On the Horizon

Over the last three or four years I've spent a lot of time transcribing original, unpublished documents relating to the nursing services during the Great War, which are held at The National Archives, Kew. Most of these documents were originally stored at the War Office, and transferred to TNA over the past twenty years; since then the majority have never been looked at [except by me]. A year ago I decided to undertake a massive project by transcribing the official war diary of the Matron-in-Chief with the British Expeditionary Force during the war, Maud McCarthy, which runs to well over three thousand pages, and almost a million words. It took over my life for twelve months, and knowing what a treasure house it is, I intended to edit and publish as much of the content as I could fit between two covers. I really wanted to show what the basics of life were like for the women who served in France and Flanders - not the blood and bandages bits necessarily - but the ordinary comings and goings, and minutiae of their day to day existence. However, as I started to edit, and cut large chunks out, I realised that because of the size of the complete work, too much would end up on the cutting room floor, and I wouldn't achieve what I set out to do.

So I've recently taken the decision to publish many of these documents, including the diary, on the web, and am just in the process of trying to work out what form they will take, and how to get them into readable shape. Because they are Crown Copyright documents, I'm free to do with them what I wish [more or less], as long as I don't use any actual images of them, and I acknowledge their source in full. Besides the diary, there are many accounts of the various nursing services during the Great War, including all the overseas nursing services who worked alongside the British. In addition, I've recently acquired copies of many WW2 personal accounts, written by members of QAIMNS and the Territorial Army Nursing Service, and one document giving the locations of all British General Hospitals at home and abroad between 1939-46. I'm not sure how long it will be before the first bit appears online, but hopefully not too long - in view of both the length and depth of the work, it will be a long, ongoing process, but I feel very excited at the thought that the documents will be available for all to read, learn from, and enjoy.

A 'V.A.D.' at the Base (Part Two)

A long gap since Part One, caused by seeing too much of the inside of hospitals [on behalf of my aged mother], but here are the remaining paragraphs at last.

A 'V.A.D.' at the Base
by K. M. Barrow

On the other hand, in spite of all the pain and heartbreaking tragedy, the humorous side of life is never far away in hospital. One recalls the dummy – carefully charted and hideously masked – which was tucked into bed for the benefit of the V.A.D. and orderly when they came on night duty, and the stifled laughter under the bedclothes in adjoining beds. One recalls, too, the great occasions when some Royal or notable person came to visit the wards. Then we spent ourselves in table decorations, emptied the market of flowers, or ransacked the woods and meadows for willow or catkins, ox-eyed daisies or giant kingcups. Incidentally, we made the boys’ lives a burden to them by our meticulous care in smoothing out sheets, tucking in corners, and repairing the slightest disorder occasioned by every movement on their part, till the occasion was over. Sometimes the expected visitor did not turn up, and when another rumour of a projected visit was brought into the ward by a V.A.D., she was hardly surprised to find that her announcement was greeted on all sides by the somewhat blasphemous chorus of “Tell me the old, old story.” It was a curious coincidence, too, that on one occasion when the Queen was going the round of one of the wards in France – which was crowded with men fresh from the trenches – Her Majesty should have happened upon a patient standing stiffly to attention, and when sympathetically inquiring how he received his wound, was doubtless slightly surprised at the brisk reply, “Kicked by an ‘orse, mum.” On another occasion, when a visit from Sir Douglas Haig was momentarily expected, an intrepid Australian, concluding that there was time to spare, and greatly pleased to find that there was no competition, had placed a tin plate containing an egg to fry on the newly polished stove, which shone with inky radiance – the combined effort of orderly and patients. The decoration caught the eagle eye of sister, who demanded its instant removal, and while the discomfited cook seized his plate, the announcement, “Duggie’s here” was whispered; in his agitation the Australian turned the contents on to the polished surface. As the gallant Commander-in-Chief entered the ward he was confronted with a strong smell of cooking “gang agley,” and a stifling thick blue smoke rising like incense from the top of the stove. These Royal visits were much enjoyed by the men, and in the case of an Irish lad were the cause of much boastful comment as to the ease of manner with which he intended to greet the Royal visitor. These usually began with, “Sister, I shall just say to her” – and so on; but when the gracious and kindly lady did in fact stop to greet the boy, he was frozen stiff with shyness and terror; the flow of conversation with which he had intended to greet Her Majesty was conspicuous by its absence.

One of the things which struck one most was the eager championship of Tommy towards any patient of different nationality to himself. The black man was an especial pet and was treated by the boys as something between a spoilt baby and a pet dog. Sweets and cakes were showered upon him, and his simplest remarks were greeted with appreciative and indulgent laughter. Though “Darkie” was occasionally asked whether he had “been robbing the hen-roost lately,” or mildly ragged, he knew perfectly well that, had he got into trouble, the ward would have been solid in his defence. I have seen the men rush to get bread and jam for an immense, and I must own unattractive coloured man who would shout lustily for the latter, and would clear out a tin of “plum and apple” at a sitting – if he could get it. On one occasion, in Malta, when a valuable watch was lost, there was a regular chorus in defence of “Jose,” the little Maltese who scrubbed the verandah.
"It wouldn't be our old Jose, sister," they declared with conviction; although later this particular Jose proved, alas, far from being above suspicion. Even the foe came in for this kindly feeling in hospital when he was down and sick. I have heard a V.A.D. tell how she found a little group laying an unfamiliar game of cards with the quondam enemy.
"You see, sister," they explained, "we're playing it the German way, because of Fritz. Poor old Fritz".

Christmas is a delightful time in hospital, and though it was always specially gay in France for nurses, V.A.D.’s and patients alike, it was perhaps eastward on the other side of the Mediterranean, where gifts were not so numerous, and where Blighty was so far away, that the men looked forward to it most. It would be hard to forget the sound of the Christmas carols in the crystal beauty of the winter night in Malta, as a party of amateur performers, with swinging lanterns, went round from block to block of the great hospital buildings, while the patients hung over the verandahs or lay still and quiet listening in their beds. It would besides be difficult to forget how, as sisters and nurses went as quietly as possible from bed to bed during the night hanging the Christmas stockings over each, one head after another popped up like children, when they fancied no one was looking, to examine their little dole of presents – men who would, perhaps, never see another Christmas, and who had just been through the most awful experiences that man ever suffered.

It is, perhaps, the very simplicity and childishness of the British Tommy when he is sick and helpless, that has held so many V.A.D.’s to their posts in days gone by. Everyone who has been in hospital has noticed how even the middle-aged man seems to return to first principles in his last hours, and how the mother’s name was on his lips far more often than was either the wife or children’s name.
“Married, nurse?” said an Irishman, “Faith, and I’ve never met a woman yet who could be as much to me as my old mother!” And he was only one of countless others to whom “my old mother” represented Blighty, hope, and happiness all rolled into one. One saw this on night duty more especially, and it is of night duty in France, more than of any other time, that one thinks when one recalls old memories. Outside it was black as pitch, and the wind howled in the telegraph wires like the witches on Walpurgis Night, with perhaps the added sound of a bomb or the fall of shrapnel on the roof. Suddenly, through the war of sea and tempest, one caught the sharp piercing sound of a whistle, and after that the tramp of feet and the first soft thud of a stretcher being lowered to the ground gently for a moment. It was then that sisters, nurses and patients came into closer relation; it was then that the V.A.D. had wider scope in her work, and greater opportunities for learning and acting. Those on night duty were practically isolated from their fellows and thrown entirely on each other for companionship; and very pleasant was the morning walk and the morning bathe in summer, before bed claimed its sometimes unwilling victim, and the bright day was shut out and turned into night.

What we, perhaps, treasure most of all, now those times are over, are the autograph books which contain the signatures, artistic efforts, original or copied verses, which the patients supplied as souvenirs. These were more popular in the East than in France, and in one of the wards in Malta, an old volume of the Girl’s Own Paper, dating back to the “eighties,” provided the inspiration for many efforts. The picture of big men with a world of experience behind them, artlessly and laboriously copying pictures of apple-blossom and sparrows, or of an unattractive child with the legend, “Daddy’s blue-eyed boy” inscribed below it, represented a study in contrasts which was frankly touching. These were, however, real artists, and real poets who blossomed into eulogies of hospital and staff, or straightforward comments on their own experiences. Here is a sample which, as far as I know, is original:-

"There's a little place out East called Salonique,
Where they're sending British Tommies every week,
When you view it from the sea
It's a fine sight, all agree,
And you think you'll have a spree,
At Salonique!"

"When you're dumped upon the quay at Salonique,
And the smell that meets you there seems to speak,
You begin to feel quite glum,
And to wish you hadn't come,
For there's every kind of hum
At Salonique."

Another effor, which every V.A.D. will appreciate, began:
"The Red Cross Sister so demure,
On any chaps would work a cure,"
and ended up wittily and eminently satisfactorily from our point of view:
"To part from you will be a loss,
For you were never Red or Cross."

A 'V.A.D.' at the Base

This is another extract from 'Reminiscent Sketches,' and as it's quite long I've divided it into two parts - reading long accounts right through on the screen might result in the loss of the will to live! It's actually written not by a VAD, but by a trained member of Queen Alexandra's Imperial Military Nursing Service, so perhaps not quite a 'horse's mouth' memoir, but interesting for its small detail not found elsewhere.

A "V.A.D." AT THE BASE
K. M. Barrow

“Keep the large things large and the small things small,” is a fine American motto which the V.A.D. abroad might well have adopted as her own. No matter what type of home she had left behind, every girl in the great military hospitals or elsewhere was living under strange, and at first, bewildering conditions. She was up against new problems and experiencing new sensations; she was confronted with new barriers and restrictions; but she was enlarging her horizon and expanding her outlook. Like Alice, it was as though she had stepped through the looking-glass into a new world. In spite of the pictures which it breaks the heart to remember; in spite of the little jars and frets and anxieties which seemed Gargantuan at the time; every V.A.D. all the world over could honestly write against the record of those days the words “very happy." Life in a military hospital is a school within a school. Inside the big school of experience there is a type of school life which is not unlike that life which we lived in our “teens” with its friendships, its “shop,” its frenzied activities, and its recreations.

On the long white road which stretches from the slippery quay-side at Boulogne to the little distant villages clustered around tiny churches; fringed on one side of the road with ugly grey hospital huts or tents set in pleasant gardens, and on the other side with the chalk cliffs and great sparkling blue roadway to “Blighty,” we all lived much the same life. We all knew what it was to wait with beating hearts to hear our fate in the prim hotel sitting-room, with its faint smell of dust and roasted coffee-bean; then to be carried by the great lumbering ambulance – in the silver summer dusk or the bitter winter cold – into the unknown. We knew what it was to struggle with our flimsy camp furniture in the little wooden hut for two, or the narrow confines of a dark tent; and to wake to our first hurried breakfast surrounded by strange faces, with very much the sensation of a swimmer who has forgotten his stroke. The old mess hut or tent has very pleasant recollections for most of us. Breakfast was too hurried a meal to permit of much conversation except for the early arrivals, who toasted or burnt their bread at the stove, according to the position which they secured. So it was with nine o’clock “tea and biscuits” breathlessly snatched perhaps when convoys were rolling in; but at lunch all the plans for afternoon or evening “times off” were discussed, and arrangements made for eagerly anticipated “half-days.” The most pleasant meal of all was, perhaps, the “first dinner” when those who were free for the evening might wear out-door uniform and hats, instead of the regulation caps and aprons.

Sunday was marked by two domestic features, namely, boiled eggs for breakfast, and afternoon tea in the sitting-room when we all ate French patisserie and home-made cakes like hungry school boys; and when even those on night duty sometimes made a belated appearance. It was by no means an infrequent occurrence up on the cliff, when a mess tent was used in place of a hut, for the whole to collapse when the wind blew “unco’rudely,” and to be found in the morning in a crumpled ruin like a collapsed pack of cards. On summer “half-days” we scoured the countryside for flowers for the wards, drank coffee and ate omelets in the old farm houses, or enjoyed tea and ices at the Club or in the cheerful French shops with their tempting confectionery, unless food restrictions happened to be acute at the time. Thousands of tired or convalescent V.A.D.’s will think more than gratefully of peaceful days in the lovely woods at Hardelot or in the Villa at Cannes; when expeditions were planned and everything that was possible done to give mind and body a real rest and a chance of recuperation.

In France, when convoy after convoy poured in, and when one piteous wreck after another, whose bandages were stiff with mud and blood, had been deposited on a clean white bed; the extent of a V.A.D.’s work was bound to be decided far more by the measure of her capacity than by rule of seniority, or red tape. Matron and sisters soon discovered those whose skill, quickness and level-headedness, justified trust. In every new venture there are few who have not to walk for a space some time or other in the Valley of Humiliation, the military hospitals in France were a magnificent school, not only for actual nursing, but for self-control and nerve. Naturally, there were some sisters more trusting, more patient, and more ready to teach than others. Though there could not fail to be occasional jealousies and occasional bitterness among the V.A.D.'s, a strong esprit de corps, and a strong sense of discipline prevailed. In all hospitals everyone was quite ready to undertake the smallest task as well as tasks of a more responsible nature. Let no one imagine that even the humble care of lockers is a task in the nature of “sitting in the sun.” To satisfy the Sister-in-Charge, and at the same time to deal faithfully with the daily dole of cigarettes and matches – cherished like gold-dust – the photographs, the little brown pay-book, the melting toffee, the mouth organ, the presents from home, and above all, the cause of the fractured limb or the bandaged head, which was wrapped in a fold of newspaper to be dispatched to mother or wife, is no light task. “Did you see a little bit of shrapnel, nurse, when you were tidying out my locker?” asked a worried gunner to a newly-arrived V.A.D., and she realized, with a pang of remorse, that the tiny morsel of lead which she had swept away with broken ends of matches and cigarette stumps, was the most sacred item among “Jock’s” possessions.

Of the patients’ kindness and keen sense of gratitude, of their readiness to help in the wards, their goodness and unselfishness to each other, of their pluck and grit, and their cheerful assurance that they were “in the pink,” “not too bad,” or “fine,” even when the Angel of Death was standing close at hand, one need not speak. Had one had time to think, or the right to indulge one’s own feelings, the pathos of some of those scenes might have been unbearable. Pictures of a pale lad, singing “Annie Laurie” right through in a quavering voice, in his efforts to distract his mind from his sufferings during an agonizing dressing; of a “jaw-case” on the D.I. list with his poor mouth smeared with the crumbs of a home-made plum cake sent by his wife, which he had tried unavailingly or surreptitiously to eat; of a dying gardener with his face irradiated with joy when Sister handed him a flower, pass before one to be succeeded by another and again another, each unforgettable in its turn.

Canaries

'Canaries' is the title of this often seen image, but I've never been sure whether the canaries were carried on ambulance trains as gas detectors, or simply for the entertainment of both staff and patients. I suspect the latter is more likely.

Life on an Ambulance Train 1917-18

This is the second part of the account of Ambulance Train life - this one during the later years of the war, when things had become a little more sophisticated.

WORK ON AN AMBULANCE TRAIN IN FRANCE, 1917-1918
by J. Orchardson

I joined an Ambulance train at Rouen in December, 1917, proceeding up the line to the Somme Valley. My first impressions were the extreme cleanliness, order, and brightness of everything on the train. The sisters’ mess, planned out of an ordinary railway carriage, was cosy and pretty, and our bedrooms most comfortable. Each train carried three sisters, usually a happy and contented trio. Our life was never dull, for those railways were the highroads of the war. Wherever we went there were troop trains, ammunition trains, food supplies, guns, tank stores; the never-ending accompaniments of a great campaign. Seldom were two days alike, no one knew where we might be sent next, or what adventure awaited us on the road. Our train might be in garage somewhere up the line, awaiting orders. All day nothing would happen and we would retire to bed at the usual hour. Suddenly there would be a bump, the signal that our engine had come on, and away we would go into the night wondering as to our destination. Wonder, however, soon gave place to sleep and we were content to leave place of call for the morning to disclose.

On loading at a Casualty Clearing Station, I was always struck by the rapidity and ease with which the patients were taken on and put to bed. I marvelled at their unfailing good humour, even when seriously wounded. They seemed to be so delighted to be on their way to the base, or perhaps to England, that they never failed to don a brave disguise. Somehow, I always felt more sorry for the walking wounded – that slow procession of pain with their white tired faces – but never a grumble or complaint. When loading was finished, our immediate duties were to inspect all the medical cards, diet the patients, and take a not of all treatments to be given during the journey; after this had been carried out, cigarettes, sweets, and books were handed round, and the sisters usually had time for a chat with the patients. On reaching the base the train was quickly unloaded, beds changed and made up again, wards scrubbed out and everything made ready for the next journey. The train usually remained for a few hours to take on stores, which gave us the opportunity to go shopping for our mess. Then up the line again, or best of all load up with patients for England. The latter was a joyous thing. We would take them to Calais or Le Havre and see them safely aboard the “ship that was bound for Blighty.” Our train life was often very exciting, air raids were frequent and not seldom we had narrow escapes, when the windows of the coaches were shattered with the concussion of the explosives. Upon running into an air raid, all lights which were always well shaded, were put out and the train brought to a standstill. We could not help tremendously admiring the splendid bravery of the poor wounded men. They never once appeared afraid or complained, all they wanted was a cigarette. Their wonderful spirit gave us the courage to carry on. Had it not been for their dauntless spirit I feel certain that we should often have given in. Although badly wounded, they never seemed to turn a hair amid the most awful bombing and shelling. It was truly magnificent.

Our train was in the Somme Retreat of 1918, when the roads were crowded with retreating French civilians, leading their horses and cattle, and taking away what household goods they could carry. Old men and women, young women and children made a pathetic spectacle in that picture of retreat. The retreat began on March 23^rd, 1918, and on the 25^th the train was sent to Edgehill – a few miles from Albert – to load. We took the last patients from the Casualty Clearing Station at Edgehill and many straight from the field. The train was loaded to its full capacity; stretchers were put on the floors, in the corridors, in the two kitchens, and in the medical officers’ and orderlies’ beds. The train was held up for thirty-six hours but eventually reached Rouen. In April, the train was up north when the German offensive began and on several occasions took down a number of French civilians. ON incident was most pathetic. When the enemy broke through at Merville there was the usual retreat of French people. The train was stopped by some soldiers who asked us to take an old French woman whom they had found lying on the roadside. She must have walked many miles and was in a pitiful state. She said she was eighty-two years of age, and we recalled the old Hebrew’s saying about the years that only bring labour and sorrow. In June the train was sent to the Marne to assist the French, and took several loads of French wounded, with a few British, from the French advanced hospitals. The poilu is a most grateful patient and so appreciative of the smallest thing done for him. When they came on to the train and were given English cigarettes their delight was great. I asked a few if they would like to write home, and soon was busy supplying pencils and paper, so keen were these men to write to their people. Late June found the train at Charmes, near Nancy, and as this was the first khaki train to do this trip, we had a wonderful reception the whole of the way. Everywhere the French people were most enthusiastic. On the return journey the train stopped at a junction for an hour or more, and several French ladies asked permission to visit the patients. They brought baskets of fruit and sweets for the patients and presented the sisters with a bouquet of crimson roses, tied with the colours of fair and gallant France. Although at times a strenuous life, it was always a bright and happy experience, with just a touch of sadness when “good-bye” was said at the journey’s end. Looking back on those unforgettable days, I shall always see their faces, even as the faces that look out of some old and treasured picture book.

Life on an Ambulance Train in 1914

This is the first extract from 'Reminiscent Sketches' and is a brief, but vivid account of life on one of the early ambulance trains. All these extracts are written by trained nurses, most of them members of the 'Regular' Queen Alexandra's Imperial Military Nursing Service.

LIFE ON AN AMBULANCE TRAIN IN 1914 by M. Phillips

The ambulance trains in 1914 were not the trains of joy and beauty which they developed into later in the war, anything that ran on wheels and could be attached to an engine was utilized in the early days of 1914. They were chiefly trains composed of wagons bearing the legend “Hommes 40, Chevaux (en long) 8,” so that the staff of No.7 Ambulance train thought itself lucky. The front half of the train consisted of the 1^st class French “couchette” or carriages fitted with sleeping berths, so that at least the patients had a comfortable couch on which to lie; the rear half of the train simply consisted of ordinary third class railway carriages with their hard narrow wooden seats, but these were always reserved so far as possible for “sitting cases.”

All the coaches on the train were entirely unconnected, and those nurses who have only carried out nursing duties on trains whose entire length it was possible to walk without once going outside, can hardly realize the inconvenience, sometimes amusing but at most times vexatious, to which one was put in 1914. Quite a number of teapots and cups and saucers came to an untimely end from the habit which the batman had of placing those articles on the footboard of the train when bringing the early morning tea; then, leaving them while he went back for something which he had forgotten – the train would start with a jerk – and “goodbye-ee” to tea for that morning. The greatest inconvenience of all was the difficulty of attending to the patients, and the vexation of spirit occasioned when you had settled up one coachful of aching weary men, by the knowledge that there were still hundreds to be attended to. Climbing from coach to coach by way of the footboard was a practice absolutely forbidden, though, like more than one other rule, it was more honoured in the breach than in the observance. Frequently this means of passing from one coach to another was an absolute necessity in the interests of the patients. No doubt a French stationmaster in a little out of the way French village will probably remember to this day the sight that met his amazed gaze in the very early hours of a beautiful September morning in 1914. An ambulance train was flying through his station with an English sister clinging like a limpet to the side of the train. She had, I remember, a moment of horror when the train dashed into the station, wondering whether the platform would be higher than the footboard; but luckily all French country platforms are very low. After the Battle of the Aisne the train was garaged for a few days in a little village called Crepy-en-Valois; while the British armies moved north. Movement of troops took place only at night, and whether the whole British Army passed through this little town, we, of course, did not know; but at least one member of the staff of the train will never forget the continuous, apparently endless, procession of men, horses and guns. The men never spoke a word, either to us or among themselves. The only noise was the low, deep rumble of the procession itself, seeming to fill the autumn night with fear and foreboding.

On the night of October 31 to November 1, No.7 Ambulance train had the luck, or ill-luck, to be on Ypres station – the date that marks the beginning of the wonderful first Battle of Ypres. The train received its baptism of fire that night – poor train – it could not have run away had it wanted to; the engine had returned down the line for water. A neighbouring improvised train loaded with minor wounded had better luck and secured an engine from somewhere, and, as it pulled out of the station into safety, I expect poor old No.7 heaved a small sigh of envy, although I like to think that even had a second engine been handy, No.7 would have stuck to her post; but with what feelings of great thankfulness and relief she hooked herself on to her engine the next morning, and gave him a graphic description of those horrid shells which had made holes in her sides and broken her windows, while he was away at Hazebrouck imbibing water.

After the establishment of Casualty Clearing Stations the work on ambulance trains was not nearly so arduous. In the first days patients were entrained with all the dirt, mud, and blood of battle on them. All were fully dressed. Many had not had their boots off their feet for five or six weeks. Only those who have experienced it, know what it means to undress a heavy man, badly wounded and lying on the narrow seat of a railway carriage. Never before had it bee brought home to me what a quantity of clothes a man wears. On many an occasion it has seemed a task worthy of a Hercules, but when the deed was done, the man undressed and in soft dry pyjamas, even though maybe there had only been time to sponge his face, hands, and feet – then indeed labour had its reward – the gratitude, the patience, the infinite endurance of the men was a constant marvel to behold. One felt that the utmost one could do was but a drop in the ocean of their discomfort, and their gratitude for that drop was sometimes more than one could bear. When the Casualty Clearing Stations were established the men came on board washed, fed, and in pyjamas; so that we did not have to begin on the bedrock of things as it were, but had only to carry on the good work already commenced. It was with very mingled feelings that the writer gave up that particular kind of “good work” after three months’ service on the train; three very happy months where such minor personal discomforts as difficulties with one’s laundry, and even sometimes with one’s personal cleanliness, were all lost sight of in the feeling that one was doing real work.

Reminiscent Sketches

About a year ago, I managed to get hold of a copy of a book called 'Reminiscent Sketches, 1914 to 1919', published by John Bale, Sons and Danielsson in 1922. It's a small collection of personal accounts written by members of Queen Alexandra's Imperial Military Nursing Service, and gives great insight into day to day life during the war; in hospital, on trains and boats, and in many different locations. Over the next few weeks I'll include a selection of them here - they make a very enjoyable read for anyone with even a small interest in nursing during the Great War.