January 25th. A naval battle off the Dogger Bank is reported, which reminds me of the letters I receive from a naval friend, whose life on board the —— is spent patrolling the North Sea and longing for action. How different from the fighting friends one runs into occasionally! The other day I came across one who was down with a touch of tonsilitis, having passed through Mons and every big battle that succeeded it unscathed. "I shouldn't at all mind going home with a smashed arm!" he remarked with an almost involuntary sigh, gazing wistfully at the hospital ship as she sailed majestically out of harbour, her gleaming red cross casting weird lights on the dark water.
January 28th. There are times when one is unkind enough to wish one's co-workers the discipline of three months as junior probationer in a large hospital. Last night I arrived to find myself the only worker, and although I enjoyed the rush right enough, it was impossible to get things done to time, and many of the men had to go away unserved.
The methylated spirit ran out, and so demobilised the services of the Primus stoves. The secretary had a bad headache, and was therefore only able to sit at the till, and the odd man was inspired to make night hideous with his discordant hymns, and, having had a tiff with one of the ladies earlier in the day, refused to do a stroke of work. It was a particularly busy night, never less than a hundred men in the hut, I should say, and ten o'clock found me still washing up cups with the aid of a little chauffeur whose vehicle had gone wrong! Faute de mieux he accompanied me along the roughest part of the quay, where one is apt to be molested by the drunken navvies who reel about at night.
January 30th. Wish hard enough and it shall be given unto you! Yesterday was a day of joy, for in it I found a real girl friend of my own age and kind.
She appeared on the scene one morning like a breath of fresh air, this young American.
"What are you doing over here?" I asked. "Come to see the war?"
"Guess you're about right," she replied, with an accent you could cut with a knife. "Nothing else would have dragged me away from God's own country!"
January 31st. The old order changeth—even in Boulogne! In less than a week the Red Cross will be installed at the C——, where once was the Allied Forces Base Hospital. In less than a week all Red Cross cars come under direct supervision of the A.S.C.
To-day the Red Cross sisters at the Gare Maritime (No. —— Stationary Hospital) have received their congé, even those "original six" who built it up, being superseded by Army nurses.