Alexandria gazette. [volume] (Alexandria, D.C.) 1834-1974, 1917-07-26
News Concerning One of the First
Units Which Arrived There as
Told by Ruth Wright kaufman.

Somewhere in France, July =
To come upon unit of American
nurses, quite by accident, in quaint
Norman village on the seacoast of
France-welI, how would you feel? /
wanted to rush up to them and throw
my arms about them, but. To tell
the truth, the first one ] met was q
Major, who fcre our simple, but i'm
pressive, U. S. R. uniform.
They have been in France only two
weeks, and they are one of the six
units lent by our government to the
British government. They are already
hard at work.
Don't thinl; that things are easy
for newcomers no matter how well
come they are. Conditions here are
war conditions. Our unit came equip
ped to take care of five hundred beds;
thew have $50. When appliances are
strange, when the quarters are un-
dergoing the moving difficulties of
one outgoing set Of nurses and doc
tors and one incoming set. when the
climate and the food and the peo-
pie and the surgical apparatus and
the manners ana customs are new
"That is the way they do their
Washing" SAID the Matron, as we
strolled along the elevation that cor
responds to our board walks, and
looked down 1T the half mile OF hard
sands enclosed between Jagged white
cliffs. Sheets and sheets and sheets,
along the whole half mile, fiat upon
the sands, their corners and edges
held down by its bits Of stone.
"Who washes them?" asked.
"Oh. the women of the village.
Come into the Casino. These are the
hundred and fifty of them, all at
once of course Straight from the
front. Pretty bad cases, a lot of them,
too
r was the stillest room in the
world. Together, the Matron and
stood there t1r some minutes survey
inr the rows Of beds, with those
cGntrivances that mean
war Occasionally a hand would
move. One man had guarded his cap
and kept it over his face. But there
was no sound-no sound at all.
.Jf we we're back in New York,
and thirty cases had come Into thes
accident ward there would have been:
more FUSS said the Masron. 4 can
hardly understand such courage. /,
They never whimper, not one OF
them"
Nor do the nurses. Though trey
are doing double work, those whom
met took their duties with the good
nature and enthusiasm that one would
only expect from an American con-
.;rgent The lIatron assured me that
no one had .efunlbled Of the almost
ovcrpoweriug raass of work-and the
order!ics, who at home are not scrub
the flor. order!!ies by any manner o.
tuckling down to then
new tasks quite as if they had been
used to them all their lives. !.
"Have you any message to Seh'
TO American" I asked.
"Only this said the Matron'
Train. We need trained nurses
and we shall need more. But they
nust he thoroughly trained"
I asked what she was going to 90
Il the winter. She was very mueh
troubled about the winter. Now win
the delightful weather OF NOT
man summer, in houses and notes
hr,;,+ for the comfort and pleasure
of the seasons tourists, it was easy
m live. and look out at the sea anu
the cliffs and the blue skies. It was
pleasant. too, for the eonv"lescens
soldiers to walk about the streets or
lie outside in cots and chairs. But
tbe houses are not built for warmth,
summers viii not last-though
have no doub5 it's 100 in the shade
at this very hour in New 1ork!--and
i must not he forgotten that coal
and wood are luxures that cannot
be earclessly provided: they are very
scarce.
What. then, is TO become OF our
,rrses in France next winter! are
thav to have 20 do their work sunef~
iny from the intense cold OF barely
heated hospitals with paper-llSe wall
IN a climate nearly as severe IL
or,rs2 Can't some lngen-