ARCHIVE.
BEETON, Marjorie. AN ARCHIVE OF MATERIAL RELATING TO MARJORIE BEETON’S SERVICE AS A NURSE WITH THE V.A.D. including her diary for the period of July-August 1916 (the opening days of the Battle of the Somme) whilst serving at the British Red Cross Hospital in Rouen (and from September to November 1915 in Boulogne), providing extensive detail of the convoys of incoming wounded, details of the treatments, deaths etc. .
Oblong 4to, approximately 104 pages of manuscript diary entries by Beeton, 6 original ink drawings (including one by Bruce Bairnsfather; 2 sketches of a night nurse on duty; pencil sketch of nurses with patient), and several poetic contributions by patients (a few rhyming doggerels about the V.A.D.); together with 12 albumen prints or photocards of the Rouen hospital (exteriors and interiors) and staff; ephemera including “Wounded Man’s Kit” badge in original slipcase with string tie, Red Cross “Return to Garage” card, Field Medical card, leave extension telegram, etc.; diary bound contemporary red morocco, chipped with loss at head; all housed in a custom made cloth box.
“INSISTENT RUMOURS THAT ‘THE BIG THING’ HAS BEGUN… CONVOY OF 48 OFFICERS AT 8.30PM, ALL MOST CHARMING & SAY THAT THE HUNS ARE ON THE RUN” (“Saturday July 2nd”, second day of the Battle of the Somme, although some confusion as July 2 was a Sunday).
Marjorie Beeton (1889-1981), grand-daughter of the celebrated cook and later a founder of the International Nurses Association, had joined the Voluntary Aid Detachment (V.A.D.) in 1912. Her diary covers the period she spent overseas, first for three months at the Boulogne Rest Station, and then at No. 2 British Red Cross Hospital, Rouen - specially established for the treatment of officers. Daily entries, from July 2 to 15 August, chart her duties on “B” Floor, and her poignant reactions to the injured men in her charge:
3 July “[I] was washing up breakfast things (10a.m) when convoy whistle blew - On looking out saw the most pathetic procession struggling up the drive -about 30 the weariest looking men. Mud coated tatters of clothing & grimly stained bandages covering their mutilated limbs - some were limping & others bent nearly double with the painful weight of a smashed up arms. Thought first of all they were a party of Tommies landed here by mistake but when they got closer one could see they were officers… there must have been unprecedented call on the ambulances if they had to sent officers on foot!”, from when on a constant stream of injured arrive, on 5 July “Major Morton [part of the 34th Division which had lost 691 men near Lochnogar Crater on 1 July] in… with both legs wounded one v badly… this poor man had lain out on the field for 48 hours before being picked up - he was deliberately fired on by the Germans…”; 6 July “… had poor boy with a bullet in lung… delirious, wildly excited having got the ‘Bosches beaten’. Was hit on Saturday & lain several hours in a ditch & since then on a stretcher…”, others unwashed and so severely bleeding that they are “stuck to stretchers”.
A typical case is that of Captain Bellamy [probably Charles Bellamy of the 10th Lincolns (“Grimsby Chums”), wounded at Henencourt Wood] who arrived on 13 July, “…an appalling case! Spine hopelessly injured - paralysed below waist - such a fine looking man & most cheery & plucky”, by 15th “much worse - long & painful dressing”, 19th “Capt. Bellamy much worse again - was given oxygen in afternoon, special medicine… too tragic to see him & his parents are so wonderful”, 23 July “… the operation on B was very horrible… I’m getting very ‘Shavian’ in my ideas on surgery. Why ?torture the poor thing when they know he was bound to die in a day or two”; 24 July “Bellamy died at 3a.m. poor man. It was really a happy release as life as only agony to him. Only 26 & such a splended fine specimen - the tragedy & the waste of it!… the horrors seem to be getting worse & the whole place resounds with terrible groans & reeks of foul dressings. Ugh!”
Other notable entries record the arrival of a soldier shot through the neck, a visit by Lord Northcliffe “with a small army of brass hats” whilst she was working the kitchen, mention of the cartoonist Bruce Bairnsfather who contributed a typical full-page caricature of a soldier smoking and holding a tin of “Plum & Apple”, and the arrival of Australians, “one had to lose an arm - very plucky about it”, another reporting that on recapturing a trench from the Germans they “found all their wounded lying with their throats cut…”.
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