Main Hall Sketches

September 1916

In the old coaching days the lot of a turnpike keeper must have been quite an amusing one. Human beings on all manner of journeys of business and pleasure would pass him by - from the romantic young couple on their way to Gretna Green to the sleepy waggoner, in the early hours of the morning, on his way to London Town with his market produce. Something of the same variety of passers-by helps very efficiently to 'kill time' for the clerical V.A.D. in the Hospital Main Hall. All sorts and conditions from the mud-stained, tattered hero straight from France to the small girl with a paper bag of eggs and a bunch of flowers for the soldiers who wants 'to see the Mytron.'

In a rather detached way one gleans much of the daily history of the whole hospital. A telephone message from one of the distant huts to the Wardmaster to find Captain This or Dr. That, and presently an orderlette, at something between a flutter and 'the double' in an agitated quest for oxygen or brandy, means that some poor boy is having a pretty hard struggle with the enemy. Sheafs of telegrams are left in the hall for despatch by one of the many coming and going messenger boys, from which one can often patch a little story from a few words.
"To Miss Priscilla Maidenaunt. So sorry; not feeling quite up to visitors today. - from NEPHEW JACK."
"To Miss Blanche Blossom. So glad you are in town. Call for you in taxi 7. Dine at Regent Palace. Wherever you like, to follow. Feeling very fit. - JACK."
Both are signed at the back by Second Lieutenant Blank, X Ward, 3rd L.G.H. !
Patients waiting for the arrival of friends will often entertain us with light conversation. A wounded warrior was waiting for his wife, who was coming up from the country to see him.
"My wife, she doesn't half like the idea of coming to see me at a hospital. She's a nervous sort of body; can't bear the sight of blood or anything. As for me - well, that sort o' thing doesn't bother me a bit. You see I was a barber as well as a tobacconist by trade before the war."

Many and varied are the 'emergency' calls for the Wardmaster from various quarters of the Hospital. Not the least so was a call from the Matron one day - the Wardmaster was not long gone, and when he returned he was carrying a hat box from which came the strangest sounds. Behold, a family of kittens - for whose nursery, Pussy, with excellent taste, had chosen Matron's best hat! Many dear old ladies arrive on kindly errands at our Enquiry Office. One wished to see a certain Australian.
"I don't know his name, but you will know the one I mean; he has a swollen leg and foot, not wounded, but swollen."
We looked rather blank, so to make the matter quite clear she continued:
"Last Sunday week he was sitting on a chair in the drive just outside the door for the first time!"
She thought us strangely unobservant and inefficient, and I am sure, even when we explained that there were over 1,400 patients in hospital at the time, and that we had no method of recording them either by the state of their legs or by their first outings in the hospital grounds. Another dear old lady not easily forgotten is one in a beady bonnet and 'mantle,' who came to take four patients for an afternoon's outing - I forget whether it was the Zoo or the 'Trenches' in Knightsbridge where they were going. This was to be followed by tea, and "What time shall I bring them back?" said the little old lady. "When do they go to bed?"

My last picture is of a 'Clerical' trying to soothe an agitated specialist waiting for a taxi - which will not arrive - and very conscious of an already overdue appointment on the other side of London. And as this attempt almost proved the finish of a busy day, I will make it my finis also.

MISS J. C. RYLE