Life was not easy for the women of Paris, but they bore themselves with great dignity and courage. Their attitude was calm and reticent; they took over men’s posts in the shops and work-rooms, or on the trams and railways, as a matter of course, and carried out their duties with quiet efficiency.
The uniform of the Women’s Hospital Corps soon became known, and secured a cordial reception for its members in the bureaux and offices which they had to visit, as well as on the boulevards. Strangers would offer them gifts of socks and mittens. Old ladies, with tears running down their cheeks, would lift their outer skirts and rummage in the poche intérieur to bestow a few francs with a blessing upon them. An Englishman, choking with emotion, put two sovereigns into a doctor’s hand as she passed him on the stairs of the Hôtel. Shopkeepers asked about ‘les blessés’ and sent presents of sweets and biscuits. The greengrocer added an extra cauliflower to the purchase! Flower-women ran after them and pressed bunches of roses into their hands.
At the entrance of the Hôtel when ambulances were unloading, elderly men in silk hats and black kid gloves would crowd round and offer to carry the stretchers, or would follow the bearers inside, with the kit—often a very dirty kit—in their arms. The sight of the suffering moved them so that they turned aside and wept. They brought violets and roses and cigarettes for the men. They stood outside the doors to listen to them singing, and they wrung the hands of the doctors silently and went out. The people were deeply moved, but not cast down. They had settled down to war, and even then they were confident of victory, since the English were with them.
The cordiality of the people, the general sympathy and the inspiration of a common cause, combined with the beauty of Paris and the charm of the autumn weather to make these days a wonderful memory.
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The organisation of the hospital proceeded rapidly, and the amount of heavy surgery and acute sepsis which came in taxed the energy and resources of the surgical staff. Dr. Garrett Anderson acted as chief surgeon and Dr. Gazdar took charge of the officers’ ward. Other workers fell into their places and a sort of routine was gradually evolved. The duties of administrator, or Médecin-en-Chef, fell to Dr. Flora Murray, and when she was not issuing stores or counting linen, she would be receiving the countless visitors who came to see the wards.
The French Red Cross wished the hospital to have a directeur, and for this purpose they attached to it M. Aubry, a French gentleman who was at leisure during the closure of the stock exchange. He spoke French only, and his duties as director were purely nominal. He was considerate and genial, and the staff became very fond of him. He had a son in the Dragoons of whom he was immensely proud; and the arrival of a grandson, or petit dragon, was a great social event in which every one shared. He seemed to spend several hours a day chatting with any one who had time to listen to him, and occasionally he joined the mess for tea. He helped the work of the hospital greatly by bringing in one of his clerks, M. Gohin, to take charge of the registers and returns.
The French Army required an immense number of returns to be made. These had to be rendered in the form of a nominal roll, on the fifth day, the tenth day, and the twenty-fifth day of each man’s stay in hospital. As the men did not all come in on the same day, the return of the yellow or blue or white cards—as the case might be—was never-ending. The British made it simpler, for one nominal roll went every week to the War Office and a copy of it to the R.A.M.C. authorities in Paris.
M. Gohin was unfit for military service, but he certainly made good by the skill with which he managed a very complicated and tiresome piece of clerical work.
Sundry other youthful clerks also came from M. Aubry’s office to assist in the wards, and his concierge, M. Roget, took the hospital under his wing. M. Roget had been with M. Aubry for a great many years, and he loved and admired him dearly. His affection frequently prompted him to discuss the appearance and ways of his master when he was ‘en colère.’ At such times he was said to resemble a wild beast, and no one could calm him except Roget. Every morning, in a white pinafore, with a little watering-pot in his hand, M. Roget would perambulate the central hall, covering the pavement with moist curls and twists. Then he would throw a little sawdust about and leave it for some one else to sweep. He was a great man for rumours, and when he was not giving details of his anatomy and his pathological condition, he would have mysterious tales of a hundred trains that had gone from Paris to the Front to bring in German prisoners; of spies and plots within the walls of Paris; or of great military events which were to end the war in six weeks.