Diary of a Nursing Sister on the Western Front, 1914-1915 | Page 3

in the French papers as there is about ours in the English, and
not a great deal about the movements of the Germans.
There are 43 Sisters belonging to No.-- General Hospital on the floor
below us camping out in the same way--86 altogether in the building,
one wing of which is the Sick Officers' Hospital of No.-- G.H.
The No.-- people are moving up the line to-night. It will take a few
days to get No.-- together, and then we shall move on at night. The
Colonel knows where to, but he has not told Matron; she thinks it will
be farther up than Amiens or Rheims, where two more have already
gone, but it is all guess-work. I expect No.-- from C---- is in Belgium.
(It was at Amiens and had to leave in a hurry.)
The whole system of Field Medical Service has altered since South
Africa. The wounded are picked up on the field by the regimental

stretcher-bearers, who are generally the band, trained in First Aid and
Stretcher Drill. They take them to the Bearer Section of the Field
Ambulance (which used to be called Field Hospital), who take them to
the Tent Section of the same Field Ambulance, who have been getting
the Dressing Station ready with sterilisers, &c., while the Bearer
Section are fetching them from the regimental stretcher-bearers. They
are all drilled to get this ready in twenty minutes in tents, but it takes
longer in farmhouses. The Field Ambulance then takes them in
ambulance waggons (with lying down and sitting accommodation) to
the Clearing Hospital, with beds, and returns empty to the Dressing
Station. From the Clearing Hospital they go on to the Stationary
Hospital--200 beds--which is on a railway, and finally in hospital trains
to the General Hospital, their last stopping-place before they get
shipped off to Netley and all the English hospitals. The General
Hospitals are the only ones at present to carry Sisters; 500 beds is the
minimum, and they are capable of expanding indefinitely.
There is a large staff of harassed-looking landing officers here, with
A.M.L.O. on a white armband for the medical people; a great many
troopships are coming from Southampton; you hear them booing their
signals in the harbour all night and day.
I've had my first letter from England, from a patient at ----. The Field
Service post-card is quite good as a means of communication, but
frightfully tantalising from our point of view.
We had a very good night on our mattresses, but it was rather cold
towards morning with only one rug.
They have a Carter-Paterson motor-van for the Military mail-cart at the
M.P.O., and two Tommies sit by a packing-case with a slit in the lid for
the letter-box.
Saturday, August 22nd.--The worst has happened. No.-- is to stop at
Havre; in camp three miles out. So No.-- and No.-- are both staying
here.
Meanwhile to-day Nos.--, --, and -- have all arrived; 130 more Sisters

besides the 86 already here are packed into this Convent, camping out
in dining-halls and schoolrooms and passages. The big Chapel below
and the wee Chapel on this floor seem to be the only unoccupied places
now.
Havre is a big base for the France part of our Expeditionary Force.
Troopships are arriving every day, and every fighting man is being
hurried up to the Front, and they cannot block the lines and trains with
all these big hospitals yet.
The news from the Front looks bad to-day--Namur under heavy fire,
and the Germans pressing on Antwerp, and the French chased out of
Lorraine.
Everybody is hoping it doesn't mean staying here permanently, but you
never know your luck. It all depends what happens farther up, and of
course one might have the luck to be added to a hospital farther up to
fill up casualties among Sisters or if more were wanted.
The base hospitals, of course, are always filling up from up country
with men who may be able to return to duty, and acute or hopeless
cases who have to be got well enough for a hospital ship for home.
There is to be a Requiem Mass to-morrow at Notre Dame for those who
have been killed in the war, and the whole nave and choir is reserved
for officials and Red Cross people. It is a most beautiful church, now
hung all over with the four flags of the Allies. An old woman in the
church this morning asked us if we were going to the Blessés, and
clasped our hands and blessed us and wept. She must have had some
sons in the army.
We are simply longing to get to work, whether here or anywhere else; it
is 100 per cent better in this interesting old town doing for ourselves in