The Living Present Part 11

She is in her offices at the Red Cross headquarters in the Rue Francois I'er early and late, leaving them only to visit hospitals or sit on some one of the innumerable committees where her advice is imperative, during the organizing period at least.

Some time ago I wrote to Madame d'Haussonville, asking her if she would dictate a few notes about her work in the Red Cross, and as she wrote a very full letter in reply, I cannot do better than quote it, particularly as it gives a far more comprehensive idea of her personality than any words of mine.

"Paris, March 28th, 1917.

"DEAR MRS. ATHERTON:

"I am very much touched by your gracious letter and very happy if I can serve you.

"Here are some notes about our work, and about what I have seen since August, 1914. All our thoughts and all our strength are in the great task, that of all French women, to aid the wounded, the ill, those who remain invalids, the refugees of the invaded districts, all the sufferings actually due to these cruel days.

"Some weeks before the war, I was called to the ministry, where they asked me to have two hundred infirmaries ready for all possible happenings. We had already established a great number, of which many had gone to Morocco and into the Colonies. To-day there are fifteen or sixteen thousand volunteer nurses to whom are added about eleven thousand auxiliaries used in accessory service (kitchen, bandages, sterilization, etc.) and also a.s.sisting in the wards of the ill and the wounded.

"To the hospitals there have been added since the month of August, 1914, the infirmaries and station cantines where our soldiers receive the nourishment and hot drinks which are necessary for their long journeys.

"At Amiens, for instance, the cantine, an annex of the station infirmary began with the distribution of slices of bread and drinks made by our women as the trains arrived. Then a big room used for baggage was given to us. A dormitory was made of it for tired soldiers, also a reading-room. At any hour French, English or Belgians may receive a good meal--soup, one kind of meat and vegetables, coffee or tea. Civil refugees are received there and constantly aided and fed.

"Our nurses attend to all wants, and above everything they believe in putting their hearts into their work administering to those who suffer with the tenderness of a mother. In the hospital wards nothing touched me more than to see the thousand little kindnesses which they gave to the wounded, the distractions which they sought to procure for them each day.

"In our great work of organization at the Bureau on Rue Francois I'er, I have met the most beautiful devotion. Our nurses do not hesitate at contagion, nor at bombardments, and I know some of your compatriots (that I can never admire enough), who expose themselves to the same dangers with hearts full of courage.

"I have visited the hospitals nearest the Front, Dunkerque, so cruelly sh.e.l.led. I have been to Alsace, to Lorraine, then to Verdun from where I brought back the most beautiful impression of calm courage.

"Here are some details which may interest your compatriots:

"June 1916. My first stop was at Chalons, where with Mme.

Terneaux-Compans our devoted senior nurse, I visited the hospital Corbineau, former quarters for the cavalry, very well reconstructed by the Service de Sante, for sick soldiers; our nurses are doing service there; generous gifts have enabled us to procure a small motor which carries water to the three stories, and we have been able to install baths for the typhoid patients.

"At the hospital Forgeot (for the officers) I admired the ingeniousness with which our nurses have arranged for their wounded a quite charming a.s.sembly-room with a piano, some growing plants and several games.

"I also visited our auxiliary hospital at Sainte-Croix. It would be impossible to find a more beautiful location, a better organization. I have not had, to my great regret, the time to visit the other hospitals, which, however, I already know. That will be, I hope, for another time.

"The same day I went to Revigny. Oh, never shall I forget the impressions that I received there. First, the pa.s.sage through that poor village in ruins, then the visit to the hospital situated near the station through which most of the wounded from Verdun pa.s.s.

"What was, several months ago, a field at the edge of the road, has become one big hospital of more than a thousand beds, divided into baraques. We have twenty-five nurses there. Since the beginning of the battle they have been subjected to frightful work; every one has to care for a number of critically wounded--those who have need of operations and who are not able to travel further. What moved me above everything was to find our nurses so simple and so modest in their courage. Not a single complaint about their terrible fatigue--their one desire is to hold out to the end. When I expressed my admiration, one of them answered: 'We have only one regret: it is that we have too much work to give special attention to each of the wounded, and then above all it is terrible to see so many die.'

"I visited some of the baraques, and I observed that, in spite of the excessive work, they were not only clean but well cared for, and flowers everywhere! I also saw a tent where there were about ten Germans; one of our nurses who spoke their language was in charge; they seemed to me very well taken care of--'well,' because they were wounded, not 'too well' because--we cannot forget.

"I tore myself away from Revigny, where I should have liked to remain longer, and I arrived that night at Jeans d'Heurs, which seemed to me a small paradise. The wounded were admirably cared for in beautiful rooms, with windows opening on a ravishing park; the nurses housed with the greatest care.

"The next day I was at Bar-le-Duc, first at the Central, which is an immense hospital of three thousand beds. Before the war it was a caserne (barrack). They reconstructed the buildings and in the courts they put up sheds; our nurses are at work there--among them the beloved President of our a.s.sociation--the Mutual a.s.sociation of Nurses. All these buildings seemed to me perfect. I visited specially the splendidly conducted surgical pavilion and the typhoid pavilion.

"The white-washed walls have been decorated by direction of the nurses with great friezes of color, producing a charming effect which ought to please the eyes of our beloved sick.

"I visited also the laboratory where they showed me the chart of the typhoid patients--the loss so high in 1914--so low in 1915. I noted down some figures which I give here for those who are interested in the question of anti-typhoid vaccine: In November 1914, 379 deaths. In November 1915, 22! What a new and wonderful victory for French science! I must add that three of our nurses have contracted typhoid fever; none of them was inoculated; twenty who were inoculated caught nothing.

"While we were making this visit, we heard the whistle which announced the arrival of taubes--we wanted very much to remain outside to see, but we were ordered to go in; I observed that our nurses obeyed the order because of discipline, not on account of fear. 'We can only die once!' one of them said to me, shrugging her shoulders. Their chief concern is for the poor wounded. Many of them now that they are in bed, powerless to defend themselves, become nervous at the approach of danger. They have to be rea.s.sured. If the sh.e.l.ling becomes too heavy, they carry them down into the cellars.

"These taubes having gone back this time without causing any damage, we set off for Savonnieres, a field hospital of about three hundred beds, established in a little park. It is charming in summer, it may be a little damp in winter, but the nurses do not complain; the nurses never complain!

"Sat.u.r.day was the most interesting day of my trip. I saw two field hospitals between Bar-le-Duc and Verdun. Oh! those who have not been in the War Zone cannot imagine the impression that I received on the route which leads 'out there,' toward the place where the greatest, the most atrocious struggle that has ever been is going on. All those trucks by hundreds going and coming from Verdun; those poor men breaking stones, ceaselessly repairing the roads, the aeroplane bases, the depots of munitions, above all the villages filled with troops, all those dear little soldiers, some of them fresh and clean, going, the others yellow with mud returning--all this spectacle grips and thrills you.

"We breakfasted at Chaumont-sur-Aire; I cannot say how happy I was to share, if only for an hour, the life of our dear nurses! Life here is hard. They are lodged among the natives more or less well. They live in a little peasant's room near a stable; they eat the food of the wounded, not very varied--'boule' every two weeks. How they welcomed the good fresh bread that I brought!

"Their work is not easy, scattered over a wide field; tents, and barns here and there, and then they have been deprived of an 'autocher,'

which had to leave for some other destination.

"Many of the wounded from Verdun come there; and what wounded! Never shall I forget the frightful plight of one unfortunate, upon whom they were going to operate without much chance of success alas. He had remained nearly four days without aid, and gangrene had done its work.

"I had tears in my eyes watching the sleep of our heroes who had arrived that morning overcome and wornout, all covered with dust; I would have liked to put them in good beds, all white with soft pillows under their heads. Alas in these hospitals at the front, one cannot give them the comfort of our hospitals in the rear.

"After having a.s.sisted at the great spectacle of a procession of taubes going toward Bar-le-Duc, I was obliged to leave Chaumont to go to Vadelaincourt, which is thirteen kilometres from Verdun, the nearest point of our infirmaries. I was there in March at the beginning of the battle.

"What wonderful work has been accomplished! It is not for me to judge the Service de Sante, but I cannot help observing that a hospital like that of Vadelaincourt does honor to the head doctor who organized it in full battle in the midst of a thousand difficulties. It is very simple, very practical, very complete. I found nurses there who for the most part have not been out of the region of Verdun since the beginning of the war. Their task is especially hard. How many wounded have pa.s.sed through their hands; how have they been able to overcome all their weariness? It is a pleasure to find them always alert and watchful; I admired and envied them.

"It was not without regret that I turned my back on this region whose close proximity to the Front makes one thrill with emotion; I went to calmer places, I saw less thrilling things, but nevertheless, interesting: the charming layout at Void, that at Sorcy, in process of organizing, the grand hospital of Toul which was sh.e.l.led by taubes. I was able to see the enormous hole dug by the bomb which fell very near the building that sheltered our nurses, who had but one idea, to run to their wounded and rea.s.sure them.

"I visited at Nancy a very beautiful hospital, the Malgrange, which is almost unique; it is the Red Cross which houses the military hospital.

At the instant of bombardment, most of the hospitals were vacated; ours, situated outside of the city, gathered in the wounded and all the personnel of the military hospital, and it goes very well.

"I finished my journey with the Vosges, epinal, Belfort, Gerardmer, Bussang, Morvillars; all these hospitals which were filled for a long time with the wounded from the battles of the Vosges (especially our brave Alpines) are quiet now.

"If I congratulated the nurses of the region of Verdun upon their endurance, I do not congratulate less those of the Vosges upon their constancy; Gerardmer has had very full days--days when one could not take a thought to one's self. There is something painful, in a way, in seeing great happenings receding from you. We do not hear the cannon any longer, the wounded arrive more rarely, we have no longer enough to do, we are easily discouraged, we should like to be elsewhere and yet one must remain there at his post ready in case of need, which may come perhaps when it is least expected.

"I shall have many things still to tell you, but I am going to resume my impressions of this little trip in a few words.

"I have been filled with admiration. The word has, I believe, fallen many times from my pen, and it will fall again and again. I have admired our dear wounded, so courageous in their suffering, so gracious to all those who visit them; I have admired the doctors who are making and have made every day, such great efforts to organize and to better conditions; and our nurses I have never ceased to admire.

When I see them I find them just as I hoped, very courageous and also very simple. They speak very little of themselves, and a great deal of their wounded; they complain very little of their fatigue, sometimes of not having enough to do. They always meet cheerfully the material difficulties of their existence as they do almost always the moral difficulties which are even more difficult. Self-abnegation, attention to their duty, seem to them so natural that one scarcely dares to praise them.

"There is one thing that I must praise them for particularly--that they always seem to keep the beautiful charming coquetry that belongs to every woman. I often arrived without warning. I never saw hair disarranged or dress neglected. This exterior perfection is, I may say, a distinctive mark of our nurses.

"And then I like the care with which they decorate and beautify their hospital. Everywhere flowers, pictures, bits of stuff to drape their rooms. At Revigny in one of the baraques I saw flowers, simple flowers gathered in the neighboring field, so prettily arranged, portraits of our generals framed in green. When I complimented a nurse, she answered: 'Ah, no; it is not well done; but I hadn't the time to do better.'

"At Vadelaincourt, a little room was set aside for dressings, all done in white with curtains of white and two little vases of flowers. What a smiling welcome for the poor wounded who come there! 'The arrangement of a room has a great deal of influence on the morale of the wounded,' a doctor said to me. All this delights me!

"I have finished, but I shall think for a long time of this journey which has left in my memory unforgettable sights and in my heart very tender impressions.

"In the Somme, also, our nurses have worked with indefatigable ardor, and they go on without relaxation. The poor refugees, which the Germans return to us often sick and dest.i.tute of everything, are received and comforted by our women of the Red Cross.

"The three societies of the Red Cross--our Society for the Relief of the Military Wounded, the Union of the Women of France, and the a.s.sociation of the Ladies of France--work side by side under the direction of the Service de Sante.

"Our Society for the Relief of the Military Wounded has actually about seven hundred hospitals, which represent sixty thousand beds, where many nurses are occupied from morning until night, and many of them serve also at the military hospital at the Front, and in the Orient (three to four thousand nurses).

"Every day new needs make us create new oeuvres, which we organize quickly.

"The making of bandages and compresses has always been an important work with us. Yards of underclothing and linen are continually asked of us by our nurses for their sick. The workshops which we have opened since the beginning of the war a.s.sist with work a great number of women who have been left by the mobilization of their men without resources.