From the archives | 30 October 2014

From ‘A Probationer’s Diary’, by a Red Cross volunteer, from The Spectator, 31 October 1914: Friday. The wounded are coming to-morrow. Twenty of them. They are to be drafts from a military hospital, and will be convalescent. Such a flutter in the dovecote, with a cleaning of sinks and of brass, and a preparation of dressings, and a replenishing of medicine bottles! Jane, who is in the women’s ward, affects a great superiority. Turns up her nose, and remarks that she for one is not going to run after the military. She supposes that we shall entirely neglect the old patients now. I conveyed a suitable reply to her. To our great relief, No. 8 is a little better.