Eighteen months in the war zone

by Kate John Finzi

It is a relief to get back in the evenings to the society of the nurses. Many of them already look knocked up. "Fifty patients on my floor, and only two orderlies," says one. And at home thousands of trained workers are waiting for work.

We often wonder that no use is made of the members of the Voluntary Aid Detachments as probationers under the trained nurses. True, in their present stage of efficiency (or inefficiency, for what are a number of first-aid lectures or stretcher drills as compared with the real hospital training?) many of them might prove more of a hindrance than a help in an emergency. Nevertheless, they could be of as much use as probationers out here—where, everything having been improvised, the inconveniences necessitate much extra labour—as they could be at home.

It is ridiculous to imagine that V.A.D.'s, with their theoretical experience, are competent to run hospitals by themselves; it is equally ridiculous to allow the valuable qualified nurses to run themselves to death, doing jobs an untrained woman can do, instead of utilising the many eager workers willing to take over the menial work.[A]

It will not be hard to sift the wheat from the chaff, the seekers after sensation from the genuine workers. For there is no romance in the work of a hospital, no jaunts to battlefields bearing cups of water to the dying, no soothing of pillows and holding the hands of patients; but ten to twelve hours each day occupied in the accomplishment of tasks so menial that one would hesitate to ask a servant to perform them.

[A] This has since been done, and members of Voluntary Aid Detachments are now used extensively in France as probationers in military hospitals where they come under direct War Office control.

November 10th. We awaken to bugle calls, we fall asleep to the sound of tramping feet. Oh, that long weary high road into the jaws of death! The sudden evacuation of Boulogne seems less imminent now than it did, though the German advance on Calais continues. Now that England has declared war on Turkey, we realise how little of the big scheme of things we see in our niche. Sometimes, between waking and sleeping, a vision of home comes back to me, of soft carpets and steaming hot baths, and everywhere clean linen and creature comforts and ease. After all, I should like to end my days as I began them—in luxury.

November 11th. No wonder Boulogne is full to overflowing. No wonder the little out-of-the-way cafés have taken on something of the glamour and éclat of Rumpelmayer or the Ritz. No wonder everyone who can afford to be is in France. One feels it in the air, it is the Real Thing; one is no longer a looker-on, but a moving factor of things who can afford to pity those at home whose activities have not yet had occasion to be called into play.

The town itself consists of the Haute Ville enclosed by massive thirteenth century ramparts flanked by round towers, whose history for years centred round Godfrey de Bouillon, and the four celebrated gates (Porte Gayole, Porte des Dunes, Porte de Calais and Porte des Degrés). Crowning all stands the Cathédrale de Notre Dame, whose dome from the distance, whether viewed from the town or the environing country, brings back faint remembrances of St. Peter's in the Holy City.

There is nothing of great artistic interest or value to be found within (unless it be the seventh century antiquities in the crypt), but the spirit of earnest devotion that characterises all Catholic places of worship, uniting every worshipper and raising the lowliest edifice to equality with the most ambitious building, is more marked here than in any church I have yet visited. The reverence of the bare-headed peasants, holding up their woollen shawls as coverings for their heads, of the shambling wounded, of the smart mondaines, is alike worthy of those Russian allies who recognise no sin greater than lack of veneration to their God.

The legend of the miraculous statue of Our Lady of Boulogne, as depicted in a picture over the altar of the chapel in the cathedral, dates back to the year 636. In that year a strange boat, radiating with light, was seen to enter the harbour, propelled by some miraculous power and devoid of sailors or pilot. When the excited population reached the shore it was to find on the bridge of the barque a beautifully carved image of the Holy Virgin carrying the infant Jesus, beside which lay a silver-bound copy of the Scriptures.