"Look here, I say, now, are you a blooming princess?" before he gave his orders!
In spite of the wonderful dirt and bad drainage that reigns in the nurses' quarters, we must be grateful, they say, for our accommodation. Nurses aren't expected to require much, it seems. Someone quoted the old chestnut from Punch of the lady who, on being asked by the newly arrived nurse in which room she was to sleep, exclaimed in blank amazement:
"Oh, but I thought you were a trained hospital nurse!"
October 29th. Let me tell the tale of No. —— Stationary Hospital. It should go down to posterity as a memorial of what British resourcefulness may achieve, even if its existence was the outcome of the proverbial British state of unpreparedness. For what in the annals of History has equalled the holocaust and chaos of modern warfare, of which there was no precedent, of which everything has had to be learned by the bitterest experience?
Three days before we left England, at the beginning of the fight for Calais, which continues to grow more violent daily, a certain Major N—— found himself in charge of the wounded who were being brought down by the thousand in trains, and left helpless on their stretchers by the quayside to await the arrival of the ever-busy hospital ships.
Already the C—— and I—— Hotels were choc-à-bloc with wounded, who lay so close together in the corridors that it was necessary to climb over one stretcher to reach the next patient, and often stand astride the pallets to dress the wounds.
The Casino was opened, but in less time than it takes to tell was as crowded as the others.
A disused sugar shed, a vast wooden barn whose cracked cement floor is piled high with dust, whose smashed glass roofing is besmirched with dirt, is hardly an ideal site for a hospital, but it is the best thing to hand, and the Major commandeered it, and here, before the lumber had been cleared, before the glass had been repaired or the walls whitewashed, the wounded began to tumble in. It wasn't much of a place, but it was out of the torrential rain which had set in and bade fair to continue, and it was less cold than the open air.
By day and night the orderlies worked, alternately preparing the place and attending to the wounded. A solitary English girl who happened to be on the spot had volunteered her services, and was doing her best single-handed in the wards. One day the Major, walking on the quay, saw some Red Cross nurses. They were the identical ones we had met on their arrival from Paris. On hearing they were waiting for their orders, and that they were all qualified women, he commandeered them, even as he had commandeered his barn. Back they came to Headquarters to fetch more assistance.