The Second World War

NURSING TIMES, NOVEMBER 11, 1944: 775

With Pen and Brush – a Q.A. reports

1.- Ready for Off!
Text and Drawings by
PATRICIA E. MOODY, S.R.N.

The tremendous successes in France, Russia and Italy almost entirely monopolise our thoughts these days, and so it is with some misgiving that I embark on a few reminiscences of the North African campaign. Many reader will quite justifiably think to themselves – ‘What has she got to write about; it’s only what we’ve all done.’ I agree, and it is only the very ordinary everyday happenings familiar to so many of us that I am rambling on about.
We’re ready for off! Oh, the magic of that ungrammatical sentence when a unit is waiting to go overseas. It seems as if the time will never come, but eventually the great day dawns…an ambulance door slams, gears crash into place and we are off. A sense of unreality persists about the train journey, the sea voyage and the final disembarkation as if it was all a dream, but how strange every thing is.

UNDER CANVAS
To my mind one of the chief joys of being overseas on active service is living in a tent. Never shall I forget the day that we arrived at our tented hospital far ‘up the line’. On arrival at the local station after a fairly long journey by train we were packed into ‘three tonner’ lorries alongside our precious luggage (anyone who has been overseas knows that without it one would be about as much good as a Quartermaster without his stores) and eventually tumbled out to view our new quarters. The grass was growing high inside our tents and yet it did not strike us as being anything unusual, and ‘ere long we had our ‘homes’ rigged up and quite shipshape. Next day it really seemed as if we had been there all our lives; the inevitable washing was hanging out, tea-making was in progress and at mid-day the sisters went on duty with the utmost confidence and self-assurance as if they had been working in a tented ward all their lives. Very interesting work it was too, needing all one’s powers of ingenuity and improvisation.

A SECRET VICE
Tea is, we know, considered to be the secret vice of most nurses, but I have never known it to taste so good as it did in those evenings after duty in a hundred-and-sixty-pounder ridge tent; (even better than the surreptitious cup hastily sipped behind the door when Sister has gone to supper); the darkness outside, and the warm light of the hurricane lamp combined to make it all so cosy and comfortable, and everyone talking their heads off. It was the usual chatter and gossip of a congregation of women….. “So I said ‘You’ve had it, Captain Smith, if that is what you think’….. ‘If I’ve told that Orderly once I’ve told him a thousand times’….. ‘Have you heard the latest rumour that we are moving out next month?’….. ‘Sugar?’….. ‘No, thanks, - and I told Matron that I had had only one late pass this week’….. ‘I can’t understand her. Personally I wouldn’t have him wrapped up in banknotes’……
O, it was a great life and no mistake.

NURSING TIMES, NOVEMBER 18, 1944: 791

With Pen and Brush
– a Q.A. reports

2.- Decorative Night

Text and Drawings by
PATRICIA E. MOODY, S.R.N.

Blitz! It is a household word with us now and still an everyday occurrence in the south of England unfortunately. I shall not, therefore, attempt to describe in any detail the air raids we experienced out there (sighs of relief). In fact I should expect to have to pay someone to listen to my bomb stories.

TARGET FOR TONIGHT
Our camp was not very far from one of the main supply ports of North Africa, which the Luftwaffe hammered at most nights in a futile attempt to dislocate transport and supply. There was no warning; when the gunfire began you rolled out of bed and clapped on a steel helmet, and I will admit that it gave you a rather uncomfortable feeling having no shelter, but this minor detail was soon forgotten in watching the ack-ack, which was very decorative. A terrific barrage of tracer bullets and the usual shells went up. I remember once there was a great crash and quite instinctively we made a dash for our tents, only to find on emerging two large rents caused by shrapnel. Quite a few of our tents were hit in this way, but fortunately none of the nursing staff were injured. It must have been very unpleasant indeed for the patients lying in bed, helpless and quite unprotected, and there were actually one or two casualties from this shell. One man who had been through most of the fighting and was going to be evacuated to base the next day was hit in his bed.

MOON MAGIC
In complete contrast to the noise and activity of an air raid, there is one scene that will always remain vivid in my memory by reason of its sheer beauty and tranquillity. It was one of those cool, velvety nights, when great peace prevails and it seems impossible for a war to be on. Suddenly a bright yellow moon peeped over the hillside, silhouetting the trees; it only seemed to take a few minutes before it was sailing high in the sky. We stood there quite spellbound and then went back to our tents without speaking. We all thought that there was something in these African nights after all!

NURSING TIMES, NOVEMBER 25, 1944: 819

With Pen and Brush
– a Q.A. reports

3.- When a Ward is a Tent

Text and Drawings by
PATRICIA E. MOODY, S.R.N.

“-But are you going to take all the knives and spoons?” Alas, yes, practically all the equipment was ruthlessly gathered up by the Unit that was moving out, leaving us to manage with about one fork and - a ward full of patients. Every day we hopefully waited for the Q.M.S. to descend on us with masses of equipment and in the meantime thought we were making do rather well, very field service and all that. True enough the Lord of the Stores certainly paid us a visit, but to gather unto himself the few remaining bits and pieces we had left, such as dressing instruments and whatnots. We didn’t need them, he explained, as we were a medical ward. Directly after this episode most of the patients rapidly developed boils, skin diseases and every kind of condition that necessitated a dressing. Such is the way of life, but it was a very lucky thing that I had my own set of dressing instruments. We did have a primus stove for about three days and then….It was in the morning and I was absorbedly delving into a mountain of charts and notes; peace, as I fondly imagined, reigned. Suddenly I became aware of the intense heat at my back, it is hot in here today, I thought, absolutely sweltering. The flames by this time were reaching to the top of the marquee; its total destruction seemed inevitable and everyone appeared to be paralysed in the same hypnotic way that a rabbit is when a weasel gives it a look. The situation was saved by a psycho-neurotic patient (a bad anxiety state) promptly and efficiently throwing sand over the offending stove. We never saw another one as long as we were there – perhaps it was just as well.

DISCIPLINE BY RITUAL
In spite of this seemingly rather chaotic state of affairs we were able to cope with things pretty well and the wards looked neat and tidy. To be a success in the army the Ritual of the Lockers and Beds must be observed. The lockers are to be arranged in a pattern laid down in someone’s Standing Orders; the towel, hand, coarse, will be folded in three (it must never be used for drying the patient - I believe most of them use their pocket handkerchiefs instead) and on it are placed in special order the small kit consisting of toothbrush, shaving kit and comb. It throws things out considerably if a man brings a hairbrush, but it is possible to tuck it away out of sight. An example of a Properly Kept Locker will be observed in the illustration. Now for the beds. Ah! those beds – I remember the time when I was first mobilised and found myself in the elevated position of fifteenth sister in a 60-bedded ward ‘learning the routine’. A fellow learner and myself used to start tidying the beds at 09.30 hours and we usually finished about 13.00 hours. Sometimes if we had done it too fast by mistake, we were unlucky enough to have to go round five times instead of four. So very good for discipline…

NECESSITY BREEDS INVENTION
A good deal of improvisation was needed when it came to actual medical practice, as when a blood transfusion had to be given for a very severe attack of malignant tertiary malaria. The bottle was hooked to the side of the tent and everything went off quite easily thanks to the neat little boxes containing all the necessary equipment ready sterilised.

NURSING TIMES, DECEMBER 2, 1944: 829

With Pen and Brush
– a Q.A. reports

4.- Night Duty –with a Difference

Text and Drawings by
PATRICIA E. MOODY, S.R.N.

“Where on earth did I put that mosquito cream?” – thus rang out the battle cry of the night duty people.
During the night a continuous battle was fought between extremely determined mosquito and nice juicy human beings, the latter being only too often the losers. In an attempt to frustrate the malicious intention of these persistent insects as much of the intended victim as possible was covered with natty khaki suiting, the remaining uncovered area being smothered with a rather evil smelling cream, which the creatures seemed to enjoy very much.

SPLENDID ISOLATION
Once on duty the struggle to get the patients inside their mosquito nets began. One and all they hated this “kennelling up” procedure and used every dodge to postpone the evil hour. Why they should hate it so much, I could never understand, as I always thought it rather pleasant to get into a sort of private “housie”, where one could sit or lie in splendid isolation, cut off from the world and all its troubles and – mainly flies. Once the men were inside, however, the remainder of the night was occupied in trying to peer at them through the nets. Nursing in a hot climate certainly has its own little trials and tribulations.

BATTLE FOR SLEEP
The main difficulty for the night folk was trying to sleep during the day. The heat was intense in our Valley of Death (the actual name given to this part of the world by its local inhabitants) - so encouraging for newcomers - and the inside of “a hundred-and-sixty pounder” was just like an oven; parboiled looking night staff would be seen staggering down to the showers in the heat of the day. Ah! do not be deceived by a vision of cool refreshing showers, these, if they worked at all, emitted a scalding hot brown-coloured liquid, under which the optimistic bather dodged like a flea on a griddle-O.

CALL OF THE OPEN
In spite of the heat, mosquitoes, scorpions, snakes and other interesting details, I believe the majority of sisters thoroughly enjoyed their experiences in North Africa and on the whole prefer tent life to a staid and stuffy existence in a building. I know I do.





NURSING TIMES, DECEMBER 9, 1944: 851

With Pen and Brush – a Q.A. reports

5.- There’s Always a Wash Day!
Text and Drawings by
PATRICIA E. MOODY, S.R.N.

On at least two occasions a photograph has appeared in the papers showing a member of the ‘Q.A.s’ on active service gaily washing her smalls in a canvas basin. Not wishing to prove an exception to the rule, I, too, have depicted a similar happy little domestic scene. It is always the same; wherever women are gathered together there springs up an outgrowth of drying laundry like mushrooms in the night. Surely men must do washing sometimes and yet there never seems to be any evidence of it, no lines stretched between their tents bedecked with such items of masculine sartorial glory as shirts, bush, khaki and pants, winter longs and so forth. Maybe they just don’t bother so mush, and I think they might have something there…

PRACTICAL ROMANCE
While on the subject of clothes, there were one or two members of our unit who had very unfortunate experiences regarding acquisitive Arabs and I doubt whether they will ever want to hear again the haunting melody called “the Sheik of Araby”. At night when shadows fell, it was not for love that these “sheiks”’ crept into their tents, but for a suitcase of clothes. And they made it; gathering up their “robes” they cleared the barbed-wire fence like mountain deer, leapt on to their fiery steeds and were away into the night before a shot could be fired. These Arabs certainly had a great genius for “acquiring” things that didn’t belong to them, the acme of their ambition being the mortuary tent. Twice they took it down (a different one each time, of course) and made off without being caught, and I wonder how many Arab families are benefiting by this addition of this ‘house macabre’. The quartermaster in desperation took to sitting up at night with a revolver, but I think he made the Company more nervous than the uninvited nocturnal visitors!

NURSING TIMES, DECEMBER 16, 1944: 859

With Pen and Brush – a Q.A. reports

6.- Florence Nightingale - 1943
Text and Drawings by
PATRICIA E. MOODY, S.R.N.

At one time our unit was attached to a camp hospital with a large section for Prisoners of War and I was fortunate enough to be put on night duty there. This POW Camp Hospital was composed of about thirteen tents altogether, the main centre tents being used for the most seriously ill or wounded. The convalescent patients, both Germans and Italians (how they loathed each other) were accommodated on stretchers in the outlying tents. Never shall I forget the nightmare of trying to get the bed-state correct; there were, say, about 450 prisoners and it was the dysentery season. No matter how many times the round was done, the total was always different. Strangely enough, Wardmasters remained fairly equable in temper and premature old age did not set in.

NAZI LOGIC
The male night staff at that time consisted of an English Nursing Orderly and a German Sergeant-Major of Medical Corps, who had been in Russia. This man was a typical product of the Nazi Regime and simply saturated with Goebbels' propaganda, though very polite and willing in his attitude towards the British staff. Understanding German, I was able to have some rather interesting conversations with him, although in one part of it we both completely misunderstood one another.
“It looks as if the war in Russia will soon be over” said Hermann.
“Yes, it does,” I agreed, “the Russians are doing fine”.
“Oh no,” protested Hermann, “we shall beat the Russians (this was in June, 1943) within the next few months. If we should lose in Russia, we might as well go and burn our homes and cut our wives’ throats.”
“You will never beat the Russians,” I replied and ended all further argument. One thing that rather interested me was when I asked him why they had committed such atrocities in Russia; he did not deny the fact, but explained that it was Churchill’s fault. This logic was quite beyond my simple powers of reasoning so I didn’t pursue the subject.

POINTS OF VIEW
There was one incident that showed how callous these Germans can be to each other. During the night the condition of one of the German prisoner’s condition became very much worse and I told the German orderly to go and call one of the German doctors. After a time he came back with the message that there was nothing he could do and please not to disturb him again. I took a very poor view of this and instructed the R.A.M.C. man to fetch one of our own medical officers, who of course promptly returned with him, examined the patient and ordered morphia which would at least ensure a fairly peaceful departure from this life.
A round of all the wards was done every hour by the light of a hurricane lamp politely carried by the enemy, and it all seemed very Crimean and Florence Nightingale.