Julia. August 28, 1917. For almost 24 hours we have been having one of the severest wind storms I have ever seen. It has been beautiful. It has been pouring for two days, then last evening it began to blow, and such a whistling and shrieking and rattling as there was. Up in our grove our little huts were pretty well protected, but the trees lashed themselves with fury, and branches broke, and doors and windows slammed and smashed. Several small tents were blown down, but no serious damage was done. All day it has been blowing great guns and it has been gray and cold, like a late Fall day. I have been in the office all day doing accounts and other tiresome things, with one or two trips to the lines for various purposes. Miss Taylor had been off all the afternoon. I had tea in the Officers’ Mess, which made a diversion of a few minutes. One of my Colonel friends sent over some sweet peas and dahlias, and I took some down for the officers’ tables, and got invited to tea, so stayed a few minutes. Their mess is a bare, barracky kind of room under the grand stand. Yesterday I had a little different kind of day. All the morning I was in and out of the office, down on the lines, and all over in the pour. Then at 12:30 the Major and I went over in the ambulance to the Sick Sisters’ Hospital to see our invalids and take out the final stitches. Our lady with the serious operation has been doing wonderfully well from the very beginning. She has been up and about for several days, though she was operated upon only nine days ago. She will be back on duty before very long, if everything continues as it has been going. We shall probably send her to the Sisters’ Convalescent Home for ten days after she is well enough to go. It is such a blessing to have such splendid places to have our sick nurses taken care of. I have one nurse now, at E., recovering from bronchitis, and just this operation case, and the nurse with the badly infected finger, so I feel we are doing mighty well. Well, after our visit to the hospital, we rode back to town in the pour, and had lunch at Rouen’s best hotel, the Hotel de la Poste. It is a regulation Continental hotel, full of staff officers, and has excellent food. We in uniform were the only Americans there, but we saw a number of our English friends. Afterwards we separated to do various errands. I had a long séance at the Base Cashier’s, where I received 18,000 francs from the British Government for my nurse mess, laundry, and field allowance for July, and had to sign my name 138 times. Then I went to the bank and deposited the money and straightened out some difficulties there. That bank is so stupid, and makes so many mistakes; one has to watch them very carefully. Then I paid a rations bill of £91, was picked up by the ambulance, went to buy a sewing machine for the nurses, and drove back to the hospital.