HUNGER OF THE WOUNDED
Well, during all these shiftings and waitings the wounded get nothing to eat. I want some travelling-kitchens, and I want you to see about the whole thing. You may have to come from Scotland, because I have opened the subject with Mr. Burbidge, of Harrods' Stores. A Harrods' man is over here. He takes back this letter. I particularly want you to see him. Mr. Burbidge has, or can obtain, old horse-vans which can be fitted up as travelling-kitchens. He is doing one now for Millicent, Duchess of Sutherland; it is to cost£15, which I call very cheap. I wish you could see it, for I know you could improve upon it. It is fitted, I understand, with a copper for boiling soup, and a chimney. There is also a place for fuel, and I should like a strong box that would hold vegetables, dried peas, etc., whose top would serve as a table. Then there must be plenty of hooks and shelves where possible, and I believe Burbidge makes some sort of protection against fire in the way of lining to the van. Harrods' man says that he doesn't know if they have any more vans or not.
I want someone with push and energy to see the thing right through and get the vans off. TheInvicta, from the Admiralty Pier, Dover, sailing daily, brings Red Cross things free.
PROPOSED TRAVELLING-KITCHENS
The vans would have to have the Red Cross painted on them, and insmallletters, somewhere inconspicuous, "Miss Macnaughtan's Travelling-Kitchens." This is only for identification. I thought we might begin withthree, and get them sent outat once, and go on as they are required. I must have a capable person and a helper in charge of each, so that limits my number. The Germans have beautiful little kitchens at each station, but I can't be sure what money I can raise, so must go slow.
I want also two little trollies, just to hold a tin jug and some tin cups hung round, with one oil-lamp to keep the jug hot. The weather will be bitter soon, and only "special" cases have blankets.
Clemmie, if only we could see this thing through withouttoo much red tape!... No permission need be given for the work of these kitchens, as we are under the Belgian Minister of War and act for Belgium.
I thought of coming over to London for a day or two, and I can still do so, only I know you will be able to do this thing better than anyone, and will think of things that no one else thinks of. I can get voluntary workers, but meat and vegetables are dreadfully dear, so I shan't be able to spend a great deal on the vans. However, any day they may be taken by the Germans, so the only thing that really matters is to get the woundedamug of hot soup.
Last night I was dressing wounds and bandaging at Dunkirk station till 3 a.m. The men are brought there inheaps, all helpless, all suffering. Sometimes there are fifteen hundred in one day. Last night seven hundred lay on straw in a huge railway-shed, with straw to cover them—bedded down like cattle, and all in pain. Still, it is better than the trenches and shrapnel overhead!
At the Field Hospital the wounds are ghastly, and we are losing so many patients! Mere boys of sixteen come in sometimes mortally wounded, and there are a good many cases of wounded women. You see, no one is safe; and, oh, my dear, have you ever seen a town that has been thoroughly shelled? At Furnes we have a good many shells dropping in, but no real bombardment yet. After Antwerp I don't seem to care about these visitors. We were under fire there for eighteen hours, and it was a bit of a strain as our hospital was in a line withthe Arsenal, which they were trying to destroy, so we got more than our share of attention. The noise was horrible, and the shells came in at the rate of four a minute. There was something quite hellish about it.
Do you remember that great bit of writing in Job, when Wisdom speaks and says: "Destruction and Death say, it is not in me"?
The wantonness and sort of rage of it all appalled one. Our women behaved splendidly.
I'll come over to England if you think I had better, but I am sure you are the person I want.... If anything should prevent your helping, please wire to me: otherwise I shall know things are going forward.
Your loving,
S. Macnaughtan.
The vans should be strong as they may have rough usage; also, to take them to their destination they may have to be hitched on to a motor-ambulance.
One or two strong trays in each kitchen would be useful. The little trollies would be for railway-station work. As we go on I hope to have one kitchen for each dressing-station as well.
Sally.
8 November.—This afternoon I went down to the Hôtel des Arcades, which is the general meeting ground for everyone. The drawing-room was full and so was the Place Jean Bart, on which it looks. Suddenly we saw people beginning to fly! Soldiers, oldmen, children in their Sunday clothes, all running to cover. I asked what was up, and heard that a Taube was at that moment flying over our hotel. These are the sort of pleasant things one hears out here! Then Lady Decies came running in to say that two bombs had fallen and twenty people were wounded.
Once more we got bandages and lint and hurried off in a motor-car, but the civilian doctors were looking after everyone. The bomb by good luck had fallen in a little garden, and had done the least damage imaginable, but every window in the neighbourhood was smashed.
NIGHT WORK AT RAILWAY SHEDS
At night we went to the railway-sheds and dressed wounds. I made them do the Germans; but it was too late for one of them—a handsome young fellow with both his feet deep blue with frost-bite, his leg broken, and a great wound in his thigh. He had not been touched for eight days. Another man had a great hole right through his arm and shoulder. The dressing was rough and ready. The surgeons clapped a great wad of lint into the hole and we bound it up. There is no hot water, no sterilising, no cyanide gauze even, but iodine saves many lives, and we have plenty of it. The German boy was dying when we left. His eyes above the straw began to look glazed and dim. Death, at least, is merciful.
We work so late at the railway-sheds that I lie in bed till lunch time. Lady Bagot and I go to the sheds in the evening and stay there till 1 a.m.
11 November. Boulogne.—I got a letter from Julia yesterday, telling me that Alan is wounded andin hospital at Boulogne, and asking me to go and see him.
I came here this morning and had to run about for a long time before I started getting a "laissez-passer" for the road, as spies are being shot almost at sight now. By good chance I got a motor-car which brought me all the way; trains are uncertain, and filled with troops, and one never knows when they will arrive.
STORIES OF THE BRITISH FRONT
I found poor old Alan at the Base Hospital, in terrible pain, poor boy, but not dangerously wounded. He has been through an awful time, and nearly all the officers of his regiment have been killed or wounded. For my part, in spite of his pain, I can thank God that he is out of the firing-line for a bit. The horror of the war has got right into him, and he has seen things which few boys of eighteen can have witnessed. Eight days in the trenches at Ypres under heavy fire day and night is a pretty severe test, and Alan has behaved splendidly. He told me the most awful tales of what he had seen, but I believe it did him good to get things off his chest, so I listened. The thing he found the most ghastly was the fact that when a trench has been taken or lost the wounded and dying and dead are left out in the open. He says that firing never ceases, and it is impossible to reach these men, who die of starvation within sight of their comrades.
"Sometimes," Alan said, "we see them raise themselves on an arm for an instant, and they yell to us to come to them, but we can't."
His own wound was received when the Germans "gottheir range to an inch" and began shelling their trenches. A whole company next to Alan was wiped out, and he started to go back to tell his Colonel the trench could not be held. The communication trench by which he went was not quite finished, and he had to get out into the open and race across to where the unfinished trench began again. Poor child, running for his life! He was badly hit in the groin, but managed just to tumble into the next bit of the trench, where he found two men who carried him, pouring with blood, to his Colonel. He was hastily bound up and carried four miles on crossed rifles to the hospital at Ypres, where his wound was properly dressed, and after an hour he was put on the train for Boulogne.
Alan had one story of how he was told to wait at a certain spot with 130 men. "So I waited," he said, "but the fire was awful." His regiment had, it seems, gone round another way. "I got thirty of the men away," Alan said, "the rest were killed." It means something to be an officer and a gentleman.
Every day the list of casualties grows longer, and I wonder who will be left.
19 November. Furnes.—Early on Monday, the 16th, I left Boulogne in Lady Bagot's car and came to Dunkirk, where I was laid up with a cold for two or three days. It was singularly uncomfortable, as no one ever answered my bell, etc.; but I had a bed, which is always such a comfort, and the room was heated, so I got my things dry. Very often I find the only way to do this or to get dry clothing is to take things to bed with one—it is ratherchilly, but better than putting on wet things in the morning.
The usual number of unexpected people keep coming and going. At Boulogne I met Lady Eileen Elliot, Ian Malcolm, Lord Francis Scott, and various others—all very English and clean and well fed. It was quite different from Furnes, to which I returned on Wednesday. Most of us sleep on mattresses on the floor at Furnes, but even these were all occupied, so I hopped about getting in where I could. The cold weather "set in in earnest" as newspapers say, and when it does that in Furnes it seems to be particularly in earnest.
To Lady Clémentine Waring.
Hôtel des Arcades,
Dunkerque,
18 November, 1914.
Dearest Clemmie,
Forgive the delay in writing again. I was too sick about it all at first, then I was sent for to go to Boulogne to see my nephew, who is badly wounded. I can't explain the present situation to you because it would only be censored, but I hope to write about it later.
I shall manage the soup-kitchens soon, I hope, but next week will decide that and many things. The objection to thepatternis that those vans would overturn going round corners when hitched on behind ambulances. Some wealthy people are giving a regular motor kitchen to run about to various "dressing"-stations—this will be most useful, but it doesn't do away with the need of something to eat during those interminable waits at therailway-stations.
CHANGES IN THE SITUATION
To-morrow I begin my own little soup-kitchen at Furnes. I have a room but no van, and this is most unsatisfactory, as any day the room (so near the station) may be commandeered. A van would make me quite independent, but I must feel my way. The situation changes very often, as you will of course see, and when one is quite close to the Front one has to be always changing with it.
I want helpers and I want vans, but rules are becoming stricter than ever. Even Adeline, Duchess of Bedford, whose good work everyone knows, has waited for a permit for a week at Boulogne, and has now gone home. When all the useful women have been expelled there will follow the usual tale of soldiers' suffering and privations: when women are about they don't let them suffer.
The only plan (if you know of any man who wants to come out) is to know how to drive a motor-car and then to offer it and his services to the Red Cross Society. I have set my heart on station soup-kitchens because I see the men put into horse-boxes on straw straight off the field, and there they lie without water or light or food while the train jolts on for hours. I wish I had you here to back me up! We could do anything together.
As ever, yours gratefully,
Sally.
The motor kitchens cost £600 fitted, but the maker is giving the one I speak of for £300. Everyone has given so much to the war I don't feel sure I could collect this amount. I might try America, but it takes a long time.
21 November.—I am up to my eyes in soup! I have started my soup-kitchen at the station, and it gives me a lot to do. Bad luck to it, my cold and cough are pretty bad!
It is odd to wake in the morning in a frozen room, with every pane of glass green and thick with frost, and one does not dare to think of Mary and morning tea! When I can summon enough moral courage to put a foot out of bed I jump into my clothes at once; half dressed, I go to a little tap of cold water to wash, and then, and for ever, I forgive entirely those sections of society who do not tub. We brush our own boots here, and put on all the clothes we possess, and then descend to a breakfast of Quaker oat porridge with bread and margarine. I wouldn't have it different, really, till our men are out of the trenches; but I am hoping most fervently that I shan't break down, as I am so "full with soup."
WORK IN THE SOUP-KITCHEN
Our kitchen at the railway-station is a little bit of a passage, which measures eight feet by eight feet. In it are two small stoves. One is a little round iron thing which burns, and the other is a sort of little "kitchener" which doesn't! With thisequipment, and various huge "marmites," we make coffee and soup for hundreds of men every day. The first convoy gets into the station about 9.30 a.m., all the men frozen, the black troops nearly dead with cold. As soon as the train arrives I carry out one of my boiling "marmites" to the middle of the stone entrance and ladle out the soup, while a Belgian Sister takes round coffee and bread.
These Belgians (three of them) deserve much of the credit for the soup-kitchen, if any credit is going about, as they started with coffee before I came, and did wonders on nothing. Now that I have bought my pots and pans and stoves we are able to do soup, and much more. The Sisters do the coffee on one side of eight feet by eight, while I and my vegetables and the stove which goes out are on the other. We can't ask people to help because there is no room in the kitchen; besides, alas! there are so many people who like raising a man's head and giving him soup, but who do not like cutting up vegetables.
After the first convoy of wounded has been served, other wounded men come in from time to time, then about 4 o'clock there is another train-load. At ten p.m. the largest convoy arrives. The men seem too stiff to move, and many are carried in on soldiers' backs. The stretchers are laid on the floor, those who can "s'asseoir" sit on benches, and every man produces a "quart" or tin cup. One and all they come out of the darkness and never look about them, but rouse themselves to get fed, and stretch out poor grimy hands for bread andsteaming drinks. There is very little light—only one oil-lamp, which hangs from the roof, and burns dimly. Under this we place the "marmites," and all that I can see is one brown or black or wounded hand stretched out into the dim ring of light under the lamp, with a little tin mug held out for soup. Wet and ragged, and covered with sticky mud, the wounded lie in the salle of the station, and, except under the lamp, it is all quite dark. There are dim forms and frosty breaths, and a door which bangs continually, and then the train loads up, the wounded depart, and a heavy smell and an empty pot are all that remain. We clean up the kitchen, and go home about 1 a.m. I do the night work alone.
24 November.—We are beginning to get into our stride, and the small kitchen turns out its gallons and buckets of liquid. Mrs. —— has been helping me with my work. It is good to see anyone so beautiful in the tiny kitchen, and it is quaint to see anyone so absolutely ignorant of how a pot is washed or a vegetable peeled.
I have a little electric lamp, which is a great comfort to me, as I have to walk home alone at midnight. When I get up in the morning I have to remember all I shall want during the day, as the villa is a mile from the station, so I take my lantern out at 9.30 a.m.!
I saw a Belgian regiment march back to the trenches to-day. They had a poor little band and some foggy instruments, and a bugler flourished a trumpet. I stood by the roadside and cried till I couldn't see.
To Miss Mary King.
Furnes, Belgium,
27 November.
Dear Mary,
A LETTER HOME
You will like to know that I have a soup-kitchen at the station here, and I am up to my neck in soup. I make it all day and a good bit of the night too, for the wounded are coming in all the time, and they are half frozen—especially the black troops. People are being so kind about the work I am doing, and they are all saying what a comfort the soup is to the men. Sometimes I feed several hundreds in a day.
I am sure everyone will grieve to hear of the death of Lord Roberts, but I think he died just as he would wish to have died—amongst his old troops, who loved him, and in the service of the King. He was a fine soldier and a Christian gentleman, and you can't say better of a man than that.
I feel as if I had been out here for years, and it seems quite odd to think that one used to wear evening dress and have a fire in one's room. I am promising myself, if all goes well, to get home about Christmas-time. I wish I could think that the war would be over by then, but it doesn't look very like it.
Remember me to Gwennie, and to all your people. Take care of your old self.
Yours truly,
S. Macnaughtan.
1 December.—Mrs. Knocker and Miss Chisholm and Lady Dorothy went out to Pervyse a few days agoto make soup, etc., for Belgians in the trenches. They live in the cellar of a house which has been blown inside out by guns, and take out buckets of soup to men on outpost duty. Not a glimpse of fire is allowed on the outposts. Fortunately the weather has been milder lately, but soaking wet. Our three ladies walk about the trenches at night, and I come home at 1 a.m. from the station. The men of our party meanwhile do some house-work. They sit over the fire a good deal, clear away the tea-things, and when we come home at night we find they have put hot-water bottles in our beds and trimmed some lamps. I feel like Alice in Wonderland or some other upside-down world. We live in much discomfort, which is a little unnecessary; but no one seems to want to undertake housekeeping.
I make soup all day, and there is not much else to write about. All along the Yser the Allies and the Germans confront each other, but things have been quieter lately. The piteous list of casualties is not so long as it has been. A wounded German was brought in to-day. Both his legs were broken and his feet frost-bitten. He had been for four days in water with nothing to eat, and his legs unset. He is doing well.
PERVYSE
On Sunday I drove out to Pervyse with a kind friend, Mr. Tapp. At the end of the long avenue by which one approaches the village, Pervyse church stands, like a sentinel with both eyes shot out. Nothing is left but a blind stare. Hardly any of the church remains, and the churchyard is as if some devil had stalked through it, tearing up crossesand kicking down graves. Even the dead are not left undisturbed in this awful war. The village (like many other villages) is just a mass of gaping ruins—roofs blown off, streets full of holes, not a window left unshattered, and the guns still booming.
To Mrs. Charles Percival.
Furnes, Belgium,
5 December.
Darling Tab,
I have a chance of sending this to England to be posted, so I must send you a line to wish you many happy returns of the day. I wish we could have our yearly kiss. I will think of you a lot, my dear, on the 8th, and drink your health if I can raise the wherewithal. We are not famous for our comforts, and it would amaze you to see how very nasty food can be, and how very little one can get of it.
I have an interesting job now, and it is my own, which is rather a mercy, as I never know which is most common, dirt or muddle. I can have things as clean as I like, and my soup is getting quite a name for itself. The first convoy of wounded generally comes into the station about 11 a.m. It may number anything. Then the men are put into the train, and there begins a weary wait for the poor fellows till more wounded arrive and the train is loaded up, and sometimes they are kept there all day. The stretcher cases are in a long corridor, and the sitting-up cases in ordinary third-class carriages. The sitters are worn, limping men, withbandaged heads, and hands bound up, who are yet capable of sitting up in a train.
The transport is well done, I think (farbetter than in South Africa), but more women are wanted to look after details. To give you one instance: all stretchers are made of different sizes, so that if a man arrives on an ambulance, the stretchers belonging to it cannot go into the train, and the poor wounded man has to be lifted and "transferred," which causes him (in the case of broken legs or internal injuries especially) untold suffering. It also takes up much room, and gives endless trouble for the sake of aninch and a halfof space, which is the usual difference in the size of the stretchers, but that prevents them slipping into the sockets on the train.
Another thing I have noticed is, that no man, even lying down in the train, ever gets his boots taken off. The men's feet are always soaked through, as they have been standing up to their knees in water in the trenches; but, of course, slippers are unheard of. I do wonder if ladies could be persuaded to make any sort of list or felt or even flannel slippers? I saw quite a good pattern the other day, and will try to send you one, in case Eastbourne should rise to the occasion. Of course, there must behundredsof pairs, and heaps would get lost. I do believe other centres would join, and the cost of material for slippers would be quite trifling. A priest goes in each corridor train, and there is always a stove where the boots could be dried. I believe slippers can be bought for about a shilling a pair. The men's feet areenormous. Cases should be marked with a red cross, and sent pers.s.Invicta, Admiralty Pier, Dover.
THE SHELLING OF LAMPERNESSE
The fighting has had a sort of lull here for some time, but there are always horrible things happening. The other day at Lampernesse, 500 soldiers were sleeping on straw in a church. A spy informed the Germans, who were twelve miles off, but they got the range to an inch, and sent shells straight into the church, killing and wounding nearly everyone in it, and leaving men under the ruins. We had some terrible cases that day. The church was shelled at 6 a.m., and by 11 a.m. all the wounded were having soup and coffee at the station. I thought their faces were more full of horror than any I had seen.
The parson belonging to our convoy is a particularly nice young fellow. I have had a bad cold lately, and every night he puts a hot-water bottle in my bed. When he can raise any food he lays a little supper for me, so that when I come in between 12 and 1 o'clock I can have something to eat, a lump of cheese, plum jam, and perhaps a piece of bully beef, always three pieces of ginger from a paper bag he has of them. Last night when I got back I found I couldn't open the door leading into a sort of garage through which we have to enter this house. I pushed as hard as I could, and then found I was pushing against horses, and that a whole squad of troop horses had been shoved in there for the night, so I had to make my entry under their noses and behind their heels. Pinned to the table inside the house was a note from the parson,"I can't get you any food, but I have put a bottle of port-wine in your room. Stick to it."
I had meant to go early to church to-day, but I was really too tired, so I am writing to you instead. Now I must be getting up, for "business must be attended to."
Well, good-bye, my dear. I am always too busy to write now, so would you mind sending this letter on to the family?
Your loving sister,
S. Macnaughtan.
December.—Unexpected people continue to arrive at Furnes. Mme. Curie and her daughter are in charge of the X-ray apparatus at the hospital. Sir Bartle Frere is there as a guest. Miss Vaughan, of theNursing Times, came in out of the dark one evening. To-day the King has been here. God bless him! he always does the right thing.
6 December.—My horizon is bounded by soup and the men who drink it. There is a stir outside the kitchen, and someone says, "Convoi." So then we begin to fill pots and take steaming "marmites" off the fire. The "sitting cases" come in first, hobbling, or carried on their comrades' backs—heads and feet bandaged or poor hands maimed. When they have been carried or have stiffly and slowly marched through the entrance to the train, the "brancard" cases are brought in and laid on the floor. They are hastily examined, and a doctor goes round reading the labels attached to them which describe their wounds. An English ambulanceand a French one wait to take serious cases to their respective hospitals. The others are lifted on to train-stretchers and carried to the train.
A QUESTION OF STRETCHERS
Two doctors came out from England on inspection duty to-day. They asked if I had anything to report, and I made them come to the station to go into this matter of the different-sized stretchers. It is agony to the men to be shifted. Dr. Wilson has promised to take up the question. The transport service is now much improved. The trains are heated and lighted, and priests travel with the lying-down cases.
8 December.—I have a little "charette" for my soup. It is painted red, and gives a lot of amusement to the wounded. The trains are very long, and my small carriage is useful for cups and basins, bread, soup, coffee, etc. Clemmie Waring designed and sent it to me.
To-day I was giving out my soup on the train and three shells came in in quick succession. One came just over my head and lodged in a haystall on the other side of the platform. The wall of the store has an enormous hole in it, but the thickly packed hay prevented the shrapnel scattering. The station-master was hit, and his watch saved him, but it was crumpled up like a rag. Two men were wounded, and one of them died. A whole crowd of refugees came in from Coxide, which is being heavily shelled. There was not a scrap of food for them, so I made soup in great quantities, and distributed it to them in a crowded room whose atmosphere was thick. Ladling out the soup is great fun.
12 December.—The days are very short now, and darkness falls early. All the streets are dark, so are the houses, so is the station. Two candles are a rare treat, and oil is difficult to get.
Such a nice boy died to-night. We brought him to the hospital from the station, and learned that he had lain for eight days wounded and untended. Strangely enough he was naked, and had only a blanket over him on the stretcher. I do not know why he was still alive. Everything was done for him that could be done, but as I passed through one of the wards this evening the nurses were doing their last kindly duty to him. Poor fellow! He was one of those who had "given even their names." No one knew who he was. He had a woman's portrait tattooed on his breast.
19 December.—Not much to record this week. The days have become more stereotyped, and their variety consists in the number of wounded who come in. One day we had 280 extra men to feed—a batch of soldiers returning hungry to the trenches, and some refugees. So far we have never refused anyone a cup of soup; or coffee and bread.
I haven't been fit lately, and get fearful bad headaches. I go to the station at 10 a.m. every morning, and work till 1 o'clock. Then to the hospital for lunch. I like the staff there very much. The surgeons are not only skilful, but they are men of education. We all get on well together, in spite of that curious form of temper which war always seems to bring. No one is affable here, except those who have just come out from home, and it is quite common to hear a request madeand refused, or granted with, "Please do not ask again." Newcomers are looked upon as aliens, and there is a queer sort of jealousy about all the work.
WAR WORKERS' DIFFICULTIES
Oddly enough, few persons seem to show at their best at a time when the best should be apparent. No doubt, it is a form of nerves, which is quite pardonable. Nurses and surgeons do not suffer from it. They are accustomed to work and to seeing suffering, but amateur workers are a bit headlong at times. I think the expectation of excitement (which is often frustrated) has a good deal to do with it. Those who "come out for thrills" often have a long waiting time, and energies unexpended in one direction often show themselves unexpectedly and a little unpleasantly in another.
In my own department I always let Zeal spend itself unchecked, and I find that people who have claimed work or a job ferociously are the first to complain of over-work if left to themselves. Afterwards, if there is any good in them, they settle down into their stride. They are only like young horses, pulling too hard at first and sweating off their strength—jibbing one moment and shying the next—when it comes to "'ammer, 'ammer, 'ammer on the 'ard 'igh road," one finds who is going to stick it and who is not.
There has been some heavy firing round about Nieuport and south of the Yser lately, and an unusual number of wounded have been coming in, many of them "gravement blessés."
One evening a young French officer came to the kitchen for soup. It was on Wednesday, December16th, the day the Allies assumed the offensive, and all night cases were being brought in. He was quite a boy, and utterly shaken by what he had been through. He could only repeat, "It was horrible, horrible!" These are the men who tell brave tales when they get home, but we see them dirty and worn, when they have left the trenches only an hour before, and have the horror of battle in their eyes.
There are scores of "pieds gelés" at present, and I now have bags of socks for these. So many men come in with bare feet, and I hope in time to get carpet slippers and socks for them all. One night no one came to help, and I had a great business getting down a long train, so Mrs. Logette has promised to come every evening. The kitchen is much nicer now, as we are in a larger passage, and we have three stoves, lamps, etc. Many things are being "straightened out" besides, my poor little corner and war seems better understood. There is hardly a thing which is not thought of and done for the sick and wounded, and I should say a grievance was impossible.
I still lodge at the Villa Joos, and am beginning to enjoy a study of middle-class provincial life. The ladies do all the house-work. We have breakfast (a bite) in the kitchen at 8.30 a.m., then I go to make soup, and when I come back after lunch for a rest, "the family" are dressed and sitting round a stove, and this they continue to do till a meal has to be prepared. There is one lamp and one table, and one stove, and unless papa plays the pianola there is nothing to do but talk. No one reads, and onlyone woman does a little embroidery, while the small girl of the party cuts out scraps from a fashion paper.
The poor convoy! it is becoming very squabbly and tiresome, and there is a good deal of "talking over," which is one of the weakest sides of "communal life." It is petty and ridiculous to quarrel when Death is so near, and things are so big and often so tragic. Yet human nature has strict limitations. Mr. Ramsay MacDonald came out from the committee to see what all the complaints were about. So there were strange interviews, in store-rooms, etc. (no one has a place to call their own!), and everyone "explained" and "gave evidence" and tried to "put matters straight."
It rains every day. This may be a "providence," as the floods are keeping the Germans away. The sound of constant rain on the window-panes is a little melancholy. Let us pray that in singleness and cheerfulness of heart we may do our little bit of work.
EXPEDITION TO DUNKIRK
23 December.—Yesterday I motored into Dunkirk, and did a lot of shopping. By accident our motor-car went back to Furnes without me, and there was not a bed to be had in Dunkirk! After many vicissitudes I met Captain Whiting, who gave up his room in his own house to me, and slept at the club. I was in clover for once, and nearly wept when I found my boots brushed and hot water at my door. It was so like home again.
I was leaving the station to-day when shelling began again. One shell dropped not far behind thebridge, which I had just crossed, and wrecked a house. Another fell into a boat on the canal and wounded the occupants badly. I went to tell the Belgian Sisters not to go down to the station, and I lunched at their house, and then went home till the evening work began. People are always telling one that danger is now over—a hidden gun has been discovered and captured, and there will be no more shelling. Quel blague! The shelling goes on just the same whether hidden guns are captured or not.
I can't say at present when I shall get home, because no one ever knows what is going to happen. I don't quite know who would take my place at the soup-kitchen if I were to leave.
25 December.—My Christmas Day began at midnight, when I walked home through the moonlit empty streets of Furnes. At 2 a.m. the guns began to roar, and roared all night. They say the Allies are making an attack.
I got up early and went to church in the untidy school-room at the hospital, which is called the nurses' sitting-room. Mr. Streatfield had arranged a little altar, which was quite nice, and had set some chairs in an orderly row. As much as in him lay—from the altar linen to the white artificial flowers in the vases—all was as decent as could be and there were candles and a cross. We were quite a small congregation, but another service had been held earlier, and the wounded heard Mass in their ward at 6 a.m. The priests put up an altar there, and I believe the singing was excellent. Inside we prayed for peace, and outside the guns wenton firing. Prince Alexander of Teck came to our service—a big soldierly figure in the bare room.
CHRISTMAS IN BELGIUM
After breakfast I went to the soup-kitchen at the station, as usual, then home—i.e., to the hospital to lunch. At 3.15 came a sort of evensong with hymns, and then we went to the civil hospital, where there was a Christmas-tree for all the Belgian refugee children. Anything more touching I never saw, and to be with them made one blind with tears. One tiny mite, with her head in bandages, and a little black shawl on, was introduced to me as "une blessée, madame." Another little boy in the hospital is always spoken of gravely as "the civilian."
Every man, woman, and child got a treat or a present or a good dinner. The wounded had turkey, and all they could eat, and the children got toys and sweets off the tree. I suppose these children are not much accustomed to presents, for their delight was almost too much for them. I have never seen such excitement! Poor mites! without homes or money, and with their relations often lost—yet little boys were gibbering over their toys, and little girls clung to big parcels, and squeaked dolls or blew trumpets. The bigger children had rather good voices, and all sang our National Anthem in English. "God save our nobbler King"—the accent was quaint, but the children sang lustily.
We had finished, and were waiting for our own Christmas dinner when shells began to fly. One came whizzing past Mr. Streatfield's store-room as Istood there with him. The next minute a little child in floods of tears came in, grasping her mother's bag, to say "Maman" had had her arm blown off. The child herself was covered with dust and dirt, and in the streets people were sheltering in doorways, and taking little runs for safety as soon as a shell had finished bursting. The bombardment lasted about an hour, and we all waited in the kitchen and listened to it. At such times, when everyone is rather strung up, someone always and continually lets things fall. A nun clattered down a pail, and Maurice the cook seemed to fling saucepan-lids on the floor.
About 8.15 the bombardment ceased, and we went in to a cheery dinner—soup, turkey, and plum-pudding, with crackers and speeches. I believe no one would have guessed we had been a bit "on the stretch."
At 9.30 I went to the station. It was very melancholy. No one was there but myself. The fires were out, or smoking badly. Everyone had been scared to death by the shells, and talked of nothing else, whereas shells should be forgotten directly. I got things in order as soon as I could and the wounded in the train got their hot soup and coffee as usual, which was a satisfaction. Then I came home alone at midnight—keeping as near the houses as I could because of possible shells—and so to bed, very cold, and rather too inclined to think about home.
26 December.—Went to the station. Oddly enough, very few wounded were there, so I came away, and had my first day at home. I got a little oil-stove put in my room, wrote letters, tidied up, and thoroughly enjoyed myself.
A Taube came over and hovered above Furnes, and dropped bombs. I was at the Villa, and the family of Joos and I stood and watched it, and a nasty dangerous moth it looked away up in the sky. Presently it came over our house, so we went down to the kitchen. A few shots were fired, but the Taube was far too high up to be hit. Max, the Joos' cousin, went out and "tirait," to the admiration of the women-kind, and then, of course, "Papa" had to have a try. The two men, with their little gun and their talk and gesticulations, lent a queer touch of comic opera to the scene. The garden was so small, the men in their little hats were so suggestive of the "broken English" scene on the stage, that one could only stand and laugh.
A BELGIAN DINNER PARTY
The Joos family are quite a study, and so kind. On Christmas Eve I dined with them, and they gave me the best of all they had. There was a pheasant, which someone had given the doctor (I fancy he is a very small practitioner amongst the poor people); surely, never did a bird give more pleasure. I had known of its arrival days before by seeing Fernande, the little girl, decorated with feathers from its tail. Then the good papa must be decorated also, and these small jokes delighted the whole family to the point of ecstasy.
On Christmas Eve Monsieur Max conceived the splendid joke, carefully arranged, of presenting Madame Joos—who is young and pretty—and the doctor with two parcels, which on being opened contained the child's umbrella and a toy gun. Therewasn't even a comic address on the parcels; but Yrma, the servant, carefully trained for the part, brought them in in fits of delight, and all the family laughed with joy till the tears ran down their cheeks. As they wiped their eyes, they admitted they were sick with laughter. After supper we had the pianola, played by papa; and I must say that, when one can get nothing else, this instrument gives a great deal of pleasure. One gets a sort of ache for music which is just as bad as being hungry.
27 December.—Bad, bad weather again. It has rained almost continuously for five weeks. Yesterday it snowed. Always the wind blows, andsomethinglashes itself against the panes. One can't leave the windows open, as the rooms get flooded. It is amazingly cold o' nights, I can't sleep for the cold.
We have some funny incidents at the station sometimes. A particularly amusing one occurred the other day, when three ladies in knickerbockers and khaki and badges appeared at our soup-kitchen door and announced they were "on duty" there till 6 o'clock. I was not there, but the scene that followed has been described to me, and has often made me laugh.
It seems the ladies never got further than the door! Some people might have been firm in the "Too sorry! Come-some-other-day-when-we-are-not-so-busy" sort of way. Not so Miss ——. In more primitive times she would probably have gone for the visitors with a broom, but her tongue is just as rough as the hardest besom, and from their dress ("skipping over soldiers' faces with breeches on, indeed!")to their corps there was very little left of them.