The China Division Reporter of November and December, 1940, carried a most interesting series of articles by Miss Gertrude Green, a graduate of the New England Sanitarium and Hospital, who went to China in 1937. She tells of the trip made from Shanghai to the Yencheng Sanitarium in Honan Province, a distance of approximately seven hundred miles. Part of the journey was made by train (from Shanghai to Pengpu), but Miss Green and three others in the party pedaled bicycles over the two hundred miles from Pengpu to Yencheng, through dusty sandy, difficult roads. Here are truly lessons in adaptability and fortitude for the modern nurse to ponder.
D. L. B.
It was a busy three weeks that preceded our departure for Honan. Large orders must be placed by each member of our party in the department stores of Shanghai, these to be boxed and shipped by freight to Pengpu, all of which would take from one to three weeks. It seemed strange to be going to a place to live where we would be unable to buy what one usually considers the essentials to mere existence. When the buying and packing were completed, each person had to his credit from sixteen to twenty-five packing cases, in addition to trunks and suitcases of clothing and personal belongings.
In our party were Dr. W. G. Nethery, superintendent of the Yencheng Sanitarium and Hospital ; Mrs. Thelma Smith and her son, Herbert; Miss Ma, a Chinese nurse and laboratory technician of the Yencheng Hospital ; and I. Mrs. Smith was going to fill the position of treasurer for the Central China Union until the regular treasurer should return from furlough, and after that take over her responsibilities as Bible worker. I had been appointed to serve in the Yencheng Hospital.
Doctor Nethery had been in Shanghai for some weeks, making purchases of medicines and supplies for the hospital. Owing to the hostilities, all connection between Yencheng and any outside city had been cut off. The railroad had been destroyed two years before. Thus when medicine runs out in Yencheng, it is out; for there is no place to buy more. When Doctor Nethery left Yencheng for Shanghai, the hospital was without ether, iodine, digitalis, and scores of other medicines that one must use every day in a hospital. Besides medicines, there were items needed in repair work—nails, screws, locks, sewing thread, needles, rubber goods. All must be brought from Shanghai.
Our train (a Japanese one, and quite comfortable) was scheduled to leave at 2:30 P.M., and our first stop was Nanking. It had been raining steadily for about a week ; nevertheless most of the Ningkuo Road compound and sanitarium folk were there to wave us good-by. Soon we were speeding on our way.
Five hours later found us in Nanking. Including freight and personal belongings, we had 190 pieces of baggage, the weight of which was almost seven tons. At the Nanking railway station we secured a taxi to take us to a hotel, and were finally successful in discovering two vacant rooms in a Chinese inn. The place was dirty. It was evident that the quilts and straw beds had been used for a season without renewing. But here was a place to lay our weary heads, and we were grateful for the opportunity to rest.
The next morning we ate a few sandwiches from our lunch box for breakfast and we were off again, this time to the ferry to cross the Yangtze. We arrived in Pengpu ahead of schedule, and remained there four days. Since not all our freight had reached this point, and because of the enormous amount of it, it was decided to divide it, our group taking one half, and Brother White following a few days later with the other half.
Sixteen carts were loaded. These carts consisted of two large rubber wheels with a wooden frame fitted on the axle, and two long handles in front for pulling. Freight and trunks were roped to the wooden frame, each cart carrying about four hundred pounds. Miss Ma occupied a ricksha, and the rest of us, each with a bicycle, started for the wide open spaces.
It was a fine day at the start, but soon we had strong head winds, and we found it anything but easy to pump our bicycles in the face of a hard wind, with dust and dirt from the road blowing into our faces. It was twenty-five li to our first stopping point for the night. Our first difficulty came in crossing the Hwai River. The current is very strong, and the boats were merely flat-bottomed rowboats which could carry but one cart each. It took about two and a half hours to get ourselves and our baggage across.
This brought us to a little town called Hwaiyuan. At six-thirty the following morning we got safely on our way. The early morning was a bit cold, but soon the sun came up. The four of us on bicycles would ride far ahead of the carts, and then sit down in a ditch by the roadside to wait for them to catch up with us. In this way we managed to get a good rest between jaunts. The main reason for sitting in the ditches, or gullies, was to get out of the wind, which continued to blow. These gullies are to be found all along the roads, and are made by digging out the earth to form the grave mounds that are seen everywhere.
It was long after one-thirty when we stopped for lunch. We had come to a small and apparently unoccupied mud shack, and here we decided to halt and get down our food baskets. What appetites we had ! We were ready to eat anything we could lay hands on. But we found it difficult to proceed with our meal. People from far and near, old and young, children innumerable, all wanted to catch a glimpse of the strange-looking foreigners.
At about four each day we would begin to think of our stop for the night. At about six o'clock on this first day we turned in at a place called Hanchahu. To find space for such a big company was not easy; for there must be room not only for ourselves, but for the drivers, the coolies, the two rickshas, and our sixteen carts, which must be under shelter in case of rain. On this night we found housing in a large empty room in a mud hut, which contained a table and a large haystack. As soon as the carts arrived, we began to unload, and put up our cots and undo our bedding rolls.
Next came the question of food. We had no light to see by except a Chinese oil lamp and our flashlights. In my basket was a Primus stove, and I proceeded to make it work. We bought some more of the disagreeable-tasting water, and mixed it with a can of tomato soup. Was it good soup ? We had never tasted better ! We bought a few Chinese cakes made of flour and baked in a charcoal oven. These, unless they have chopped onions in them, are entirely devoid of taste. But hunger is a marvelous sauce, and we feasted well.
The next morning came all too soon. We were on the road again at six. For the first few li our muscles ached so that we could hardly pump, but we soon warmed up and felt almost as good as new. The wind was still head on, and the roads were much worse. Much of the time we had to push our bikes. This bike riding was already telling on our legs, which by this time were well marked with bruises, scratches, and cuts received from falling off because of the deep ruts.
In the afternoon we came to another river. The bridge over it had been destroyed to prevent the Japanese from coming over. We wondered how we should ever get across, as in one place there was but one wide plank on which to pass. Doctor Nethery succeeded in purchasing another plank from a man who evidently had been renting it to travelers.
On the other side we rode ahead, as usual, and then waited for the carts to catch up. We continued to wait, but no carts came. Finally Doctor Nethery went back to learn the reason. He found the men sitting at the bridge crossing. They would pull no farther, they said; but after a little persuasion they agreed to move on. By this time it was getting late, and we decided to retrace our steps to a village we had passed, to find shelter for the night. It was after dark when the carts arrived. There followed the usual scramble to get unloaded and set up the beds. There was the usual crowd of onlookers at the window. Another seventy li were ticked off.
_______ To be continued in May
