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[Page 7]
particularly bad in the winter of 1915-16 (as Lord Kitchener remarked "if the nurses had their way he and the French would be holding the lines".
In April a Colonel Thompson from England came to inspect the personnel. He asked our Officer-in-Charge, Col. Bridges, to have us ready for inspection in full working uniform on top of the hill. This was difficult as our veils kept blowing off. The Colonel was looking most uncomfortable and said "what will I do with them?" Both laughed and after the inspection we were dismissed for the afternoon.
A small boat was sunk at the bottom of the cliff and the boys found a half drowned dog. They rescued him and he became a great pet with all. The Orderlies made a cart for him in which he proudly carried red cross supplies to the wards. A few of the Drs. and nurses took our snaps as we sat in the cart and Major stood there proudly.
The YWCA was very good to us and the patients. We also got extras from the Red Cross, especially the Australian branch. Coming down the lines one day I had a couple of lovely blankets when I met a Col. Rudolph and he asked what I was doing. I said I needed them and he looked shocked. A week or so later I met him again staggering along with a small supply, and he told me he was scoring from the same place. We all did it and we were lucky when we got a good scrounger as an orderly. They were usually older men, and it was surprising what they could turn up with from the Q. M. Stores.
In April a few of the patients went to England and were glad to go.
They had very little comfort during those winter months in the trenches. It was always wet and we wore rain capes, sou~westers and rubber boots, slithering around in the mud, especially on night duty, whilst carrying our hurricane lamps. We had a lot of convoys in and sometimes there would be a departure at the same time. It was most confusing as the patients had to stay on the floor whilst the bed patients were evacuated. |
Like the men we had lice, but unl,ke them we had to wait until we were off duty to delouse. Night duty was a real problem as we had five tents, later huts were built, with 35 patients in each. An orderly was supposed to stay on duty till morning, but had a habit of disappearing around midnight and could not be found. Feeling that we might land ourselves in trouble we did not report them, instead arranged with the nurses to put a well man next to a very sick patient, who might be likely to haemorrage or get out of bed. This way and with frequent visits to the wards we managed.
One man who had a shocking wound in his elbow refused to have his arm amputated (he was a violinist in civil life) started to haemorrage but luckily we were there. The M. O. for the day had been celebrating