Christmas found the hospital very full, and preparations for decorating the wards began unusually early. The British soldier had preconceived ideas with regard to paper chains, and thought that a blanket decorated with crude mottoes in cotton-wool and holly berries was the last word in mural decoration. The Poilu watched his operations in silence till his artistic soul rose within him, and snatching the chalk, with an impatient ‘Tiens,’ he too went down on the floor and sketched amazing pictures, directing with the voice of the master the colouring and embellishment of his designs.
In the end the walls were hung with aeroplanes, long guns, rising suns, statues to Liberty and Victory, mixed with British mottoes: ‘Good Luck to the Women’s Hospital Corps,’ ‘God Bless Mr. Davies,’ and ‘A Happy New Year to the Doctors’; while, overhead, paper chains of many hues were draped and the flags of all nations were prominently and abundantly displayed. In one ward every bedstead had the four Allied flags bound to each post, and in another a large dark coloured blanket displayed three battleships and a Union Jack, under which was traced ‘The Flag of Freedom,’ in letters of cotton-wool.
‘Freedom!’ said the Médecin-en-Chef to the Sister, with the treatment of militant women suffragists still fresh in her memory. ‘Freedom! There is no freedom for women under that flag.’
The men were a little disappointed, for this was their great effort, and that it should fail to please, when all the rest of the decorations were commended, puzzled them. For some days before Christmas the wards were open to visitors, and crowds of people came to admire them. A sergeant taking a lady round paused before this masterpiece, and she too made the same comment.
‘That’s just what the doctor says, and we can’t think what she means,’ he exclaimed.
That night, when the doctor made her round, the word ‘Freedom’ had become ‘England,’ and as she looked at it with a comprehending smile growing on her face, a voice from the group round the brazzero said:
‘We’re all for Votes for Women, Doctor.’
‘Yes,’ said another, ‘even the Frenchies is for it.’
On Christmas Eve Mr. Bennett brought the choir boys from the Church to sing carols in the wards, and it was touching to see them grouped between the wards, wearing their white surplices and carrying coloured lanterns, which gleamed in the darkness. While the old melodies echoed through the hospital, the night nurses slipped from bed to bed, hanging socks on each one, and the final preparations for the next day’s festivities were hastily completed behind the scenes.
At five o’clock on the festive morning the whole place awoke to the sound of laughter. Tin trumpets and jews’ harps, tumbling pigs and false noses, evoked shouts of joy, reminiscent of nursery life. The spirit of Christmas descended on the hospital and pain and care were forgotten.