We went back on movie duty today - I suppose that's the most boring job we have. Some of the boys always want to smoke and you have to keep telling them not to - you feel like an elderly school teacher, and the films are usually terrible.
Made a yarn doll today to start crafts with - it was a hula dancer - such business makes me nervous. I'm not the craft type - no patience. But...I can show them how, that's all that's required.
Mrs. Kingdon-Ward, an English writer, visited us and asked us so many questions we were worn out, but she is nice and sincere. She's writing on "Americans in Britain" - I could tell her!
Found a Cleveland boy on #22 who looked gaunt and hungry. He confessed he's not getting enough food as he's lost so much weight. I told the K.P.s and they promised to "load his tray". And they will!
Miss Jack so much - wish the (surrender) would come tonite.
4.5.12
Friday, April 6, 1945
Army Day
A busy day tramping the wards with stationery, matches - requests and flowers. Mrs. Dugdale of the Dugdale Tea sent us several hundred daffodils and I got three N.P. patients from the 28th to deliver them to all the wards. Underwood helped me take 9 birthday cakes and I went back at 8.30 tonight to a Kentuckian's bed to eat his with him and have coffee. (Jack's old ward) The other boys had cut the cake and eaten theirs, but Pettit waited for me to come! I took him a pipe and smoking tobacco and we had a good chat about jobs, etc. Both his legs were badly cut out by a shell while he was in a covered fox hole. Said that's what made him mad - applied his own tournaquet but he had to wait a couple of hours to be rescued and they gave him 7 quarts of blood and plasma to save him. Must look up McElfish tomorrow - he was so sweetly appreciative of the song I played for him. His eyes are little more than slits, but he peers out cheerfully. Saw Johnson today who was in a jeep when a mine exploded under it. He looked terrible a week ago, but fine today.
A busy day tramping the wards with stationery, matches - requests and flowers. Mrs. Dugdale of the Dugdale Tea sent us several hundred daffodils and I got three N.P. patients from the 28th to deliver them to all the wards. Underwood helped me take 9 birthday cakes and I went back at 8.30 tonight to a Kentuckian's bed to eat his with him and have coffee. (Jack's old ward) The other boys had cut the cake and eaten theirs, but Pettit waited for me to come! I took him a pipe and smoking tobacco and we had a good chat about jobs, etc. Both his legs were badly cut out by a shell while he was in a covered fox hole. Said that's what made him mad - applied his own tournaquet but he had to wait a couple of hours to be rescued and they gave him 7 quarts of blood and plasma to save him. Must look up McElfish tomorrow - he was so sweetly appreciative of the song I played for him. His eyes are little more than slits, but he peers out cheerfully. Saw Johnson today who was in a jeep when a mine exploded under it. He looked terrible a week ago, but fine today.
Thursday, April 5, 1945
Jack called promptly while I was writing letters for Ward 28. My N.P. Evans was framing letters to Oxford professors when his Harvard English teacher wanted to meet. The point was to ask them to come see him without seeming to be presumptuous. Anyway, Jack was charming and already had plans for trains to Cheltenham. We'll meet at 10 am at the Red Cross on Monday. He says this marriage must gt settled, and "pretty damn quick". I asked him on the phone if we could go to to the Mardi Gras and he said, "You haven't been to New Orleans?" and then named half a dozen places there. He said wistfully, "We have so much to make up for". Doesn't know yet if he'll stay in the U.K. or go to France.
Benny gave me a good L3 permanent and told me about his wife throwing away his NAZI flag he'd seized under a rain of bullets, because "it smelled bad"! Said he was in a fox hole last summer digging in his tank when the letter came telling him she's ordered a lynx jacket - he likes her that way!
Benny gave me a good L3 permanent and told me about his wife throwing away his NAZI flag he'd seized under a rain of bullets, because "it smelled bad"! Said he was in a fox hole last summer digging in his tank when the letter came telling him she's ordered a lynx jacket - he likes her that way!
Wednesday, April 4, 1945
Wrote one ward letter - visited four wards at night - very sick boys, some of them with their heads shaved or bound up. We're concentrating on neurological cases now. Several blind boys, asn always they are cheery to talk to.
Jack called at 2:30 - is working in the personnel department there (ahem!) and thinks it is a strategic spot. I'm hoping he'll stay in the U.K. If we do, there're all sorts of rumors that this hospital will move to the continent. Jack will call tomorrow about our Monday visit - thinks he can get a 24 hour pass. I decided on Cheltenham for a good place to visit together. We have a lot of things to talk over. An enlisted man must file for a request to marry two months before the date. It's a lot of fun to think about - Jack is in dead earnest. Jimmie is said to be returning the 14th - I do not count on it, why should I/
Jack called at 2:30 - is working in the personnel department there (ahem!) and thinks it is a strategic spot. I'm hoping he'll stay in the U.K. If we do, there're all sorts of rumors that this hospital will move to the continent. Jack will call tomorrow about our Monday visit - thinks he can get a 24 hour pass. I decided on Cheltenham for a good place to visit together. We have a lot of things to talk over. An enlisted man must file for a request to marry two months before the date. It's a lot of fun to think about - Jack is in dead earnest. Jimmie is said to be returning the 14th - I do not count on it, why should I/
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