Finding Themselves: The Letters of an American Amy Chief Nurse in the British Hospital in France — John Shaqi
Finding Themselves: The Letters of an American Amy Chief Nurse in the British Hospital in FranceStimson, Julia C. (Julia Catherine)
History
Finding Themselves: The Letters of an American Amy Chief Nurse in the British Hospital in France
Stimson, Julia C. (Julia Catherine)
World War, 1914-1918 -- Hospitals; World War, 1914-1918 -- Personal narratives
I was assigned to a very good stateroom all by myself. Then yesterday
the purser moved me into a still larger and better room, where I have a
table and a droplight, which is more luxury than I ever traveled with
before. People are all so good to us. Even the stewards and the
stewardesses, most of whom are English, seem to be only too glad to do
what they can to make us all comfortable. There have been a few seasick
nurses, which is hard to explain, as the weather has been perfect and
the ocean very smooth. To-day there is a slight roll, but not enough to
notice. Every day there is target practice with the guns. Empty barrels
are thrown overboard and the gun crews shoot at them with the big guns
that are on the forward and after decks.
Evening prayers are held every evening at 9.30, and yesterday we had
church service and had all the enlisted men up. Our [Chaplain] Dean
Davis is a real man. We got a choir together yesterday and last evening
had some fancy singing, which an overly critical person might call
bellowing. It is a mixed choir and it certainly can sing. Now it is time
I studied some French.
Friday afternoon, May 25.
Since I last wrote we have had some real weather, and such a lot of sick
people! Doctors as well as nurses succumbed; and great was the misery.
To-day it is bright and sunny again and not so cold, and everybody is
recovering. It was up along the Banks and opposite Labrador, I guess,
where it was the worst. It was cold and rainy and really very rough, so
much so that we had to have the racks on the tables. I have not been
sick a minute myself, but there was one day when I was not much
interested in eating. Still I did not miss a single meal.
It is a heavenly day to-day. We are already in or near the danger zone
and extra precautions are being taken. It all seems so queer. To-night
we are not to undress, and the few nurses who are on the deck below this
one, where most of them are, are to sleep to-night in the
doctor-officers’ rooms on the upper deck and the latter are to sleep in
the sitting-rooms. There has been some special target practice when no
passengers were allowed on deck, and there was an elaborate boat drill
this afternoon. It is all strange business and still most
incomprehensible to me. I still feel as if I were dreaming and that in a
few minutes I would wake up. We are due to land Sunday afternoon at
Liverpool, it seems, and are scheduled to go to London. But after that
all is shrouded in mystery. My crowd of nurses are fine and have been
behaving splendidly. Comparing them to the Philadelphia bunch I feel
that I have no reason to be ashamed of them or to fear for what they are
going to do. They have all shown a splendid spirit and seem to be full
of enthusiasm and eagerness to show what Missouri can do when it tries.
I feel perfectly sure they are going to be a loyal, hard-working group.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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