First Aid Nursing Yeomanry; World War, 1914-1918 -- Personal narratives
How she laughed--I thought she was never going to stop--and I stood
there patiently waiting to hear the joke. She explained at length and
said, "No, take them away; you've made me feel ever so much better, but
I'll have eggs instead, thank you." I went off grumbling, "How on earth
was I to know anyway they kept their tummies behind their ears!"
That fish story went all over the hospital.
Nursing in the typhoids was relieved by turns up to the trenches behind
Dixmude, which we looked forward to tremendously, but as they were
practically--with slight variations in the matter of shelling and
bombardments--a repetition of my first experience, there is no object in
recounting them here.
The typhoid doctor--"Scrubby," by name; so called because of the
inability of his chin to make up its mind if it would have a beard or
not--was very amusing, without of course meaning to be. He liked to
write the reports of the patients in the Sister's book himself, and was
very proud of his English, and this is what occasionally appeared:
Patient No. 12. "If the man sleep, let him sleep."
Patient No. 13. "To have red win (wine) in the spoonful."
Patient No. 14. "If the man have a temper (i.e. temperature) reduce him
with the sponges." And he was once heard to remark with reference to a
flat tyre: "That tube is contrary to the swelling state!"
So far, I have made no mention of the men orderlies, who I must say were
absolute bricks. There was Pierre, an alert little Bruxellois, who was
in a bank before the war and kept his widowed mother. He was in constant
fear as to her safety, for she had been left in their little house and
had no time to escape. He was well-educated and most interesting, and
oh, so gentle with the men. Then there was Louis, Ziske, and Charlke, a
big hefty Walloon who had been the butcher on a White Star liner before
the war, all excellent workers.
About this time I went on night duty and liked it very much. One was
much freer for one thing, and the sisters immediately became more human
(especially when they relied on the pros. to cook the midnight supper!),
and further there were no remarks or reflections about the defects of
the "untrained unit" who "imagined they knew everything after four
months of war." (With reference to cooking, I might here mention that
since the fish episode Mrs. Betton and I were on more than speaking
terms!)[3]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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