View report page

59
It was also considered necessary to dig a trench to receive the exhaust from the
Washington Lyons Disinfector which, if used for decontaminating purposes, would
discharge highly noxious gas. The trench to receive the exhaust pipe was to be
dug 3 feet deep and 15 feet long, two perforated pipes to be laid along the bottom,
and the trench to be tilled in with clinker to within a foot of the top ; the whole to be
covered over with earth.
Mr. Surveyor ordered 10,000 sand bags, to be filled with earth, to give some
protection to the windows against high explosive blast.
The immediate difficulty in carrying out this work was the obtaining of the
necessary labour, since all skilled labour, and indeed most of the casual labour available
locally, had already been recruited.
Fortunately, your Medical Officer had on the staff of the Authority a fully qualified
ship's carpenter, Mr. A. Cook, who is normally engaged in the Tilbury Docks.
Mr. Cook was at once transferred to Denton Hospital, and given authority to purchase
the necessary materials, and to obtain, in the Gravesend area, such labour as he could
for his immediate requirements.
In the meantime your Medical Officer made an appeal for assistance to the whole
of the staff on the Gravesend Station; an appeal which was met with an immediate
and most gratifying response.
The "Howard Deighton" was temporarily laid up, and the Boarding Medical
Officer on duty was able to use the Customs' Launch, thanks to the courtesy of the
Customs' Officials, who, indeed, have never failed in offering their ready collaboration.
The launch crews off duty enlisted to a man, and it was therefore possible, with
the help of four casual labourers used for digging the trench and for carting timber,
to start the work that very evening. Such members of the staff as could be spared
and were immediately available, turned to cutting and preparing the frames for the
windows, and by midnight that evening the work was well in hand.
The work continued on Thursday from 5 a.m., right through to midnight,
on Friday, similarly, and on Saturday until 10 p.m. Some of the members of the
staff refused to waste valuable time in returning home, and overnight accommodation
was provided for them in the Enteric Block.
Your Matron and her staff entered wholeheartedly into the spirit of the emergency
and prepared meals on Thursday, Friday and Saturday morning for the men who
started work at daylight, and who slept at the Hospital overnight.
The "Howard Deighton "left Gravesend at 3.0 a.m. on Friday morning, collected
5,000 sand bags at 6.0 a.m. at Castle Yard Wharf, and unloaded them at Denton later
in the day. The remaining 5,000 bags were collected and delivered the next day
by the "Alfred Robertson."
By 5.0 p.m. on Saturday the work had progressed so rapidly that the Hospital
would have been ready to function on a war time basis under the scheme envisaged
if hostilities had broken out. Most of the frames had been cut and fitted to the
windows and covered, the air-locks were nearly completed, and the exhaust pipes from
the disinfector re-laid.
Your Medical Officer, who supervised the work on the spot, finds it difficult
adequately to express his appreciation, indeed his admiration, for the manner in which
the staff responded to the call, for the way they worked under great pressure, and for
the good quality of the work they did, despite the fact that many of them were not
skilled in that type of construction.
Denton Hospital having been prepared, to the extent that was possible in the
short time available, to meet a national emergency, and the international situation
having somewhat eased, it was possible to proceed with the training of the whole of
the personnel in measures of self-protection against gas.