LONGING FOR HOME
When I do come home I want to be in my own house, and I am longing to be back. Many of my friends go backwards and forwards to England all the time, but when I return, I should like to stay.
I am in wonderfully comfortable rooms at present, and the landlady is most kind and attentive. She gives me a morning cup of tea, and the care and comfort are making me much better. I get some soup before I go off to my station, and last night I was really a fine lady. When I came in tired, the landlady, who is a Belgian, took off my boots for me!
When I come home I think I'll lie in bed all day,and poor old Mary will get quite thin again nursing me. The things you will have to do for me, and all the pretty things I shall see and have, are a great pleasure to think about!
Yours truly,
S. Macnaughtan.
Villa les Chrysanthèmes, La Panne.—I have been to London for a few days to see about the publication of my little war book. I got frightful neuralgia there, and find that as soon as I begin to rest I get ill.
I went to a daffodil show, and found myself in the very hall where the military bazaar was held last year. I saw the place where the Welch had their stall. What fun we had! How many of the regiment are left? Only one officer not killed or wounded. Lord Roberts, who opened the bazaar, is gone too. All the soldiers whom I knew best have been taken, and only a few tough women seem to weather the storm of life.
I had to see publishers in London, and do a lot of business, and just when I was beginning to love it all again my holiday was over. There had been heavy fighting out here, and I felt I must come back. My dear people didn't want me to return, and were very severe on the subject, and Mary scolded me most of the time. It was all affection on their part, although it made "duty" rather a criminal affair!
There was endless difficulty about my passport when I returned. The French Consulate was besieged by people, and I had to go there at 8.30 a.m. and wait till the doors were opened, and was then told I must first go to the Foreign Office to get an order from Colonel Walker. I went down to Whitehall from Bedford Square, and was told I must get a letter from Mr. Coventry. I went to Pall Mall and Mr. Coventry said it was quite impossible to do anything for me without instructions from Mr. Sawyer. Mr. Sawyer said the only thing he could do (if I could establish my identity) was to send me to a matron who would make every enquiry about me, and perhaps in three days I might get an Anglo-French certificate, through which Mr. Coventry might be induced to give me a letter to give to Colonel Walker, who might then sign the passport, which I could then take to Bedford Square to bevisé.
I got Sir John Furley to identify me, and then began a dogged going from place to place and from official to official till at last I got the thing through. I felt just like a Russian being "broken." There is a regular system, I believe, in Russia of wearing people out by this sort of official tyranny. I do not know anything more tiring or more discouraging! I had all my papers in order—mypassport, my "laissez passer," a letter from Mr. Bevan, explaining who I was and asking for "every facility" for me, and my photograph, properly stamped. I am now so loaded with papers that I feel as if I were carrying a library about with me. Oh, give me intelligent women to do things for me!The best-run things I have seen since the war began have been our women's unit at Antwerp and Lady Bagot's hospital at Adinkerke.
QUARRELLING
I came back refreshed. I think everyone (every woman) out here has noticed how indifferent and really "nasty" people are to each other at the front. It is one of the singular things about the war, because one always hears it said that it is deepening people's characters, purifying them, and so on. As far as my experience goes, it has shown me the reverse. I have seldom known so much quarrelling, and there is a sort of queer unhappiness which has nothing to do with the actual war or loss of friends. I can't be mistaken about it, because I see it on all sides.
At the —— hospital men and women alike are quarrelling all the time. Resignations are frequent. So-and-so has got So-and-so turned out; someone has written to the committee in London to report on someone else; a nice doctor is dismissed. Every nurse has given notice at different times. Most people are hurt and sore about something. Love seems quite at a discount, and one can't help wondering if Hate can be infectious! It is all frightfully disappointing, for surely one's heart beat high when one made up one's mind to do what one could for suffering Belgium and for the sake of the English name.
Those two poor girls at ——! I know they meant well, and had high ideas of what they were going to do. Now they "use langwidge" to each other (although I know a very strong affection binds them), and very, very strong that language is.
Poor souls, the people here aren't a bit happy. I wonder if the work is sufficiently "sanctified." One never knows. Lady Bagot's is the happiest and most serene place here; her men are Church Army people, and they have evening prayers in the ward. Itdoesmake a difference.
Scandals also exist out here, but they are merely silly, I think, and very unnecessary, though a little conventionality wouldn't hurt anyone. Sometimes I think it would be better if we were all at home, for Belgians are particular, and I hate breeches and gaiters for girls, and a silly way of going on. I do wish people could sometimes leave sex at home, but they never seem to. I wonder if Crusaders came back with scandals attached to their names!
I got back here in one of those rushes of work that come in war time when fighting is near. At first no car could be spared to meet me at Boulogne, so I had to wait at the Hôtel Maurice for two or three days. I didn't mind much as I met such a lot of English friends, and also visited some interesting hospitals; but I knew by the thousands of wounded coming in that things must be busy at the front, and this made one champ one's bit.
The Canadians and English who poured in from Ypres were terribly damaged, and the asphyxiating gas seems to have been simply diabolical. It was awful to see human beings so mangled, and I never get one bit accustomed to it. The streets were full of British soldiers, and the hospitals swarmed with wounded. I went to visit the Casino one. The bright sun streamed through lowered blinds on hundredsof beds, and on stretchers lying between them. Many Canadians were there, and rows of British. God! how they were knocked about! The vast rooms echoed to the cries of pain. The men were vowing they could never face shells and hand grenades any more. They were so newly wounded, poor boys; but they come up smiling when their country calls again.
But itisn't right. This damage to human life is horrible. It is madness to slaughter these thousands of young men. Almost at last, in a rage, one feels inclined to cry out against the sheer imbecility of it. Why bring lives into the world and shell them out of it with jagged pieces of iron, and knives thrust through their quivering flesh? The pain of it is all too much. I amsickwith seeing suffering.
DUNKIRK SHELLED
On Thursday, April 29th, Mr. Cooper, and another man came for us, and we left Boulogne. At Dunkirk we could hardly credit our eyes—the place had been shelled that very afternoon! I never saw such a look of bewilderment and horror as there was on all faces. No one had ever dreamed that the place could be hit by a German gun, yet here were houses falling as if by magic, and no one knew for a moment where on earth or in heaven the shells were coming from. Some people said they came from the sea, but the houses I saw hadn't been hit from the sea, which lies north, but from the east. Others talked of an armoured train, but armoured trains don't carry 15-inch shells. So all anyone could do was togapewith sheer astonishment.
Dunkirk, that safest of places, the haven to which we were all to fly when Furnes or La Panne were bombarded! Everybody contradicted one, of course, when one declared that no naval gun had been at work, but the fact remains that a long-range field-piece had been hidden at Leke, and Dunkirk was shelled for three days, and, as far as I know, may be shelled again. The inhabitants have all fled. The shops are not even shut; one could help oneself to anything! The "état major" has left, and so have all the officials; 23,000 tickets have been taken at the railway station, and the road to Calaisisblocked with fleeing refugees.
It was rather odd that the day I left here and passed through Furnes it was being shelled, and we had to wait a little while before we could get through; and when I arrived at Dunkirk the bombardment was just over, and a huge shell-hole prevented us passing down a certain road.
Well, I got back to my work at Adinkerke in the midst of the fighting, and reached it just as the sun was setting. What a scene at the station, where I stopped before reaching home to leave the chairs and things I had bought for the hospital there! They were bringing in civilians wounded at Ypres and Poperinghe, which place also has been shelled (and yet we say we are advancing!), and there were natives also from Nieuport.
WOUNDED WOMEN AND CHILDREN
One whole ambulance was filled with wounded children. I think King Herod himself might have been sorry for them. Wee things in splints, or with their curly heads bandaged; tiny mites, looking with wonder at their hands swathed in linen; babieswith their tender flesh torn, and older children crying with terror. There were two tiny things seated opposite each other on a big stretcher playing with dolls, and a little Christmas-card sort of baby in a red hood had had its mother and father killed beside it. Another little mite belonged to no one at all. Who could tell whether its parents had been killed or not? I am afraid many of them will never find their relations again. In the general scrimmage everyone gets lost. If this isn't frightfulness enough, God in heaven help us!
On the platform was a row of women lying on stretchers. They were decent-looking brown-haired matrons for the most part, and it looked unnatural and ghastly to see them lying there. One big railway compartment was slung with their stretchers, and some young men in uniform nursed the babies. I shall never forget that railway compartment as long as I live. A man in khaki appeared, thoughtful, as our people always are, and brought a box of groceries with him, and sweet biscuits for the children, and other things. Thank Heaven for the English!
At the hospital it was really awful, and the doctors were working in shifts of twenty-four hours at a time.
I left my tables, chairs, trays, etc., for the hospital at the station, and returned early the next day, for numbers of wounded were still coming in. I wanted slippers for everyone, but my Belgian helpers had given a hundred pairs of mine away in my absence. They were overworked a little, I think, so I overlooked the fact that they lost their tempers rather badly.Besides, I willnotquarrel. In a small kitchen it would be too ridiculous. The three little people fight among themselves, but I don't fancy I was made for that sort of thing.
There was nothing but work for some time. My "éclopés" had been entirely neglected, and no one had even bothered to buy vegetables for the men.
On Sunday, May 2nd, I went to see Dr. de Page's hospital. I saw a baby three weeks old with both his feet wounded. His mother came in one mass of wounds, and died on the operating table—a young mother, and a pretty one. A young man with tears in his eyes looked at the baby, and then said, "A jolly good shot at fifteen miles."
They can't help making jokes.
There were two Scots lying in a little room—both gunners, who had been hit at Nieuport. One, Ochterlony from Arbroath, had an eye shot away, and some other wounds; the other, McDonald, had seven bad injuries. Ochterlony talked a good deal about his eyes, till McDonald rolled his head round on the pillow, and remarked briefly, "I'd swop my stomach for your eyes."
Sunday wasn't such a nasty day as I usually have—in fact, Sunday never is. But that station, with its glaring hot platform, its hotter kitchen, and its smells, takes a bit of sticking. I have discovered one thing about Belgium. Everything smells exactly alike. To-day there have been presented to my nose four different things purporting to have different odours, drains, some cheese, tobacco, and a bunch of lilac. There was no difference at all in the smells!
WAR WEARINESS
I am much struck by the feeling of sheer weariness and disgust at the war which prevails at present. People are "soul sick" of it. A man told me last night that he longed to be wounded so that he might go home honourably. Amongst all the volunteer corps I notice the same thing. "Fed up" is the expression they all use, fed up with the suffering they see, fed up even with red crosses and khaki.
When one thinks of primrose woods at home, and birds singing, and apple-blossom against blue sky, and the park with its flower-beds newly planted, and the fresh-watered streets, and women in pretty dresses—but one mustn't!
6 May.—Mrs. Guest arrived here to stay yesterday, and her chauffeur, Mr. Wood, dined here. It is nice to be no longer quite alone. Last night we were talking about how horrible war is. Mrs. Guest told me of a sight she had herself seen. Some men, horribly wounded, were being sent away by rail in a covered waggon ("fourgon"). One man had only his mouth left in his face. He was raving mad, and raged up and down the van, trampling on other men's wounded and broken limbs.
Certainly war is a pretty game, and we must go on singing "Tipperary," and saying what fun it is. A young friend of mine at home gave me a pamphlet (price 2d.) written by a spinster friend of hers who had never left England, proving what a good thing this war was for us all. When I said I saw another aspect of it, the kind, soothing suggestion was that I must be a little over-tired.
7 May.—They say La Panne is to be bombarded to-day. The Queen has left. Some people fussed a good deal, but if one bothered one's poor head about every rumour of this sort (mostly "dropped from a German aeroplane") where would one be?
I was much touched when some people at home clubbed together and sent me out a little car a short time ago. But, alas! it had not been chosen with judgment, and is no use. It has been rather a bother to me, and now it must go back. Mr. Carlile drove it up from Dunkirk, and it broke down six times, and then had to be left in a ditch while he got another car to tow it home. Since then it has lain at the station.
I can't get anyone to come and inspect it. The extraordinary habit which prevails here of saying "No" to every request makes things difficult, for no privileges can be bought. Sometimes, when I hear people ask for the salt, I fancy the answer will be, "Certainly not." Two of our own chauffeurs live quite close to the station: they say they are busy, and can't look at my car. One smiles, and says: "When youhavetime I shall besograteful, etc." Inwardly one is feeling that if one couldroarjust for once it would be a relief.
Sometimes at home I have felt a little embarrassed by the love people have shown me—as if I have somehow deceived them into thinking I was nicer than I really am. Out here I have to try to remember that I have a few friends! In London I couldn't understand it when people praised me or said kind things.
There is only one straight tip for Belgium—have acar, and understand it yourself. Never did I feel so helpless without one. But the roads are too bad and too crowded to begin to learn to drive, and there are difficulties about a garage.
MY CAR
This evening Mr. Wood and I went to Hoogstadt, and towed thatcorpse—my car—up to La Panne for —— to inspect. The whole Belgian army seemed to gather round us as we proceeded on our toilsome journey, with breaking tow-ropes (for the "corpse" is heavy) and defective steering-gear.Theywere amused. I was just cracking with fatigue. Needless to say, —— didn't come. As the car was a present I can't send it back without the authority of a chauffeur. If I keep it any longer they will say I used it and broke it....
There were some fearful bad cases at Hoogstadt to-day, and we were touched to see an old man sitting beside his unconscious son and keeping the flies off him, while he sobbed in great gusts. One Belgian officer told us that the hardest thing he had to do in the war was to give the order to fire on a German regiment which was advancing with Belgian women and children in front of it. He gave the order, and saw these helpless creatures shot down before his eyes.
At the Yser the other night two German regiments got across the river and found themselves surrounded. One regiment surrendered, and the men of the other coolly turned their guns on it and shot their comrades down.
Some of our corps were evacuating women and children the other day. One man, seeing his wife and daughter stretched out on the ground, went mad,and ran up and down the field screaming. We see a lot of madness.
8 May.—The guns sound rather near this morning, and the windows shake. One never knows what is happening till the wounded come in. I sat with my watch in my hand and counted the sound of bursting shells. There were 32 in one minute. The firing is continuous, and very loud, and living men are under this fire at this moment, "mown down," "wiped out," as the horrible terms go. I loathe even the sound of a bugle now. This carnage is too horrible. If people can't "realise" let them come near the guns.
They were shelling Furnes again when I was at Steenkerke the other day, and it was a strange sound to hear the shells whizzing over the peaceful fields. One heard them coming, and they passed overhead to fall on the old town. Under them the brown cattle fed unheeding, and old women hoed undisturbed, and the sinking sun threw long shadows on the grass. And then a busy ambulance would fly past on the road; one caught a glimpse of blood-covered forms. "Yes, a few wounded, and two or three killed."
Old women are the most courageous creatures on this earth. When everyone else has fled from a place you can see them sitting by their cottage doors or hoeing turnips in the line of fire.
It was touching to see a little family of terrified children sheltering with their mother in a roadside Calvary when the shells were coming over. The poor young mother was holding up her baby to Christ on His cross.
THE CRUCIFIX UNDAMAGED
There is a matter which seems almost more than a coincidence, and one which has been too often remarked to be ignored, and that is, that in the midst of ruins which are almost totally destroyed the figure of Christ in some niche often remains untouched. I have seen it myself, and many writers have commented on the fact. Sometimes it is only a crucifix on some humble wall, or it may be a shrine in a church. The solitary figure remains and stands—often with arms raised to bless. At Neuve Chapelle one learns that, although the havoc is like that wrought by an earthquake, and the very dead have been uprooted there, a crucifix stands at the cross-roads at the north end of the village, and the pitiful Christ still stretches out His hands. At His feet lie the dead bodies of young soldiers. At Nieuport I noticed a shrine over a doorway in the church standing peacefully among the ruins, and at Pervyse also one remained, until the tower reeled and fell with an explosion from beneath, which was deliberately ordered to prevent accidents from falling masonry.
I had to go to Dunkirk this afternoon and while I was there I heard that theLusitaniahad been torpedoed and sunk with 1,600 souls on board her. What change will this make in the situation? Is America any use to us except in the matter of supplies, and are we not getting these through as it is? A nation like that ought to have an army or a navy.
Dunkirk was nearly deserted owing to the bombardment, and it was difficult to find a shop open to buy vegetables for my soup-kitchen. Still, I enjoyedmy afternoon. There was a chance that shelling might begin again at any time, and a bitter wind blew up clouds of prickly dust and sand; but it was a great relief to be out in the open and away from smells, and to have one's view no longer bounded by a line of rails. God help us! What a year this has been! It tires me even to think of being happy again, cheerfulness has become such an effort.
10 May.—I went to see my Scottish gunner at the hospital to-day. He said, "I can't forget that night," and burst out crying. "That night" he had been wounded in seven places, and then had to crawl to a "dug-out" by himself for shelter.
Strong healthy men lie inert in these hospitals. Many of them have face and head wounds. I saw one splendid young fellow, with a beautiful face, and straight clear eyes of a sort of forget-me-not blue. He won't be able to speak again, as his jaw is shot away. The man next him was being fed through the nose.
The matron told me to-day that last night a man came in from Nieuport with the base of a shell ("the bit they make into ash trays," she said) embedded in him. His clothing had been carried in with it. He died, of course.
One of our friends has been helping with stretcher work, removing civilians. He was carrying away a girl shot to pieces, and with her clothing in rags. He took her head, and a young Belgian took her feet, and the Belgian looked round and said quietly, "This is my fiancée."
THE "LUSITANIA"
11 May.—To-day being madame's washing day—wering the changes on the "nettoyage," "le grand nettoyage," and "le lavage"—everything was late. The newspaper came in, and was full of such words as "horror," "resentment," "indignation," about theLusitania, but that won't give us back our ship or our men. I wish we could do more and say less, but the Press must talk, and always does so "with its mouth." M. Rotsartz came to breakfast. The guns had been going all night long, there was a sense of something in the air, and I fretted against platitudes in French and madame's washing. At last I got away, and went to the sea front, for the sound of bursting shells had become tremendous.
It was a sort of British morning, with a fresh British breeze blowing our own blessed waves, and there, in its grey grandeur, stood off a British man-of-war, blazing away at the coast. The Germans answered by shells, which fell a bit wide, and must have startled the fishes (but no one else) by the splash they made. There were long, swift torpedo-boats, with two great white wings of cloven foam at their bows, and a great flourish of it in their wake, moving along under a canopy of their own black smoke. It was the smoke of good British coal, from pits where grimy workmen dwell in the black country, and British sweat has to get it out of the ground. Our grey lady was burning plenty of it, and when she had done her work, she put up a banner of smoke, and steamed away with a splendid air of dignity across the white-flecked sea. One knew the men on board her! Probably not a heart beat quicker by a second for all the German shells,probably dinner was served as usual, and men got their tubs and had their clothes brushed when it was all over.
I went down to my kitchen a little late, but I had seen something that Drake never saw—a bit of modern sea-fighting. And in the evening, when I returned, my grey mistress had come back again. The sun was westering now, and the sea had turned to gold, and the grey lady looked black against the glare, but the fire of her guns was brighter than the evening sunset, and she was a spit-fire, after all, this dignified queen, and she, "let 'em have it," too, while the long, lean torpedo-boats looked on.
I went to the kitchen; I gave out jam, I distributed socks, I heard the fussy importance of minor officials, but I had something to work on since I had seen the grey lady at work.
In the evening I dined quietly on the barge with Miss Close and Maxine Elliott. We had a game of bridge—a thing I had not seen for a year and more (the last time I played was down in Surrey at the Grange!), and the little gathering on the old timbered barge was pleasant.
Some terrible stories of the war are coming through from the front. An officer told us that when they take a trench, the only thing which describes what the place is like is strawberry jam. Another said that in one trench the sides were falling, and the Germans used corpses to make a wall, and kept them in with piles fixed into the ground. Hundreds of men remain unburied.
GERMAN PRISONERS
Some people say that the German gunners are chained to their guns. There were six Germans at thestation to-day, two wounded and four prisoners. Individually I always like them, and it is useless to say I don't. They are all polite and grateful, and I thought to-day, when the prisoners were surrounded by a gaping crowd, that they bore themselves very well. After all, one can't expect a whole nation of mad dogs. A Scotchman said, "The ones opposite us (i.e., in the trenches) were a very respectable lot of men."
The German prisoners' letters contain news that battalions of British suffragettes have arrived at the front, and they warn officers not to be captured by these!
12 May.—To-day, when I got to the station, I was asked to remove an old couple who sat there hand in hand, covered with blood. The old woman had her arm blown off, and the man's hand was badly injured. We took them to de Page's hospital.
The firing has been continuous for the last few days, and men coming in from Ypres and Dixmude and Nieuport say that the losses on both sides have been enormous. There were four Belgian officers who lived opposite my villa, whom one used to see going in and out. Last night all were killed.
At Dixmude the other day the Duke of Westminster went to the French bureau to get his passport visé. The clerks were just leaving, but he begged them to remain a minute or two and to do his little business. They did so, and came to the door to see him off, but a shell came hurtling in and killed them both, and of a woman who stood near there was literally nothing left.
Last night —— and I were talking about thegossip, which would fill ten unpublishable volumes out here.... Why do these people come out to the front? Give me men for war, and no one else except nuns. Things may be all right, but the Belgians are horrified, and I hate them to "say things" of the English. The grim part of it is that I don't believe I personally hear one half of what goes on and what is being said. They are afraid of shocking me, I believe.
The craze for men baffles me. I see women,dead tired, perk up and begin to be sparkling as soon as a man appears; and when they are alone they just seem to sink back into apathy and fatigue. Why won't these mad creatures stop at home? Theyarethe exception, but war seems to bring them out. It really is intolerable, and I hate it for women's sake, and for England's.
The other day I heard some ladies having a rather forced discussion on moral questions, loud and frank.... Shades of my modest ancestresses! Is this war time, and in a room filled with men and smoke and drink, are women in knickerbockers discussing such things? I know I have got to "let out tucks," but surely not quite so far!
Beautiful women and fast women should be chained up. Let men meet their God with their conscience clear. Most of them will be killed before the war is over. Surely the least we can do is not to offer them temptation. Death and destruction, and horror and wonderful heroism, seem so near and so transcendent, and then, quite close at hand, one finds evil doings.
A TREASURE
14 May.—I heard two little stories to-day, one of a British soldier limping painfully through Poperinghe with a horrid wound in his arm and thigh.
"You seem badly wounded," a friend of mine said to him.
"Yus," said the soldier; "there were a German, and he wounded me in three places, but"—he drew from under his arm a treasure, and his poor dirty face was transformed by a delighted grin—"I got his bloody helmet."
Another story was of an English officer telephoning from a church-tower. He gave all his directions clearly and distinctly, and never even hinted that the Germans had taken the town and were approaching the church. He just went on talking, till at last, as the tramp of footsteps sounded on the belfry stairs, he said, "Don't take any notice of any further information. I am going." He went—all the brave ones seem to go—and those were the last words he spoke.
Rhodes Moorhouse flew low over the German lines the other day, in order to bombard the German station at Courtrai. He planed down to 300 feet, and became the target for a hundred guns. In the murderous fire he was wounded, and might have descended, but he was determined not to let the Germans have his machine. He planed down to 100 feet in order to gather speed. At this elevation he was hit again, and mortally wounded, but he flew on alone to the British lines—like a shot bird heading for its own nest. He didn't even stop at the first aerodrome he came to, but sailed on—alwaysalone—to his base, made a good landing, handed over his machine, and died.
In the hospitals what heroism one finds! One splendid fellow of 6 feet 2 inches had both his legs and both his arms amputated. He turned round to the doctor and said, smiling, "I shan't have to complain of beds being too short now!" And when someone came and sat with him in his deadly pain, he remarked in his gentle way, "I am afraid I am taking up all your time." His old father and mother arrived after he was dead.
Ah! if one could hear more, surely one would do more! But this hole-and-corner way of doing warfare damps all enthusiasm and stifles recruiting. Why are we allowed to know nothing until the news is stale? Yesterday I heard at first hand of the treatment of some civilians by Germans, and I visited a village to hear from thepeople themselveswhat had happened.
My work isn't so heavy now, and, much as I want to be here when the "forward movement" comes, I believe I ought to use the small amount of kick I have left in me to go to give lectures on the war to men in ammunition works at home. They all seem to be slacking and drinking, and I believe one might rouse them if one went oneself, and told stories of heroism, and tales of the front. The British authorities out here seem to think I ought to go home and give lectures at various centres, and I have heard from Vickers-Maxim's people that they want me to come.
I think I'll arrive in London about the 1st of June,as there is a good deal to arrange, and I have to see heads of departments. One has to forget all aboutpartiesin politics, and get help from Lloyd George himself. I only hope the lectures may be of some use.
To Mrs. ffolliott.
Villa les Chrysanthèmes,
La Panne, Belgium,
16 May.
Darling old Poot,
TO MRS. FFOLLIOTT
One line, to wish you with all my heart a happy birthday. I shan't forget you on the 22nd. Will you buy yourself some little thing with the enclosed cheque?
This war becomes a terrible strain. I don't know what we shall do when four nephews, a brother-in-law, and a nephew to be are in the field.
I get quite sick with the loss of life that is going on; the whole land seems under the shadow of death. I shall always think it an idiotic way of settling disputes to plug pieces of iron and steel into innocent boys and men. But the bravery is simply wonderful. I could tell you stories which are almost unbelievable of British courage and fortitude.
I am coming home soon to give some lectures, and then I hope to come out here again.
Bless you, dear Poot,
Your loving
Sarah.
17 May.—I saw a most curious thing to-day. A soldier in the Pavilion St. Vincent showed me five 5-franc pieces which he had had in his pocket whenhe was shot. A piece of shrapnel had bent the whole five until they were welded together. The shrapnel fitted into the silver exactly, and actually it was silvered by the scrape it had made against the coin. I should like to have had it, but the man valued his souvenir, so one didn't like to offer him money for it.
A young Canadian found a comrade of his nailed to a door, and stone dead, of course. When did he die?
A Belgian doctor told Mrs. Wynne that in looking through a German officer's knapsack he found a quantity of children's hands—a pretty souvenir! I write these things down because they must be known, and if I go home to lecture to munition-workers I suppose I must tell them of these barbarities.
Meanwhile, the German prisoners in England are getting country houses placed at their service, electric light, baths, etc., and they say girls are allowed to come and play lawn tennis with them. The ships where they are interned are costing us £86,000 a month. Our own men imprisoned in Germany are starved, and beaten, and spat upon. They sleep on mouldy straw, have no sanitation, and in winter weather their coats, and sometimes even their tunics, were taken from them.
Fortunately, reprisals need not come from us. Talk to Zouaves and Turcos and the French. God help Germany if they ever penetrate to the Rhine.
A young man—Mr. Shoppe—is occupied in flying low over the gun that is bombarding Dunkirk in order to take a photograph of it.
It seems to me a great deal to ask of young men to give their lives when life must be so sweet, but no one seems to grudge their all. Of some one hears touching and splendid stories; others, one knows, die all alone, gasping out their last breath painfully, with no one at hand to give them even a cup of water. No one has a tale to tell of them. God, perhaps, heard a last prayer or a last groan before Death came with its merciful hand and put an end to the intolerable pain.
How much can a man endure? A Frenchman at the Zouave Poste au Secours looked calmly on while the remains of his arm were cut away the other night. Many operations are performed without chloroform (because they take a shorter time) at the French hospital.
A HEAVENLY HOST
I heard from R. to-day. He says the story about Mons is true. The English were retreating, and Kluck was following hard after them. He wired to the Kaiser that he had "got the English," but this is what men say happened. A cloud came out of a clear day and stood between the two armies, and in the cloud men saw the chariots and horses of a heavenly host. Kluck turned back from pursuing, and the English went on unharmed.
This may be true, or it may be the result of men's fancy or of their imagination. But there is one vision which no one can deny, and which each man who cares to look may see for himself. It is the vision of what lies beyond sacrifice; and in that bright and heavenly atmosphere we shall see—we may, indeed, see to-day—the forms of those who have fallen. They fight still for England, unharmed nowand for ever more, warriors on the side of right, captains of the host which no man can number, champions of all that we hold good. They are marching on ahead, and we hope to follow; and when we all meet, and the roll is called, we shall find them still cheery, I think, still unwavering, and answering to their good English names, which they carried unstained through a score of fights, at what price God and a few comrades know.
19 May.—In order to get material for my lecture to munition-workers I was very anxious to see more of the war for myself than is possible at a soup-kitchen, and I asked at the British Mission if I might be given permission to go into the British lines. Major —— in giving me a flat refusal, was a little pompous and important I thought, and he said it wasimpossibleto get near the British.
To-day I lunched on the barge with Miss Close, and we took her car and drove to Poperinghe. I hardly like to write this even in a diary, I am so seldom naughty! But I really did something very wrong for once. And the amusing part of it was that military orders made going to Poperinghe so impossible that no one molested us! We passed all the sentries with a flourish of our green papers, and drove on to the typhoid hospital with only a few Tommies gaping at us.
I was amazed at the pleasure that wrong-doing gives, and regretted my desperately strict past life! Oh, the freedom of that day in the open air! the joy of seeing trees after looking at one wretched line of rails for nine months! Lilacs were abloom in everygarden, and buttercups made the fields look yellow. The air was misty—one could hardly have gone to Poperinghe except in a mist, as it was being so constantly shelled—but in the mist the trees had a queer light on them which made the early green look a deeper and stronger colour than I have ever seen it. There appeared to be a sort of glare under the mist, and the fresh wet landscape, with its top-heavy sky, radiated with some light of its own. Oh, the intoxication of that damp, wet drive, with a fine rain in our faces, and the car bounding under us on the "pavé"! If I am interned till the end of the war I don't care a bit! I have had some fresh air, and I have been away for one whole day from the smell of soup and drains.
How describe it all? The dear sense of guilt first, and then the still dearer British soldiers, all ready with some cheery, cheeky remark as they sat in carts under the wet trees. They were our brethren—blue-eyed and fair-haired, and with their old clumsy ways, which one seemed to be seeing plainly for the first time, or, rather, recognising for the first time. It was all part of England, and a day out. The officers were taking exercise, of course, with dogs, and in the rain. We are never less than English! To-morrow we may be killed, but to-day we will put on thick boots, and take the dogs for a run in the rain.
AT POPERINGHE
Poperinghe was deserted, of course. Its busy cobbled streets were quite empty except for a few strolling soldiers in khaki, and just here and there the same toothless old woman who is always the last to leave a doomed city. At the typhoid hospital we gravelyoffered the cases of milk which we had brought with us as an earnest of our good conduct, but even the hospital was nearly empty. However, a secretary offered us a cup of tea, and in the dining-room we found Madame van den Steen, who had just returned to take up her noble work again. She was at Dinant, at her own château, when war broke out, and she was most interesting, and able to tell me things at first hand. The German methods are pretty well known now, but she told me a great deal which only women talking together could discuss. When a village or town was taken, the women inhabitants were quite at the mercy of the Germans.
Continuing, Madame van den Steen said that all the filthiness that could be thought of was committed—the furniture, cupboards, flowerpots, and even bridge-tables, being sullied by these brutes. Children had their hands cut off, and one woman, at least, at Dinant was crucified. One's pen won't write more. The horrors upset one too much. All the babies born about that time died; their mothers had been so shocked and frightened....
Of Ypres Madame said, "It smells of lilac and death." Some Englishmen were looking for the body of a comrade there, and failed to find it amongst the ruins of the burning and devastated town. By seeming chance they opened the door of a house which still stood, and found in a room within an old man of eighty-six, sitting placidly in a chair. He said, "How do you do?" and bade them be seated, and when they exclaimed, aghast at his being still in Ypres, he replied that he was paralysedand couldn't move, but that he knew God would send someone to take him away; and he smiled gently at them, and was taken away in their ambulance.
Madame gave me a shell-case, and asked Mr. Thompson if he would bring in his large piece to show us. He wheeled it across the hall, as no one could lift it, and this was only thebaseof a 15-inch shell. It was picked up in the garden of the hospital, and had travelled fifteen miles!
The other day I went to see for myself some of the poor refugees at Coxide. There were twenty-five people in one small cottage. Some were sleeping in a cart. One weeping woman, wearing the little black woollen cap which all the women wear, told me that she and her family had to fly from their little farm at Lombaertzyde because it was being shelled by the Germans, but afterwards, when all seemed quiet, they went back to their home to save the cows. Alas, the Germans were there! They made this woman (who was expecting a baby) and all her family stand in a row, and one girl of twenty, the eldest daughter, was shot before their eyes. When the poor mother begged for the body of her child it was refused her.
TheTimeslist of atrocities is too frightful, and all the evidence has been sifted and proved to be true.
20 May.—Yesterday I arranged with Major du Pont about leaving the station to go home and give lectures in England. Then I had a good deal to do, so I abandoned my plan of visiting refugees with Etta Close, and stayed on at the station. At 5.30I came back to La Panne to see Countess de Caraman Chimay, the dame d'honneur of the Queen of the Belgians; then I went on to dine with the nurses at the "Ocean." Here I heard that Adinkerke, which I had just left, was being shelled. Fortunately, the station being there, I hope the inhabitants got away; but it was unpleasant to hear the sound of guns so near. I knew the three Belgian Sisters would be all right, as they have a good cellar at their house, and I could trust Lady Bagot's staff to look after her. All the same, it was a horrible night, full of anxiety, and there seems little doubt that La Panne will be shelled any day. My one wish is—let's all behave well.
I watched the sunset over the sea, and longed to be in England; but, naturally, one means to stick it, and not leave at a nasty time.