Diary of a Nursing Sister on the Western Front, 1914-1915Anonymous
History
Diary of a Nursing Sister on the Western Front, 1914-1915
Anonymous
World War, 1914-1918 -- Hospitals, charities, etc.; World War, 1914-1918 -- Personal narratives
The men from Mons told us "it wasn't fighting--it was murder." They said
the burning hot sun was one of the worst parts. They said "the officers
was grand"; many regiments seem to have hardly any officers left. They
all say that the S.A. War was a picnic compared to this German artillery
onslaught and their packed masses continually filling up.
There is a darling little chapel on this floor, beautifully kept, just
as the nuns left it, where one can say one's prayers. And there is also
a lovely church, where they have Mass at 8 every morning.
You can imagine how hard it has been to keep off grumbling at not
getting any work all this time; it is one of the worst of fortunes of
war. It seems as if most of the "dangerously" and many of the
"seriously" wounded must have died pretty soon, or have not been picked
up. The cases that do come down are most of them slight. Some of the
worst must be in hospital at Rouen.
_Friday, September 4th. R.M.S.P._ Asturias, _Havre._--At last we are
uprooted from that convent up the hot hill and are on an enormous
hospital ship, who in times of peace goes to New York and Brazil and the
Argentine. There are 240 Sisters on her, one or two M.O.'s, and all the
No.-- equipment. She is like a great white town; you can walk for miles
on her decks; she is the biggest I have ever been on; we are in the
cabins, and the wards and operating-theatres are all equipped for
patients, but at the moment she is being used as a transport for us. We
are supposed to be going to St Nazaire, the port for Nantes. They can't
possibly be going to dump No.--, No.--, No.--, No.--, and No.-- all down
at the new base, so I suppose one or two of the hospitals will be sent
up the new lines of communication.
Poor Havre is very desolate. All the flags came down when the British
left, and the people looked very sad. Paris refugees are crowding in,
and sleeping on the floors of the hotels, and camping out in their motor
cars, and many crossing to England. There is a Proclamation up all over
the town telling the people to pull themselves together whatever
happens, and to forget everything that is not La Patrie. Also another
about the military necessity for the Government to leave Paris, and
that they mustn't be afraid of anything that may happen, because we
shall win in the end, &c., &c.
We don't start till to-morrow, I believe; meanwhile, cleanliness and
privacy and sheets, and cool, quick meals and sea breeze, are cheering
after the grime and the pigging and the squash and the awful heat of the
last fortnight. I have picked up a bad cold from the foul dust-heaps and
drainless condition of the smelly Havre streets, but it will soon
disappear now.
I wish I could tell you the extraordinary beauty of yesterday evening
from the ship. There was a flaming sunset below a pale-green sky, and
then the thousand lights of the ships and the town came out reflected in
the water, and then a brilliant moon. A big American cruiser was
alongside of us.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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