth-organ. But, it seems, there are mouth-organs and mouth-organs. This one was evidently of the and variety.

  For a time I was amused at the rapt expression, the absorbed air, and twisted features of the player, as with head so much on one side as to be almost parallel with his shoulder he passionately exhorted the instrument to sound.

  Then from one tune to another, he drifted into ‘Home, Sweet Home.’ One boy began to whistle very softly. Then another, and another, until all joined in verse and refrain, verse and refrain.

  I was quietly rubbing a patient, and not an alien sound was to be heard in the ward. The last note died away, melancholy and lingering, and for quite a minute no sound was made.

  Then we all looked at one another, some one laughed, and we all joined. There are occasions in life when it is wise to laugh.

  Chapter XX

  More From My Diary

  TOMMY IS A sentimental cuss. A certain nurse took a bunch of forget-me-nots down to the ward yesterday morning, and last night, in rather mystified tones, remarked that it seemed very depleted. A huge grin from one end of the marquee to the other! Then confession.