A nurse stopped at the office to leave the notices of two new “Dangerously Ill” cases. As she handed me the slip she said, “Of the sixty-four new stretcher cases we got in last night, all have bandaged eyes. They are the worst gassed men I have ever seen. I’ve done nothing but irrigate eyes all the morning. One man discovered that he could see a little when I got his lids opened and his eyes washed out, and he burst out ‘Oh, sister, I can see, and I am not going to be blind after all, am I?’ Then I realized what an agony of fear there must be in the minds of those sixty-four motionless men, not one of whom had even whimpered—so since then I’ve been saying to each one that he was sure to see after a while, for you know if they live they nearly all do get back their sight, and probably not more than those two D. I.’s will die. But think what they have been suffering!”
Another nurse was giving a bath to a man who had just been brought in on a stretcher, “Oh, but you are the dirtiest man I ever saw,” she laughed at him, “absolutely the very dirtiest.” “Oh, sister, don’t say that,” he said. “How could I help it? I haven’t had a bath nor a change of underclothes for twenty-two days.”—Quick came the answer, “If that’s the case, I call you clean.”
The orderly came up to the sister and said, “May I have a piece of gauze and a bandage?” “Surely,” she said, as she handed it to him, “and what do you want it for?” “For the Hun there at the door who has cut his finger.” Looking down the hut to the door, she could see standing just outside a Boche prisoner and his British guard. The orderly took the dressings outside and bandaged up the finger. When he came back, some of the patients who had been watching said, “I wish his finger were off, and why didn’t you cut off his head? etc.” Then a man in a near-by bed, whose leg was stretched out in a weighted extension, said, “Oh, boys, don’t talk like that; we are fighting the Huns up the line, but we are not fighting them down here.”
When he came up with the rest of the blue, hospital-clothed men for final inspection before being signed out for Convalescent camp, the Major noticed that he had a D. S. M. ribbon on his coat. “How did you get this, Jock?” the Major asked, pointing to the ribbon. “Oh that, sir,” he said, “there were a few occurrences, sir,” and he went on his way.
His right leg had been amputated, his right hand was badly wounded, and his left foot had a hole right through it, but he was always smiling and cheerful, and had a come-back for every foolish thing that was said to him. One day the Padre asked him how he could keep so cheerful all the time when he must have so much pain. “Oh,” he laughed, “it’s in the book, Boy Scouts Manual, page 8, paragraph 3, ‘Smile and keep whistling.’”
Here’s the copy of a telegram I got Major M. to send last week. “Director General of Voluntary Offerings, Scotland House, London: Number Twelve General Hospital urgently needs three thousand each, two, three, and four inch roller bandages, thousand each abdominal, chest, shoulder, hip, elbow, head triangular and T bandages. Two hundred each, elbow, arm, and leg splints, two hundred sand-bags, three dozen pairs crutches, five hundred limb pillows, thousand pneumonia jackets, five hundred arm slings, five cases each absorbent wool (in America, ‘cotton’) and absorbent gauze, also unlimited gauze dressings.” The next day we got the message: “Bulk of all articles named being shipped immediately.” Pretty good business? We have received notice of twenty bales sent from London already.
Paris, April 12, 1918.
If I don’t hurry and write I shall not be able to remember a single one of the really memorable things that have happened to me since I last wrote. I am getting new impressions so fast I can hardly straighten out one from another. I last wrote April 6 just after I got my orders to move. On Sunday the 7th the British orders came, and I decided that I would be ready to leave Wednesday the 10th.—Just then Philip was announced and I went down to see him. He had just arrived in Paris. It was a curious coincidence his being ordered here, too, just as I was.
Sunday evening we had one of the finest sings up in our mess that ever anybody had. Every Major, including the two English ones, was there, and all the young officers too, and the mess was full, and there was much amusement, as they all tried to ask for their favorite tunes at the same time. We used the new Y. M. C. A. service hymn-books that Aunt M. sent and they proved most acceptable, and everybody seemed to find his or her favorite hymn in it. I played my violin and a fine player played the piano, and I can tell you we made the welkin ring. It was a bit hard for me, especially when some idiot asked for “God be with you till we meet again.” But nobody could know how badly I was feeling.
Monday was very busy all day. That evening was our usual little family dance, which I attended. The next day I finished turning things over to Miss Taylor, went up to Sick Sisters’ Hospital to say good-by to the nurses up there, and the afternoon, packed. The D. D. M. S. came to say good-by and the Acting Principal Matron, which was nice of such busy people at such a busy time. The nurses were full of mysteries all those last days and that afternoon I found in my room a wonderful fitted dressing-bag, the kind my soul has always longed for. It is like a small suitcase, is black, and has a cloth cover and is a perfect beauty. That was from my whole family. Then the original 64 gave me a lovely little gold mesh-purse to go on my watch chain with my other dangles. That too was another thing I had been hoping to have some time.