XXX
MADAME BRUNOT AND MISS MARION MOLE
Theexperiences of Madame Brunot and her sister, Miss Mole, who lived at Cambrai for over two years under German rule, provide an example of patient and unselfish work, carried on in the most trying circumstances with splendid courage and devotion. Madame Brunot is of English birth, married to a Frenchman resident in Cambrai. On the outbreak of war she telegraphed to her sister, Miss Mole, to come and help her in an ambulance station which she was establishing in her house, affiliated to the Union des Femmes de France. Miss Mole left for Cambrai at once, arriving on August 13, 1914. There followed a few days of suspense during which the French and English armies were retreating day by day nearer to Paris, and then, on August 26, the German army poured through Cambrai. A battle raged in the streets in front of Madame Brunot’s house and in the trenches behind her garden. Beds for twenty-two had been prepared, but in a very short time fifty wounded were picked up and laid on mattresses provided by people of the quarter. While Miss Mole was tending the wounded whom the French and German soldiers dragged inside their gates, Madame Brunot went out under fire with herman-servant to rescue a French soldier who had been overlooked. The first dressings were done at once, but not until late at night was even a German doctor available. The next day the worst cases were sent to the civil hospital for operation, and then returned to the ambulance station to be cared for. During the following days and nights work was incessant, but after a fortnight all the wounded were transported as prisoners to Germany and the ambulance station practically closed. Miss Mole then went to one of the big hospitals in the town and was allowed to work for a time in the English wards, where she described the men as being “in an incredible state of neglect.” She was afterwards asked to take over the case of an Irish officer said to be dying of tetanus. By courageously begging some serum from the German authorities, in spite of a hostile reception, and then by her devoted nursing, she won the officer back to life, and was able to set him on the road to health before he was transported to Germany for internment. Madame Brunot, meanwhile, had been doing all she could for the English wounded in the hospitals, visiting them constantly with gifts of fruit, eggs, milk, and puddings, and all the time doing her utmost to be allowed to reopen her ambulance station. In October, 1914, the German permission was obtained. Madame Brunot and Miss Mole were therefore able to continue their nursing till the Germans again closed the ambulance station in March, 1915. During these months the work was terribly hard, for the staff was shorthanded and the patients were practically helpless, being mostly cases of paralysis or men with amputated limbs. Miss Mole narrowly escaped losing her arm from blood-poisoning,contracted while dressing a very septic case. It was only after several operations and six months of painful and anxious treatment that Miss Mole recovered the use of her arm. After the closing of the ambulance station for the second time, the sisters did all they could for the English and French prisoners in Cambrai, arranging to send them food, gifts, and messages by every means they could devise.
Early in 1916 they took up this work for the prisoners in a more organised way, working under the Mairie of the town, and using their house as a depôt for garments and food. “Being very short of money,” wrote Miss Mole, “I also gave lessons in English, by which means I was able to buy bread. This meant self-denial on the part of the people who sold it to me, as we were all on bread rations. Food was very scarce, and without the Americanravitaillementwe should certainly have starved.”
As time went on life grew increasingly difficult, and the Germanrégimebecame daily more severe. Many of their friends were arrested, some evacuated from their houses, and others sent as hostages to Germany. In November, 1916, Madame Brunot and Miss Mole were turned out of their house, and were thankful to take refuge in a tiny dwelling half shattered by aeroplane bombs. At last, all hope of further service being gone, they applied to join a train of refugees, and were allowed to leave Cambrai in December, 1916.
No women could have worked harder than these sisters during more than two years for the wounded, the prisoners, the desolate and poor of the forlorn city—cooking, sewing, giving without thought for themselves, uttering no complaints, forgetting theirown need in the bitter need around them. A terrible journey home, preceded by the inevitable internment in Germany, might have seemed the finishing stroke; but, undaunted by all they have seen and suffered, the sisters have gathered their courage to build up life afresh, and to restore something of all that was so suddenly crushed for them and for thousands more, in the world-wide disaster of the war.