1916 Letter 8
Am keeping this to send by hand
S –
April 22nd, [1916]
Dearest Mother –
I’m afraid you haven’t had many letters from me since we came up here. I think the spring has made us all very lazy as everyone groans daily over their sins of omission in this line.
And besides I have had a new experience – for me - that of spending nearly two weeks on the flat of my back – or as "D.A." would say on a "bed of sickness". But to-day I am sitting up and able to write and have had a boiled egg and toast and tea for breakfast – so I think I am alright now.
Out here it is frightfully dusty and of course germs are legion, and it is only too easy to collect a few. Mine are known – by the request of the A.O.M.S. – as "P.O.U.O." – pyrexia (fever) of unknown origin. Nobody has discovered the microbe yet though all the pathologists are hunting for it.
It is very common among the troops and a sort of mixture of malaria that shoots your temp. up every few nights. But it isn’t at all serious – it really is exactly like the floo only you have no cold with it, just pains and aches, constipation and a very jaundiced outlook on life and no desire to raise your head.
We have a special hut for sick Sisters and as there were three of us we were all moved up. It is rather trying but it makes the work easier for the ones who are looking after us, so we can say nothing.
It is right beside the matron’s office and you know how we love her.
I took my half day last Monday thinking I’d feel better in the morning. However I didn’t and had to report sick – felt fairly well for two days then my temp. went up and I felt wretched and so on till to-day. The last thing I really ate was last Tuesday when Mae cooked a chicken and a good second to the famous New Year’s Eve one - and made salad. I ate freely and felt no bad results till next morning when Myra by mistake gave me some Boracic Sol. to drink and there "up came the oysters". Mae almost cried to think of the waste but finally decided that digestion must have done it’s duty by that time and that her efforts were not a total loss.
It was a pleasant memory to cherish through the following days when I couldn’t have eaten a bite to save my soul, and we are to have another party as soon as I am "discharged to duty".
Last night I had some tomato soup, a fried sole and some mashed potato and it did taste good.
When I think of the little or nothing we had to give the girls who were sick during the early days in Lemnos, I feel awfully fortunate because here we can get so much more. In Lemnos we were so hungry we could have eaten nails – when we were well – but for those who weren’t very well it was simply heartbreaking – trying to find any thing for them.
This is really civilization. We get good eggs, meat from stores every day, the best bacon I’ve seen since I joined, a ration of potatoe and vegetables, and special bread as we have nursed most of the Bakery Staff and apparently have their good will.
Then Scoble who is mess sister goes into town almost every day and can get almost anything, though prices are frightfully high.
I am having a good rest which I need and shall take. The month we spent in Cairo was decidedly strenuous as we had no idea we’d be there so long and consequently we rushed hecticly at shops and sights mixed till we were nervous wrecks. Then too we couldn’t have our breakfast in bed without paying exhorbitant backsheesh and getting it on the side. And then in this Travelling Circus existence you sort of live on your nerve all the time.
But dear me, we’re growing to be fearfully blasè. Weeks afterward we’ll wonder if we really saw or did such and such and it is rather a surprise.
As a unit we are vastly improved and can smile over the growing pains of these painfully new hospitals. We all know each others weak points and indulge in the plainest of home truths as if we were one big family.
Last week I thought seriously of asking for sick leave to England but at the same time came the rumour that we were to go to France soon so I decided to stay a while.
I had no idea that Eric would be so long in England, but even if I went back on his account, I would have to ask as a favour to be sent to some hospital near there and I should hate to be stuck at Cliveden till the end of the war and yet once he had gone I couldn’t very well ask again to go to France.
Besides, to take a very selfish view of it, I have seen a great deal by being with this unit and hope to see more.
If things do liven up out here and the Boche-Bulgar crowd do start something we shall be a good deal more in the thick of it than ever before and have some real work. The position of the Allies here is supposed to be absolutely unpregnable and everyone expects to give the Bulgars a taste of what our men got on the Peninsula. People imagine we are in for more danger than we really are and there are enough descendants of [Ananias] and [Saphira] with the B.E.F. to lend a hand in keeping up all these wild tales.
I believe our esteemed Matron cabled from Cairo that we had left Lemnos as it was being shelled. At least that is the story that has come back from several sources, so it’s probably true. Though heaven knows I shouldn’t judge quickly as I was credited with having us moved from Wimereux because of the Zeps. In Lemnos we were in one of the safest of places. The Monday after Christmas during our big tea, a Taube did drop a few bombs in the harbor and on two occasions afterwards – once before we left and once after – there were bombs dropped but there was absolutely no damage done.
When we think of the raids the English are having we feel rather out of the war entirely. Dorothy Winter wrote us about a zep that came over Ramsgate where she is –
I have never seen a zep – though just before we arrived one came over Salonica, and several times since they have been driven back by our guns, farther up the line.
We had a raid March 27 – at 5am – that was quite exciting. There were 9 Taubes in all and it was a wonderful sight – in every sense of that overworked word. They came up against the rays of the rising sun, though of course it was scarcely daylight. Then our guns began and we could follow the Taubes by their tiny flashes.
They stayed around for over an hour but did practically no damage. The French captured one of them. The strange part of it is that we didn’t feel a bit nervous. Myra in fact was visibly bored. About 6 am. when it was nearly over she said "well girls I’m going to bed. I’m fed up with this" – and just inside the tent she almost stepped on a mouse. I say "almost" for if Myra ever stepped on it it would be the end of it. Well the excitement was intents – ha ha – some pun, eh what? Myra stood on her bed and shrieked. Mae stood outside and shrieked in sympathy and
… not officers – so we are really living in civilization again.
Myra bought some exquisite Turkish embroidery yesterday. It is almost 100 years old and simply beautiful. Two pieces cost £5, and it is well worth it. I am getting you some though not quite so expensive as that. A friend of ours, Capt. Wade, a Scotchman and a man of at least 40 – is an enthusiast about all sorts of antiques and knows what he’s buying, so he is getting our things for us. Isn’t it lucky to have some one like that?
I was sorry to hear about Alan Munro. I wonder whose ward he was in at #1 Gen. at Etaples. I know a lot of girls there, and it is a splendid hospital.
Myra’s brother is a Sgt. in the Princess Pats – he probably knows Joe and Tom. He is trying to get a Commission in the Flying Corps.
Ethel’s brother is now a 2nd Lieut, so he must be in the Imperial army, where I don’t know and Ethel characteristically forgot to mention it. All these boys have influences at home and that helps a lot. I wish Eric could get his but we can look for no help from home and what we can’t get ourselves we must be prepared to do without – so I expect Eric will go on being a sapper. For people who talk so much about this "family", the Fowlds are not prepared to do much to keep it up.
Well I must stop now but will write again soon. Love to Papa –
Yours lovingly –
Helen –
You might send this on to Don, though I’m writing him to-day.