At the beginning of the war a Red Cross
nurse's salary in a military hospital was £20

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Women War Workers

a year and a laundry allowance. Later this
was raised to £22 a year and four shillings
a week for laundry.
The day work begins at 7 a.m., when the
kitchen staff and the housemaids arrive, and
the hospital is swept and polished, the beds are
made, and the men's breakfast is served. The
men who are well enough to get up are ex-
pected to help make beds and sweep the wards,
and sometimes we get grateful acknowledg-
ments from wives or mothers whose men-folk
return to them more domestic than they went
forth.
Most of the men like the bustle and exercise
of the early morning after a long night, and
the housemaids get plenty of pleasant offers
of help. After breakfast the night nurses go
off and the day nurses arrive. This is the
most instructive time for the V.A.D. nurse,
for now the dressings are done by the sister
in each ward. In most of the military hospitals
the professional probationers help her, and the
V.A.D. only picks up unconsidered trifles of
knowledge, but in the V.A.D. hospitals she
is at the right hand of the sister, and if she has

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The V.A.D. Nurse

the good fortune to work under one who knows
how to give the amateur credit for slight signs
of human inteUigence she soon becomes a
very useful member of the nursing staff. The
men, on the whole, are wonderful, and their
help and gratitude make up for any of the good
things of this life that the nurse sacrifices for
her work.
