ANGEL’S DIARY FROM HELL
Men eviscerated yet alive, others driven mad and lashed to stretchers, the stench of gangrene... a nurse’s never before published WWI journal
ALL is remarkably quiet during Miss Brander’s first few months in France.
Billeted at 14th General Hospital at Wimereux, near Boulogne, in late October 1914, she soon settles in and begins to make friends – although is keen to retain her Scottish roots.
Writing daily in her revealing diary, she tells of day trips and parties, as well as hard work on the hospital wards.
DECEMBER 14, 1914
It is now six weeks past on Thursday since we landed in France. I say we, for there were six of us from Aberdeen… it is all so different to our Scotch ways. Sunday is a very busy day in Boulogne. Men, women and children come into the teashops, not so much for tea but to buy a sweet cake they may fancy, stand there and eat it with gloved fingers.
DECEMBER 24, 1914
During afternoon sang carols in a wooden hut by the light of two lanterns. Put up Christmas tree and in the evening went with Miss Grundy to Boulogne in a transport. We went to buy presents for the tree. Lost the last car, which is at 7.30pm. Wandered about for a while, at last we commandeered an ambulance to take us back. We all sat in the front hanging on to each other as if we were flying through the air. The gentleman who drove told us they had placed four new guns on the front that day.
DECEMBER 25, 1914
This has been a great day. Of course I tried to make it as Scotch as I could. I am the only Scotch sister in my ward. The ward is very pretty but it is too large to attempt much decoration… a branch of mistletoe is hung and we have a Christmas tree in the middle of the ward. Every man has had a Princess Mary box given to him and all had chicken for dinner and plum puddings. I managed to secure two bottles of port wine also.
DECEMBER 31, 1914
At noon Sister Masson came in my ward and informed me I must appear in fancy dress costume else I should have no dinner. That was quite food for digestion. At 6 o’clock I got my rigout, that of a Highland chieftain. Kilt, khaki jacket, diamond stockings, cocked bonnet and I had my tartan rug for a plaid. I was the last to appear downstairs, what a collection we were. The table was beautifully decorated with asparagus, mimosa and white flowers. We made toasts and drank them and then paraded… We had quite a merry time. We got into bed around 2am.
JANUARY 1, 1915
A quiet day has been spent. I got a packet of Bobbie Dufton’s toffee, also a parcel from Mina Beattie, Arbroath. I forgot to mention that I had a box of shortbread from Mrs Scott and Miss McElney. This evening we have been paid our salaries and all expenses, amounting to 313 francs. Paid my board, 40 frs.
JANUARY 8, 1915
Miss Sydney Browne crossed the Channel with our presents from Queen Alexandra for the Territorials. I for one got a great surprise. A stout strong holland bag edged with red, white and blue. The crown on it and inside it, such a handsome gift. A grey cloak lined with fur and a fur collar fastening with a scarlet band. A fur-lined muff and a hood. A very gracious gift indeed, we are all very proud of them and now a letter of thanks was to be written. I have gone down the village and bought two plants and another jug with a ladle and spoon. The Lass o’ Killiecrankie is with me always.
JANUARY 10, 1915
Sunday. Very quiet day. Admitted two stretcher cases this morning.
****************** AS trench warfare on the Western Front costs more and more lives, Miss Brander finds herself confronted by hundreds of gravely-injured servicemen almost every day. By May 1915 she is working on an ambulance train, carting the wounded to the coast. Gone are trivial details of meals and gossip, replaced by bleak records of the numbers she treats and the sights, sounds and smells of war.
MAY 26, 1915
Loaded at Bailleul at 8am, a heavy load. Men unconscious tied on stretchers, gas gangrene smells awful. One man died half an hour from Boulogne. Wounds dreadful. 249 total. 30 walking, 219 stretchers, 24 worst unloaded at Boulogne.
JUNE 6, 1915
Woke up at Abbeville, had breakfast then Sister Beardshaw and I washed our hair with water processed from the engine. Hung our heads out of the windows to dry.
JULY 1, 1915
Wakened at Lapignoy. Went into the woods. This village is full of soldiers. At 3am two of us were up & listening to the guns & we saw the smoke of the shells rising. The village is as dirty & squalid a place as I have been in. Crowds of children very poor. The soldiers come
down here for their rest from the trenches, we are seven miles off the firing line… there is no water, no stores. Pulled wild strawberries. Went to bed early.
JULY 8, 1915
Left St Omer at 12.30 & went up a new line, only a few days since it was clear for us, passed squads & squads of men making railroads. We went on to Belgian territory, five miles from Ypres and a shorter distance still from Poperinghe. Saw a man doing field punishment tied up. Flung out old papers among some of the men. Then we came to the Clearing Station, which reminded me of wigwams, painted so as not to be seen by aircraft. We loaded at 3.30pm. 248 total. Nine lying off. Nine sitting. 105 ranks lying, 124 sitting. One German. Started off. Country beautiful here, quaint cottages. Sister Bradshaw took duty. We went to bed in our clothes.
JULY 17, 1915
What a night, hardly any sleep. Hundreds & hundreds of troops stationed just next to us. I got up & watched them. The poor horses packed in their boxes, the men seemed to drill all night long.
OCTOBER 17, 1915
Went over on one of the improvised French trains. It is a crying shame to the British nation that it should have been left in such a condition. Evidently it carries about 1,100. One MO [medical officer] in charge with 11 orderlies. There had been no conveniences for the poor men at all, not even water could they get & there they had to sit from 22 to 36 hours. There was even faeces on the floor... I think it a perfect disgrace.
OCTOBER 22, 1915
Still at Abbeville. It is the saddest hospital I have ever been in, the cases are only those which are too ill to take a long train journey. One ward was all head cases, I don’t think one of them was conscious. The hospital was an old French chateau converted. It looked pandemonium.
OCTOBER 23, 1915
Still at Abbeville. Inspection. At lunchtime great excitement, two German tanks were sighted. Bombs were dropped & Frenchmen ran in all directions, a lot of men working on the lines flew & hid themselves in a drain, and the French sentry left his box & crouched in a wood nearby. the noise of the bombs & shooting was terrible. A lot of horses killed and 19 men injured, one man killed & an old woman selling apples.
NOVEMBER 16, 1915
The ground was covered with snow and the day was lovely, the whole country was so beautiful and white that you would think all must be pure in this world, till suddenly you remembered that you were searching for a military hospital where the sick & the wounded were collected from the battlefield.
****************** BY mid-1916, the horror she is experiencing is almost too much to bear. Daily entries are condensed into poignant monthly and quarterly updates.
AUGUST – SEPTEMBER 1916
My first weeks at Corbin I shall never forget… the yard full of stretchers, not an inch to put your foot down on. Dying all around. Gas gangrenes & the smells more than you could bear. The fact of the matter is every few days we have attacks of diarrhoea.
Head cases quite mad, tied on to stretchers, abdominal cases… morphine was given continuously. I was about three weeks or a month in this awful hell, no other name. I really thought I should collapse.The yard outside, full lines ofthem waiting on stretchers to go & lines waiting to be dressed. We did our best, reverently picking out the dying to another line to pass away. Head cases, some all the brains hanging out, abdominals, intestines hanging out.
OCTOBER 1916
Well, we are five miles from the firing line, three miles from the reserve trenches, there are the big guns in Acheux woods by our left side, & there are big guns behind us. Our wards are joined up now with planks, covered with wire, the mud is worse than you could imagine. Air fights are daily occurrences here. Sometimes as many as 30 to be seen at a time…
The firing is as I have never heard it before. It goes on all night long, it is impossible to sleep. And every morning at 5.45 there is the most fearful din, in fact if you hadn’t known it was guns, you would have thought the heavens & the earth & the bowels of the earth were thundering together. It was deafening. Then came the long line of ambulances and this after which only we can know.
****************** MISS Brander’s final chapter tells of how she has ‘no rest’ as the Allies begin to advance. She ‘flits’ around a number of base hospitals, writing briefly about the burden placed on nursing staff.
Her last entry in the spring of 1917 reads: ‘Now I am busier than ever, we are the receiving ward & the acute surgical all in one. We had about another week in this ward, very busy then word came for every case to go that could travel.’
A final abrupt sentence written by the exhausted nurse reports: ‘We were left there...’