Discontinued A Shelby friend - during the war

July 23 1915

England had joined the war almost a year ago now and it had just been getting worse from there. I signed up to be a nurse figuring I should pay my part in this somehow. Men flooded in and out of here all day. It was never quiet. I had seen Arthur quite a bit. I think he purposefully got him self hurt just so he could come and see the nurse that he had become so smitten by. John hadn't been back long. Some men got let home for a few days to see there family's. But he'd been doing alright that I know of. Tom, well Tom didn't talk to anyone much lately. None of us really new what was going on inside his head, but whatever it was, it was breaking him from the inside out. I mean we could all see it. He laughed and smiled less and that stoic expression was becoming more permanent. And it worried me. It worried us all. We knew that this war would change them but I don't think it really settled in how much that would be. The war doesn't look to be going anywhere any time soon and they've already changed so much.

Being a nurse was a lot harder than I thought. Seeing all of the men come in in conditions where you know you can't help them was torture on its own. Most of the time we just sat here to keep them company until their fate subsided them.