It is naive, pathetic. Where there is a
piano it is moved into the school, or garage, or whatever the building
may be, and at twilight a nun or a volunteer musician plays quietly,
to soothe the men to sleep. In one or two towns a village band, or
perhaps a lone cornetist, plays in the street outside.
So the days go on, and the nights. Supplies are begged for and do not
always come. Dressings are washed, to be used again and again.
An attempt is now being made to better these conditions. A Frenchwoman
helping in one of these hospitals, and driven almost to madness by the
outcries of men and boys undergoing operations without anaesthetics,
found her appeals for help unanswered. She decided to go to England to
ask her friends there for chloroform, and to take it back on the next
boat. She was successful. She carried back with her, on numerous
journeys, dressings, chloroform, cotton, even a few instruments. She
is still doing this work. Others interested in isolated hospitals,
hearing of her success, appealed to her; and now regular, if small,
shipments of chloroform and dressings are going across the Channel.
Americans willing to take their own cars, and willing to work, will
find plenty to do in distributing such supplies over there. A request
has come to me to find such Americans.
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