Nurse Käte receives MvR in Lazaret 76
Event ID: 820
Categories:
06 July 1917
Source ID: 73
ISBN: 978-1-964637-35-8
Suddenly, there was great excitement at Courtrai’s Field Hospital 61 {76}. An attendant stormed into the hall: ‘Sister, Richthofen has been wounded, shot in the head, he has just been assigned (to us) for admission! I turned pale. My God! Shot in the head! My patients lifted their heads: ‘Sister, that can’t be true!’ I saw tears. Everyone was shaken. I could only console myself, ‘Maybe it’s not as bad as we think, let’s hope for the best.’ My heart warmed. Everyone loved the brave man so much, yet none of us knew him personally. We had only been able to know him from a distance.
The car didn’t arrive for a long time; it was already 1:30. The doctors all stood waiting in their white coats. Before the gate stood the consulting surgeon, the War Hospital Director who had no medical role at the field hospital, and my Red Cross Delegate, Count Pückler-Limburg, who said that he had to see Richthofen because he was close to him. He was immediately given his marching orders. Finally, the car arrived. The wounded man was taken to the operating room. He was finally put to bed around 3:00. My question to the medical offcer — ‘Is it dangerous?’ — was answered with ‘No, thank God not!’ The room was darkened and I remained to look after the patient, who was still under anesthesia. A fresh, soft face looked back at me from the large head bandage. Suddenly he shouted: ‘I have to throw up!’ It happened again. He became angry, it seemed to give him a headache. I was still standing by his bed. His steadfast, blue eyes rested searchingly on my face. I nodded to him: ‘So, Herr Rittmeister, maybe you should try to get some sleep.’ He obediently closed his eyes. I heard footsteps outside the door that became muffed by the rug and suddenly stopped. I stepped out and was shocked. Seven or eight gentlemen stood there and one of them asked: ‘Sister, is Rittmeister von Richthofen lying here?’ ‘Yes.’ — ‘Can we see him?’ ‘No, that’s impossible — one person at most, he’s just woken up from the anesthesia.’ My gaze fell on a delicate, narrow, pale face with the Pour le Mérite around his neck. The others said: ‘Well then, Wolff, you go!’ We carefully went in. I quietly called out: ‘Herr Rittmeister’ He opened his eyes, his gaze fell on Wölffchen, but then his eyes closed again. Wölffchen gently stroked his hand and left.l had to go back downstairs to my 38, very seriously wounded men who were anxiously awaiting news. Franz, the orderly, relieved me upstairs. I was inundated downstairs: ‘Sister, please tell the Rittmeister to give up flying. We are in such fear for him. He should pass his knowledge on to students so that he can remain with us. We, the seriously injured, ask him to do this and wish him a speedy recovery!’
After 1 1/2 hours of hard work, I hopped upstairs to see how my patient was doing. He was awake. I had to sit down on his bed, and he recounted his recent wounding and landing quite humorously and how he kept on shouting ‘Thistle, thistle!’ He called the experience ‘quite interesting.’ I have to say, however, that my heart pounded uncontrollably when he related how he suddenly couldn’t hear or see. The thought of hanging 3,500 meters up in the air, your head clear, everything OK, but with only darkness before your eyes, nothing but the deepest blackness, could drive almost anyone insane. But Richthofen was something special, endowed with fantastic energy; he was the master of himself and his machine. {I knew the site of his emergency landing exactly since I had been active in a field hospital there for eight months in 1916. Richthofen took great pleasure in telling about it.}
I passed along my wounded ones’ requests. He subtly smiled and said: ‘Give my regards to your patients. I thank them, but one’s knowledge can only be demonstrated to the English.’ In the meantime, Franz had carried out my order and brought a huge armful of flowers. I asked: ‘Herr Rittmeister, do you like flowers?’ — ‘Very much, Sister!’ He pressed his warm face into the cool flowers.
Soon the army doctor and consulting surgeon arrived. The consulting surgeon sat down and kept asking questions, which Richthofen constantly answered with ‘Yes, sir’ and ‘If it weren’t for throwing up!’ I got angry. I noticed that the patient was finding it extremely diffcult to speak. But doctors can be just as ignorant as other people. Once they are in the company of famous people, they just have to talk to them regardless of their current condition. They finally departed with the prescription: ‘Inject 0.01 morphine at night.’ I must have made a pretty dark face because Richthofen asked: ‘Sister, who is it that you want to eat?’— The tedious questioner, Herr Rittmeister. I noticed quite well how difficult it was for you to answer.’— ‘Yes, Sister,’ he said with-a-subtle-smile smiling. The patient is fever free. That’s terrific.
Since we were about to have dinner, I asked what my patient wanted. ‘Flour soup.’ I ordered it in the kitchen. The cook was horrified. ‘But Sister, the Rittmeister wants to eat ordinary flour soup?’ — ‘Yes, yes, Blume, now get going!’ He soon had to get used to it, because Richthofen loved flour soups.
I shared the extra watch with Franz the orderly since no call bell device had been installed. As always, the English bombers came at night. It was a glorious, moonlit night. It rattled and banged in every corner. It was so wild that one had the feeling that they were after Richthofen. I said this too, which the patient enjoyed. Suddenly, when one boomed nearby, he said: ‘Now those are bombs!’ He amusingly told me how the English had come out to his airbase at Douai, bombed his machine to pieces and how he stood there with a long face, but how he then took revenge for it the following night.
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