Eighteen months in the war zone

by Kate John Finzi

But let me return to No. —— Stationary Hospital, where the staff is greatly augmented and Army nurses work side by side with those of the Red Cross.

If there is some slight friction between the two it is easily understood, for how can the newly arrived Army sisters be expected to find in a dirty, evil-smelling barn anything but the violation of all the laws of hygiene? Whereas to those Red Cross sisters, who have built it up with their life's blood, so to speak, who have watched it evolve under their weary fingers, it is a place of supreme beauty and first importance.

If there is some slight friction amongst the authorities, too, it is soon explained. For it is as much the duty of the Red Cross to cherish its own rights as it is for the Army to centralise and control, at a time like this, every existing institution to prevent the misuse of public funds.

Both are in the right.

At home no one seemed quite to realise the exact position of the Red Cross and the various Army medical services. Out here, except that a distinct antagonism between the two organisations prevails, the position is equally vague.

The British Red Cross Society and the St. John Ambulance Association were originally formed to supplement the requirements of the military and naval medical services in war time, thus obviating the expense of keeping up an exceptionally large staff in days of peace. On this understanding the War Office took nominal control of the various B.R.C.S. enterprises, supervising the First Aid examinations and keeping a register of all its members. The value of that registration of B.R.C.S. members by the War Office is not quite obvious at present, for the War Office appears to disclaim all responsibility for the Red Cross. There are even rumours that a large portion of its personnel is to be greatly reduced and eventually sent from the base. In fact, no one's work or position is clearly defined.

The work of the Royal Army Medical Corps, the Nursing Service, "Q.A.I.M.N.S.," Reserve, Indian and Territorial, was well defined enough. Field ambulances, clearing stations, stationary hospitals (so-called because they are movable!) and base hospitals were their sphere, and vaguely it was understood that the Voluntary Aid Detachments were destined for use with the Territorial Forces.

Then, when at the outbreak of hostilities there came the call for more workers, many doctors and fully-trained nurses, anxious to get to that mysterious and alluring unknown, the Front, threw up their good posts and sold their patiently built-up practices in order to join the Red Cross.

Many of them are already regretting their impetuousness. Not only the members of the Voluntary Aid Detachments, who have hitherto played at work under War Office supervision and with War Office sanction, but the much-needed trained nurses and doctors (many of them specialists of the first order) find themselves somewhat shelved, oftentimes deprived of the best surgical work by those of their juniors who had had the foresight or good luck to join the Reserve or Territorials instead of a volunteer concern whose position is, as yet, indefinite and whose scope, so far, limited. Many even find themselves on the Reserve Staff and waiting for work. A certain restlessness that prevails amongst these is easily explained, for it is not always possible to console oneself with the idea that inaction is merely a respite and preparation for the next call upon one's energies, when that call is lying all around in understaffed hospitals.