A Volunteer Nurse on the Western Front Read Online Free Page A

buffeted humanity! Thank Heaven for an infinitely precious boon.
    Only one wakeful boy among the newcomers, and he assures me he doesn’t feel like sleep, the bed is too soft. Oh yes, he is quite comfy; it is cushy,
très bon
, he is affirming,
cinq bon.
I overhear the latter, a new piece of slang to me, and immediately my footsteps are stayed.
    ‘And why
cinq bon
?’
    ‘Five
bon
, sister.’
    ‘Yes, but why five?’
    ‘Oh, five
bon
, sister, a nap hand.’
    I have spoken of the occasional aversion which some of the boys confess to have wholly needlessly harboured against hospital life. Another feeling, natural enough, I suppose, but equally needless and ungrounded is that of fear. Many of our patients are sturdy young Britons who have never had any ache or pain more dangerous or severe than toothache in all their healthy young lives, and to them ‘hospital’ is a word which expresses a world of woe, which ought really to be writ all in capitals. They imagine surgeons with large, long knives and hawk-like eyes ruthlessly walking up and down ready to ‘chop.’ Theyimagine severe sisters, fully armed with terribly efficient forceps, ready to pull determinedly at all caked dressings and bandages. They have in their youth heard eloquent parents give exceedingly intimate, and exceedingly inaccurate, accounts of the troubles that befell them in such and such hospital ‘when I had a crool time of it, me dear,’ and when ‘I lay on me back five months on end.’ They have, too, at more recent date reverentially listened to the accounts of healed warriors, – personal and embellished accounts of hideous sufferings, accounts picturesquely told in billets at night when conversation otherwise might have languished.
    No wonder a little fear of hospitals is engendered within them.
    It is our privilege, pleasure and pride to dispel that fear, – a pride which actually grows to a conceit. It is very feminine to enjoy rising above expectations, and to hear stumbling expressions of gratitude after a dressing, – to be assured that ‘it feels luvly’ or ‘I was dreading that, sister, and it didn’t hurt a bit’ – is as the sound of music in one’s ears. It is a form of vanity of which we are not ashamed, indeed, we revel in it. We try as hard to gain such compliments as any actress ever works to ‘get over’ the footlights, as hard as any
passé
professional beauty fishes for her toasts of yesteryear. We treasure those whispered thanks more dearly than ever we treasured whispered conservatory compliments, for we know the one is sincere, whereas….
    Most nervous patients are reassured by ‘chipping,’ for ‘chipping’ is the language they best understand. It is so much more human and cheery than the ‘ministering angel stunt.’
    ‘Now, little chappie, swinging the lead, eh? We’ll soon fix this up. Nothing very much the matter, is there?’ and with a soak of hydrogen peroxide and warm sterile water, caked dressings soon give way. The clay-covered, blood-spattered surrounding skin is washed with the same lotion or with ether soap and, possibly, an area shaved – as in the case of head and calf wounds – and the wound itself is cleaned and dressed.
    ‘Is the plugging out, sister?’ a boy will sometimes ask, when one takes up the bandage to bind up the wound – and then, of course, one does feel conceited!
    ‘Is it a Blighty one, sister?’ we are invariably asked, perhaps by the owner of a gaping gash three or four inches long.
    ‘That scratch a Blighty one! Good gracious, boy, you’ll be marked “Active” very soon. Still, of course,’ altering the tone of voice, ‘in three or four days’ timethe medical officer is sure to have too many Blighty tickets to carry round, and we might persuade him to get rid of two when he reaches your cot.’
    Such a beatific smile dawns that there is nothing to be seen above the bed-clothes but two crescents of inflated cheek and a wide, red mouth. And he is left to