Side by side with them were a few intellectual women, professors and teachers. Most of them followed in the wake of their sisters and behaved in a similar manner. One of them, a woman I had known before, had spent many years of her life in Germany and had taught the German language for nearly twenty years. Before the war she had often told me how lovable she had found the German people, what good friends she had in Germany and how she always enjoyed a holiday there, so that when some of my German patients asked me for books, I thought she would be the very person to whom to apply for some.
To my astonishment she flew into a passion when she heard my request.
“Want books, do they? They will soon ask for chickens and lobsters.”
Walking into my ward, she exclaimed haughtily: “So you are asking for books! As you set fire to everything, there are no books left for you!”
Very little of the nursing was done by these women, however, who, instead of being a real help for the most part, put spokes in the wheels of the more useful helpers. The hardships of overwork, of long hours, of day and night duties in succession, fell all the more heavily on the shoulders of a few willing women, the other part of the female element proving so unreliable.
These women, whose devotion never flagged, comprised three trained nurses and nine or ten women clerks or teachers, of quite another type to those mentioned above. It is true they were not all free from hatred, but, if I may so express it, theirs was almost a hopeful hatred compared with the blind stupidity of those others.
Amongst the three professional nurses I remember a tall, handsome girl of 22 or thereabouts. Hers was an ardent soul, one of those souls which keep young in spite of advancing years. Whatever task this girl sets herself to do she will carry it through with skill and earnestness. Whichever cause she champions she will do so in no light spirit, and it was thus that she hated the Germans with the strongest hatred and yet nursed them with utter devotion, for she was as earnest a nurse as she was keen a patriot. There was almost a kind of healthiness about her hatred, based as it was on deep-rooted feelings, knowing no caution and no fear. One might hope more for her who, fearless of consequences, could wave the French flag and shout “Vive la France” when French prisoners were led away, than for all the fine ladies whose little souls were filled with great fear and ignorant hatred.
I remember also a small, fair nurse, silent for the most part, but up at all times of the night as well as working hard all day. She sometimes opened her heart to me and I found there, as deep-rooted as her colleague’s hatred, a great and sincere love for all men and women, an unflinching hope that in the long run “brotherhood” will be the watchword of all humanity.
Amongst these hard-working women many were of this silent type, going about with sealed lips, but with treasures of unconscious kindliness and love hidden in their hearts, known only to God.
My daily intercourse with the men on our hospital staff was on the whole never sufficiently intimate to allow me to speak here of their mental attitude towards “the enemy.” The French doctors I never saw except when I was on duty, and I had little or no opportunity of speaking with them, being only an assistant nurse, but I recollect one little incident connected with Professor L——, a man of acknowledged skill in France. At the time of which I speak, I had been transferred to a German ward, and one day, finding myself short of boiled water for the men to drink, I went to the chemist to ask for some. There I met Professor L——, who said: