J.
Rouen, France.
Sunday, June 17, 1917.
We have been told in our instructions about letter-writing that we may now state where we are. So now you can all know definitely just where we are. We got our first mail from home day before yesterday, and I can tell you there was great excitement. It is just a month to-day since we left St. Louis and it seems like a year. The latest date of any of my letters was May 27th. But now that the letters have actually begun to come we feel more hopeful that we are not entirely cut off from our friends. It has been a rather dreary feeling to know that up to now, none of you knew where we were or where we were going, but soon we ought to be in regular communication.
We have been here just a week to-night and are beginning to get over our strangeness. We have learned much of our duties and do not now feel that we can never learn them all. All the nurses have their regular places of duty and are getting to know their patients, and what to do for them. Fortunately for them we have not received any new convoys of men during the week, but we have been sending some out every day or night; but in a few days, after we are a little more accustomed to our duties, we shall begin to get in more wounded by the hundred. There are only five or six of the English nurses left here with us, and they are to go this week, we understand. The Matron, who is a most pleasant and helpful person, is to stay here another week, which gives me the shivers, for two weeks is an awfully short time in which to learn the ropes, and all this first week I have not been doing much more than attend to my nurses’ work and their quarters, equipment, etc. But to-morrow I am going to retire to the Matron’s office and stay there. One of my little jobs is to hire cooks and maids for the nurses’ mess and quarters, and I am also hunting a stenographer. Between 40 and 50 V.A.D.’s are to stay on with us here, and we are mighty glad to have them, for they are splendid. I understand that our C.O. (Commanding Officer) has cabled home, or is going to cable home as soon as he has proper British authority to do so, for more help for this hospital. I have said that I want 40 more nurses and 25 carefully picked nurses’ aids. I think Miss Bridge could pick out the ones that are the most capable and the most adaptable and the most willing to endure difficulties and do without luxuries and even some comforts. I feel quite sure that there are 25 of that kind among the large number that we trained these past months. I do hope that the Red Cross will give the authority for them to come out with the regular nurses.
If this were a summer resort, people would say the weather could not be more delightful. I have my little table and typewriter and my camp chair out on the grass under the trees in the little grove where the nurses’ quarters are. There is a delightful breeze, and the blue sky is full of fluffy white clouds. The sun is very warm, and down in the tents where the patients are it is not so ideally summer-resorty. But with the side awnings up, a nice breeze blows through and the men said they were very comfortable. The sun was so hard on some of the nurses who had to go in and out of the tents a great deal to do the dressings of the patients who are kept out of doors under big parasols or temporary awnings of some sort, that at Major Murphy’s suggestion I got large, broad-brimmed hats for the whole lot. To-day they have found them a great comfort. They certainly look a bit informal with their large farmer hats on and their white dresses, but they look sensible and comfortable. We are likely to have trouble with the laundry question as water is scarce, also starch, and there are labor problems to be reckoned with. We all have white aprons that Mrs. R. insisted on our bringing from London. We are glad she did, as we already find we need them badly, not because of the laundry question but because of the nature of the cases. We have very badly wounded men and their dressings are terrible.
Amputations are being done almost every day. Yesterday I went down to the “Theater Hut” to see how our nurses were going to handle a very bad case, for the “Theater Sister” is to be taken away soon. Our people at home would marvel to see what fine work can be done when all the water used has to be heated on top of a small oil stove and all the instruments boiled the same way. The poor boy whose leg had to be amputated was in such bad shape, he could have only the minimum of a general anæsthetic, but local anæsthesia was given. Besides having both legs badly hurt, his lower back is in terrible shape from injury; after the operation he was put on his face on his bed. Before eight o’clock one of the nurses held his head up so he could have a smoke! And this morning he says he is “in the pink,” which means feeling fine. It is perfectly wonderful, their fortitude, and it is making us all so ashamed for all the complaining we have done. Their bravery is harder to bear than anything else. The other day I nearly disgraced myself when the Matron took me with her to the large tent from which all outgoing patients are sent off in ambulances to the trains or boats. It is a large empty tent with benches around it where the “sitters” wait to have their papers and tickets looked over, and a dirt floor where the stretchers are put. Most of the men are smoking cigarettes as they wait. One man was pointed out to me as having both legs off and one arm and part of the remaining hand also, but he was smiling cheerfully and chaffing with the sisters, and although overwhelmed by the awfulness of his condition I did not grasp the full meaning of it until as I passed him he said, “Sister, will you put out my cigarette for me.” Stooping over him, I took it out of his mouth and asked him if he didn’t want any more of it as it wasn’t half burned away. And he said, pulling out his huge bandaged hand from under the blanket, “No, sister, thank you, I only want a little of it since I can’t take it out of my mouth after I once get it in.” I wonder what any of you would do under circumstances like that. It seemed as though my throat would burst, and I had to think very quickly how absurd it would be for the new Matron to weep before all those heroic, stoical men and the matter-of-fact, externally brusque but inwardly most kind, English officer, and orderlies, so I got myself together speedily while I was putting out the cigarette in the sand with my boot toe. And he was only one, and there are thousands like him.
Two of our men were buried by the explosion of a mine. The one who had his head out in the air put his hand over the face of the other so that the latter could breathe and did not suffocate, but the first was badly hurt in the chest. There are hundreds of stories like these. The nurses are always telling something new about their men. Little things that come out in the course of conversation, enough to fill a book. One of the most pitiful groups are the “shell shocks.” The other night the explosion of shells could be distinctly heard, and almost all these cases shook as though they were having convulsions all night. As one of them said, “Some poor devils are getting theirs now.” One interesting case was brought in unable to speak several days ago. The other night he fell out of bed, and sat up and said “Sister, I can talk now.” These shell-shock cases are always falling out of bed, it seems.
Yesterday I went to town for the first time since I have been here. I went for the straw hats. I went into the Cathedral, which is by far the most beautiful I have ever seen, I think, with the exception of that at Milan. It is going to be a constant joy to have that place to visit. Rouen is an interesting city and has good shops. It swarms with uniforms of all hues.
I was glad to get all your letters yesterday and day before yesterday. According to the accounts of the very cold weather they had here last year our patients and any patients in the neighborhood are going to need all the warm knitted things they can get. Nurses say that the solutions in their bottles froze in the tents and their first early morning duties were to thaw out the bottles. We hear that this hospital is to be hutted before the Autumn, which will be much better for the winter, but even then there will not be any steam heat. When I have the Matron’s office, which is the jockey-room of the grandstand of this old race course, I shall have a large table and some shelves, also a little stove for cold days. We are all so delighted and interested to hear from Elsie’s letter that more Units are being ordered out. And we are all so glad we were in the first lot.
A Colonel commanding a neighboring base has just been to call. He rode down, he said, to pay his respects to the “American Matron.” He was very charming and we had a nice talk. He says he is going to ask us up to tea. He “goes in for a garden and all that, you know.” I am meeting so very many delightful people. All the Matrons from the various hospital camps near have either been to call or invited us to concerts at their grounds. Last night there was such a pretty affair at the Australian camp,[5] a concert, a kind of variety show given by members of the camp, orderlies, cooks, and other regular army people, but really very clever. It was out of doors, of course, under some lovely trees, and there must have been 400 to 500 people there as audience, all in uniform of some sort: mostly officers and nurses and Y. M. C. A. workers, etc. It began at 8 and lasted until about 10.30. Refreshments were served from a large tent, and it was all very pretty and very English.