Thus, having deposited our bundles in our billets, we were sent to see Lady —— at the hotel, where she combines the duties of lady-in-waiting to Queen Amélie of Portugal and organiser-in-chief of the Red Cross nurses.
Here we learned for the first time of the confusion that arises out of the fact that both qualified nurses and members of the Voluntary Aid Detachment are wearing the same uniform; we heard, too, of the difficulties experienced by the authorities to prevent unlicensed people organising hospitals which they are unfitted to run.
As we wended our way back wearily through the lighted, crowded streets teeming with life (Miss A—— having signed a year's contract as a trained nurse), something told me that this is to be the scene of my activities too; that so long as my betrothed is in France, Providence will let me play my part.
On returning to headquarters we learned for the first time the unpleasant function of the Censor. All letters have to be left open, posted in the military box, and, if they are to pass the Censor, must contain no mention or description of places, troops, ships, people we have met on our journey, etc.
This is not merely a precaution against spies, we are told, but a measure of prudence in regard to false rumours; for men who have never got farther than Boulogne, and never been within gunshot, have been known to write home long tirades about the bloody trenches in which they stand all day, dodging fragments of shells and killing Germans by the score!
October 28th. After breakfast this morning we set out to see whether there were any letters from home at the Consulate. On our way up the hill a funeral overtook us. There were four hearses and seven coffins, each covered with a Union Jack, which contrasted strangely with the weird-shaped French funeral carriages and the drivers in costumes like beadles with large three-cornered hats.
We followed the cortège a quarter of an hour up the hill to the cemetery, where the newly consecrated ground was full of freshly covered graves.
The coffins were soon lowered, and as they lay there in a row not an eye of the little group of onlookers was dry.
The R.A.M.C. pall-bearers, the chaplain who went through the service with a rapidity that showed his familiarity with the job, a handful of French peasants—that was all. And they laid them to rest at the top of the hill, and only two English nurses who never saw them could bear the message of their last resting-place to their homes. God! that such wanton destruction should be.