The Men in Blue

Autumn 1915

When Nurse is pleased, and I've been good,
And not sat playing with my food,
Or smeared the nursery window pane,
Or put coal in my luggage train,
The thing she always lets me do
Is go to see the men in blue.

I used to look in thro' the gate,
But that's been boarded up of late;
But this I do not really mind,
For from the railway bank I find
That I can get a splendid view
Of lots and lots of men in blue.

When I fall down and cut my knees,
Or give my finger such a squeeze,
I shut my eyes and think about
The wounded I've seen sitting out.
Nurse says if I don't cry, it's true
I'm being like the men in blue.

And once we saw a funeral go -
There was a band - it went so slow -
It made me feel all queer inside;
But oh, I wish, when I have died,
That they would only give me, too,
A funeral like the men in blue!

Sometimes my daddy talks to me
Of battles fought on land and sea
By gallant men in days of old;
But yet, he says, when all is told,
No men our history ever knew
Were braver than our men in blue.

He tries to make me understand -
A torch goes on from hand to hand;
The men of old kept it alight,
And passed it down, still burning bright.
And I, when my own turn comes due,
Must take it from the men in blue.

H. M. NIGHTINGALE

The Light that Failed

Some Hospital Statistics

Autumn 1915

Each of the departments, in an institution with so many ramifications as has the 3rd L.G.H., naturally enough claims to be the least indispensable and the hardest worked. Myself, I am inclined to award the latter distinction to the main kitchen. Its labours seem never to cease. But the sergeant who presides here was able to divert his attention, for a space, from the cares of his establishment, to tell me something of its workings. "Plenty of people," said he, "ask questions about how this kitchen is run; and will even criticise, sometimes. Well, we have to get in our 'Diets' every day, and these consist of meat (such as roast beef, mutton, boiled beef, and stewed steak). These are issued to patients who are on what is called Ordinary Diet. In addition to this we have to prepare Special Diets, which consist of roast and boiled chickens, fish (fried and boiled), stewed mutton and chops; also beef tea and chicken or mutton broths. Then there are the puddings. When we have roast meat we make suet pudding, commonly called Duff; but those patients who are on special diet receive milk pudding or custard.

"As to quantities: here are some of our daily figures. There are issued to me on average 700 lb. of meat per day for ordinary diets, 100 lb. of fish, 100 chickens, 600 lb. of potatoes, 350 lb. of cabbages, and, when mixed vegetables are being used - 100lb. of turnips, 50lb. of onions, and 100 lb. of carrots. These latter are served with boiled beef. The milk used in my kitchen averages 50 gallons daily. You must remember, by the way, that this is not the only kitchen in the hospital; there are also the officers' wards kitchen, and infirmary kitchen, the nurses' kitchen, and that of the orderlies; and sergeants' messes. All the cooking in the hospital is done by gas ovens and gas rings. In my kitchen a boiler is used to make steam for the potatoes, and for fish, when steamed fish is specially ordered by the M.O. The potatoes, I may say, are peeled by a machine."

From the main kitchen I went to the Stewards' Store, whose staff, as we all know, have to rise and be on parade with the rest of the orderlies, but only go to bed when they can (and on some nights, I was told, not at all). They certainly deal in an amazing number of commodities. During September, for instance, they issued 25,000 eggs for use in the hospital - and this was a falling off from August's record. They distribute 400 syphons of soda water and lemonade weekly, 2 tons of potatoes, one and a half tons of cabbages, and 4 cwt. of jam. 1,000lb. of bread pass through their hands, not weekly, but daily; and other daily figures are: 1 cwt. of butter, 2 cwt. of sugar, 1 cwt. of ice, 25 lb. of salt, 23 lb. of tea, 15 lb. of cocoa, 100 lb. of oatmeal, 40 to 50 lb. of cereals for puddings, and 220 gallons of milk. In the Dry Store section 3,000 lb. of soap per month ensures the cleanliness of the hospital, 7 cwt. of soda, and 2 cwt. of powdered soap, while its floors demand fifty gallons of polish, to which are added twenty-five gallons of turpentine. At the Linen Stores - where the Staff Sergeant is generally seen with his coat off, a phenomenon symptomatic of the department's incessant busy-ness - I was told that there is a turnover - through the laundry - of no less than 150,000 articles a month. The stock consists of approximately 100,000 articles, amongst which are 6,000 sheets, 6,000 blankets, 3,000 cotton shirts, 3,000 flannel shirts, 5,000 pairs of socks, and 2,000 blue kit suits. To keep track of all this vast collection - only a few items of which have been indicated - is no light task, to which must be added the equipment of new wards with bedsteads, lockers, kitchen hardware, chairs, tables, mattresses, bedding etc. The staff justifiably prides itself on being able thoroughly to equip a thirty-two-bed ward in the short space of one hour.

As a relief from these more serious aspects of the hospital I finally turned my steps to the old-building Recreation room to enquire into the consumption of tobacco. After spending an hour wrestling with innumerable chits collected by the Recreation Room orderly-in-charge, I performed a grandiose sum in addition, which gave, as its result, a total sufficient to make a Wills's, Players's or Salmon and Gluckstein's mouth water. It was only an average morning that I examined, yet here was documentary evidence that 5,500 cigarettes had been given out for patients' use, and 92 oz. of pipe tobacco. 'Some' smoke, to be sure! Mathematical readers can multiply by seven to arrive at a week's burnt-offering at the shrine of My Lady Nicotine, and perhaps some good-natured calculator, with nothing better to do, will let us know that if a month's cigarettes at the L.G.H. were rolled into one fabulous fag it would stretch from here to the trenches at the Front, or conceivably even to Berlin, which would, maybe, be more appropriate. for myself, this tour of the hospital has given me sufficient statistics to provide nightmares enough for the rest of my life; and what the figures will be like if the 3rd L.G.H. grows any bigger I shudder to think.

Visit of the King and Queen

Autumn 1915

Two long lines of chairs were arranged upon the lawn, beside the drive. Upon these were seated our folk in blue - first the exchanged prisoners from Germany, then the men from France and Flanders, then the Australasians, and finally the soldiers who have returned from the Dardanelles. The ranks of colour were vivid; whoever invented hospital blues, and added the finishing touch of the bright red scarf, must have planned for such a day of sunshine as this, and must have foreseen emerald green turf as a setting, with a foil of fine grey stone towering skyward.

Their Majesties' visit was as nearly a 'surprise' one as can be reasonably practicable. Except for the lining-up of the wearers-of-blue, no preparations had been made. Everywhere, in corridors and wards, the sisters, nurses, and orderlies went about their duties as usual. Only in the foreground of the Hospital were there any signs of expectation. "They are coming at eleven"; this was all we had been told. And sure enough, exactly at the hour, the great gates swung open, and a dark maroon-coloured car came gliding silently up the drive. The proverbial punctuality of Royalty was never better illustrated. As the King and Queen alighted, the school clock was striking. We, of the onlookers, saw the Royal party enter the building. There were introductions. Then they emerged and came down the drive to the extreme end of the blue ranks. And now began that always wonderful exhibition of the pains which royalty take over the task of personal interviewing. Slowly, very slowly, the King and Queen, accompanied by our C.O., the Matrons, and Sir Alfred Pearce Gould, advanced along the line, stopping to chat with the men who had fought and suffered capture and imprisonment. "Where were you wounded?" "What camp were you taken to?" "How did the Germans treat you?" "What is your regiment?" One heard the stream of questions, the shy replies, the pleasant encouragement; one noticed, too, the shrewd rapidity with which both the King and the Queen fastened on any point of unusual interest or understood some halting or obscure explanation.

One speaks of the King and Queen taking pains, on such an occasion. To a sympathetic onlooker it seems an obvious phrase, inasmuch as it is evident that Their Majesties must have many such functions to attend, and might justifiably tire of them. Yet the closest observer could not detect any artificiality, anything merely mechanical, in that lingering promenade down the Hospital front. The King and Queen did not hurry; they always had time for a talk and a jest. One watched their easy, good-natured progress, and the adjective 'painstaking' began to appear ungracious and unfair. For, indeed, the scene had its poignant undercurrent of emotion. The King and Queen stood for what those men in blue had defended; they were living symbols of the cause and country for which countless agonies had been endured and countless un-named deeds of gallantry performed. Scattered throughout the throng were men on crutches, men who will never walk again without aid; others had only one arm or only one eye; not Britishers only, but men from Australia, New Zealand, Canada, even dark-skinned men from India - all wounded for the sake of the mysterious something embodied in this lady and gentleman who, today, had come to converse with them; the something which we call the homeland and the Empire.

'Painstaking'? No, it was not quite the right adjective. Noblesse oblige. The King and Queen had come down to Wandsworth, really, to say just two words to each of those blue-clad men. And the words are, "Thank you."

Freedom and Discipline: The Hospital's Ideal

Autumn 1915

A new patient asked us the other day to tell him what were the 'rules' of the hospital. It was a temptation to reply off-hand that there are no rules. Indeed, this would only have been an almost excusable exaggeration of the actual state of affairs, for at the 3rd L.G.H. the manufacture of rules has been wisely reduced to a minimum. Those of our patients who have experienced the rigid restrictions of the conventional Military Hospital have more than once expressed surprise at the ease and comfort which obtain here, and which seem mysteriously to be secured without any visible disciplinarianism.

There is no real mystery about the matter. It is an open secret that upon this subject our C.O. holds the broadest views. There would probably be no rules here whatever if he had his way, for he pins his faith on the theory that to trust this community to obey the unwritten laws of commonsense and good form is a sounder policy than to assume that any actual printed code ought to be framed. It is an axiom with him that only when an unwritten law is infringed need a written one be devised; and patients who mistake the freedom of the 3rd L.G.H. for laxness, and who take advantage of it improperly, are acting with wanton unfairness to those who come after them, inasmuch as they may leave a legacy of new limitations which by rights need never have come into existence.

The Hospital is sometimes referred to, in the press and elsewhere, as an Institution. In a complimentary sense the word is true; the 3rd L.G.H. is, in fact, a great institution, one of the most remarkable brought forth by the war. Nevertheless, 'Institution' is a noun which sounds oddly inappropriate to those who dwell within these walls, for here there is no atmosphere of institutionalism. Throughout the whole small but complex world of patients, sisters, nurses, officers, orderlies, and miscellaneous staff there is a bond of friendship, co-operation and mutual comradeship which make for the pleasantest sense of discipline without stringency. With no impropriety it may be expressed by saying that the man who manages the swill-tub is tacitly recognised as being as essential to this big machine's successful running as are the celebrated surgeons who labour in the operating theatres, or the C.O. and the Matron at their desks. Each, in the popular phrase of the hour - a phrase which will become historic - is 'doing his bit'; doing it not because of the fear of any iron regulations, but because loyalty to the hospital, and through the hospital to Britain and the Empire, has evoked from every man and woman concerned the spirit of willing service.

Patients and staff alike will therefore do well to combine with the C.O. in the agreeable task of minimising the necessity for formal legislation. No one can tell how long the European conflict is going to continue, but whether its duration be extended for years or only for a few months, its close we are confident, should see the 3rd L.G.H. still enjoying the benefits of the happy rule based on a firm belief in the practicability of rulelessness.

The Gramophone in B4

The Regiment Goes On

Autumn 1915

This war has demonstrated what 'the Regiment' really is: it is the something intangible which lives, even though the men themselves are replaced time after time - as has occurred and is even now occurring in the present conflict. We saw, in a tea-party held here, a very pretty example of the truth. The children - orphan daughters of soldiers and sailors - who are the normal dwellers in these buildings, are now accommodated in the houses outside, and when the holiday season arrives go to their relatives; some, unfortunately, have none, and these must perforce remain. Friends of the school are very good, and by a series of treats try to compensate the little ones. It was thus our privilege here to entertain those left behind.

In the hospital we had patients from almost all the regiments to which the fathers of those children had belonged; and only those who are of soldier stock can appreciate the call of the blood and the strength of the unseen ties of affection which link soldiers and soldiers' children. The concert room was packed with an audience the like of which could only be gathered together in the present crisis of the Empire. Here were men representing regiments which have made our Empire what it is - and on whose colours may almost be read that Empire's history. These men's task it is to keep alive the Spirit of the Regiment; not only the defined regimental customs, but also the subtle soul which always persists and re-creates itself throughout the years, however great the changes in the ranks. Here, too, were present men from Australian and New Zealand and Canadian regiments - men whose proud position it is to create the Spirit of the Regiment and whose pluck will become their regiment's tradition.

Deeds are being done daily in this great world war which, any one of them, would have filled columns of the press during any previous campaign - and which now pass unnoticed. The men who recover in this hospital will go back, or are going back to the Front to fight again; and the serious thought often arises, when watching the patients enjoying themselves in the recreation room, that these men's children may in the future, when the building is restored to its former use, play here - as orphans. Who can tell? All we know is that, though we speak of this or that regiment being thinned to vanishing point and then incessantly replenished with its reserves, the Spirit of the Regiment, like all fine loyalties, is immortal. Its men may die, but 'the Regiment goes on.'