This Small Army of Women by Quiney Linda J.;

Author:Quiney, Linda J.; [Quiney, Linda J.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: UBC Press

Wilson was ashamed to be little more than a glorified servant amid such largesse, instead of performing useful nursing. The lower-ranked but far more critically injured patients at Gifford House got by on much more limited resources. She did acknowledge that her own brother would probably have benefitted from the privileges of rank had he survived, as would the brothers and fiancés of most VADs. The perks of separate wards, greater privacy, and individual care were much disparaged by the military nurses, but according to Watson, the special treatment was not entirely grounded in class. In France at least, it served a practical purpose. Sending officers home to convalesce in England often enabled them to circumvent returning to the theatres of war on the Continent. Keeping them in France, and well supplied with comforts and favours, made them less eager to return to Blighty and more accessible to be called back to active service once they recovered.138

Families on either side of the Atlantic adjusted to the idea of their daughters ministering to wounded men, regardless of rank. Nursing German prisoners of war (POWs) was beyond the imagining of most parents. Within four months of Fanny Cluett’s arrival at the 4th Northern General Hospital in Lincoln, her request for a transfer to France was approved. She was baffled by the speed of her reassignment to Rouen and even more surprised when she learned that she was to nurse POWs. Knowing that her family back in Belleoram would be less than comfortable with her new situation, she abandoned her usual newsy style of letter writing for several months. To conceal the details of her work in Rouen, she adopted a mysterious cover story worthy of a spy novel, insisting, “I cannot tell you anything about the hospital here, as we must keep absolutely quiet on these matters in France.” When her assignment ended, Fanny could no longer contain herself and confessed the truth to her family:

I don’t think I ever told you I did night duty in the German compound for Prisoners of War. I had five German wards to look after, and one of the wards was an acute surgical, where amputated legs and arms had to be watched for hemorrhages.

I think had you known that was where I was doing night duty you would have felt a bit uneasy. Of course, there was an English night orderly also. It was funny, I did not feel at all scared, but perhaps I did feel a bit nervous sometimes. I knew they could not harm me there, or at least I suppose they couldn’t: I have passed through their wards with them lying on either side; sometimes I used to think, if they would only jump up; but then on the whole I had nothing whatever to complain about, they were always very respectful to me.139

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