These poor souls had been ordered to leave their Unit that morning with a couple of hours’ notice only and were sent off in several different directions, fifteen to us here and fifteen to the Cleveland hospital up the road and somewhere else. Naturally they are the homesickest, bluest group of nurses you ever saw. You can just imagine how we would feel if we were suddenly ordered to scatter. The reason for their scattering is pretty obvious to us here, but I cannot write about it. These nurses are a real help, for they have been in a busy British hospital as long as we have and they are all experienced, well-trained nurses. But how they are all hating us at present. For my ways are not their Matron’s ways and everything about this hospital is far inferior to theirs. I have seen their hospital and they are right in lots of ways. Their former quarters were far superior to ours, and of course all these last comers are having only make-shift quarters. We have erected three marquees for them, but they are pretty dreary. They have no lights but lanterns as yet, and their luggage has just come and some of it has been lost, and it rains, and you can see the picture. They will settle down pretty soon, and my people are being as kind as they can be to them and are trying not to mind their grumbling. I tell them they would grumble worse if the positions were reversed, or I don’t know anything about them.
Well, so much for the war, except that to-day we have had no convoys in and are catching our breaths. I cannot tell you the details of the days that have passed since I last wrote. There were so many deaths and so many awful cases and such pitiful things going on all the time it was hard to keep steady, especially as every one was much over-worked. Miss Taylor and I had to stick pretty tight to the office work or it would have swamped us; so we tried to keep up with ourselves each day, and never left at night until we had every S. I. and D. I. letter written. Of course the end of the month came along just then, and all the regular monthly things had to be tucked in also. And of course there was no possibility of having a clever man-stenographer for two days to do my complicated British payroll, as I have had before, for every available man was working night and day, hence I had to squeeze that in also. So a job that takes about two solid days of an uninterrupted clerk’s time had to be put into the midst of an office where people were running in and out every minute; but it got done, and I was a bit proud when I finished the thing at ten o’clock that night when the first reënforcement arrived.
We have certainly learned what we can do. I don’t mind for myself, but it breaks my heart to see my children get hollow-eyed and white, and see them one by one succumb, at least temporarily, and have to be sent to bed. They have done wonders. To-day, for instance, with 130 nurses here, after all they have been through, I have just three in hospital; one with diphtheria, one with a kind of trench fever due to exhaustion, and the third, my dear, brave soul who came down from the evacuated C. C. S. She has just “exhaustion” for a diagnosis. She was sent down without baggage or the rest of the team, 48 hours after arriving. The last ten hours of her trip were standing in a freight car packed with refugees. She arrived here at five one morning dead to the world. She had slept on the floor the two nights before as much as she could and been operating sixteen hours straight before that. We were so thankful to get her back safely. The men arrived safely later. Her C. C. S. was captured. She went on duty 36 hours after she arrived here apparently as good as new, but she could not stand the strain and could not eat, so we sent her to the Sick Sisters’ Hospital for a rest. In quarters I have one nurse recovering from gastro-enteritis and another with a bothersome knee, and all the rest are working! Isn’t that doing pretty well for women? After my two nights up until after two and going each morning as usual for very, very busy mornings, making arrangements about new nurses and seeing to their records, I had a bit of an upset myself and felt pretty miserable. So one afternoon I went to bed at four and stayed there until the next morning and have been much better since. It has all been something of a strain.
Then the morning after the second night up (April 4) Major Murphy brought me in my order to go to Paris to be Chief Nurse of the American Red Cross. It was almost too much, but I was too busy to think about it, so I put it in my pocket and tried to forget it. To-night I am going to tell my original group. I am appointed by the Chief Surgeon and am still in the Army. It is an order, and there is no disputing it. When I get away, I shall be glad of the opportunity it presents, but just at present I cannot seem to bear it. These were just the American orders, and I must wait for the British ones, which will probably come through in a few days. I am “relieved from further duty at No. 12 General Hospital B. E. F. and will proceed to Paris, France, reporting on arrival to the Chief Surgeon, Am. Red Cross in France, for duty as Chief Nurse with the American Red Cross.”
I saw Phil yesterday a moment and told him of my order, and strangely enough he had just received an order to go to Paris for duty with Dr. Blake’s hospital. Curious, isn’t it? But won’t it be nice for us both to be there? Paris is not such a sweet little health resort just at present as it has been. But bombs and long-distance guns are nothing to me.
I guess you don’t need to be told how I feel about leaving my children here after all we have been through together. It is quite beyond words. I am just trying to steel myself to it, and to get it over as fast as possible. Now it is time to go and break it to them. How can I make them glad to have me go? For I must do that.
It’s the next day now—a quiet, sunny Sunday. Everything went all right last night, and my nurses are bricks. They weep, but they are glad to have me go. I am trying to get ready to leave in a few days. I am so sorry for all your uncertainty about me. It was a grand mix-up. Miss Taylor is to be Chief Nurse here.
Loads and loads of love,
Jule.
It was getting dark as I went down between the A and B lines of tents. Ducking under the entrance of A. 3 tent, I stopped just a moment inside the door, to get used to the darkness in the tent. The fourteen beds in the tent were all full and I thought at first that no nurse was there. Then I saw her. She was kneeling beside the low cot of a lad whose whole head was bandaged. The tight starch bandage covered his ears and his eyes, and came down under his chin. A glance at his face showed that he was not far from the end. “Robert, lad, what are you trying to say?” she was asking, bending over him with her arm across his shoulder and her face close to his lips. “Say it again, boy, so that I can hear you. Did you want me to do something for you?” Slowly pulling his arms out he reached up and drew her head down to his and kissed her on the cheek. “I think,” he said, “you must be like my sister.” Just then she saw me. “Oh, excuse me, Matron,” she said as she rose, “I didn’t hear you come in.” We walked through to the connecting tent while the other thirteen men stirred and pretended to wake up.