My War Experiences in Two Continents Part 15

Mr. Bevan showed me a sh.e.l.l-hole 42 feet across, made by one single "soixante-quinze" sh.e.l.l. Every field is pitted with holes, and where there are stretches of pale-coloured mud the round pits dotted all over it give one the impression of an immense Gruyere cheese. The streets, heaped with debris, and with houses fallen helplessly forward into their midst, were full of suns.h.i.+ne. From ruined cottages--whose insecure walls tottered--one saw here and there some Zouaves or a little French "marin"

appear. Most of these ran out with letters in their hands for us to post. Heaven knows what they can have to write about from that grave!

Some beautiful pillars of the cathedral still stand, and the tower, full of holes, has not yet bent its head. Lieutenant Shoppe, R.N., sits up there all day, and takes observations, with the sh.e.l.ls knocking gaily against the walls. One day the tower will fall or its stones will be pierced, and then Lieutenant Shoppe, R.N., will be killed, as the Belgian "observateur" was killed at Oostkerke the other day. He still hangs there across a beam for all the world to see. His arms are stretched out, and his body lies head downwards, and no one can go near the dead Belgian because the tower is too unsafe now. One day perhaps it will fall altogether and bury him.

Meanwhile, in the tower of the ruined cathedral at Nieuport Shoppe sits in his s.h.i.+rt-sleeves, with his telephone beside him and his observation instruments. His small staff are with him. They are immensely interested in the range of a gun and the accuracy of a hit. I believe they do not think of anything else. No doubt the tower shakes a great deal when a sh.e.l.l hits it, and no doubt the number of holes in its sides is daily becoming more numerous. Each morning that Shoppe leaves home to spend his day in the tower he runs an excellent chance of being killed, and in the evening he returns and eats a good dinner in rather an uncomfortable hotel.

In the cathedral, and amongst its crumbling battered aisles, a strange peace rests. The pitiful columns of the church stand here and there--the roof has long since gone. On its most sheltered side is the little graveyard, filled with crosses, where the dead lie. Here and there a sh.e.l.l has entered and torn a corpse from its resting-place, and bones lie scattered. On other graves a few simple flowers are laid.

We went to see the dim cellars which form the two "postes au secours."

In the inner recess of one a doctor has a bed, in the outer cave some soldiers were eating food. There is no light even during the day except from the doorway. At Nieuport the Germans put in 3,000 sh.e.l.ls in one day. Nothing is left. If there ever was anything to loot, it has been looted. One doesn't know what lies under the debris. Here one sees the inside of a piano and a few twisted strings, and there a metal umbrella-stand. I saw one wrought-iron sign hanging from the falling walls of an inn.

Mr. Bevan and I wandered about in the unearthly quiet, which persisted even when the guns began to blaze away close by us, whizzing sh.e.l.ls over our heads, and we walked down to the river, and saw the few boards which are all that remain of the bridge. Afterwards a German sh.e.l.l landed with its unpleasant noise in the middle of the street; but we had wandered up a by-way, and so escaped it by a minute or less.

In a little burned house, where only a piece of blackened wall remained, I found a little crucifix which impressed me very much--it stood out against the smoke-stained walls with a sort of grandeur of pity about it. The legs had been shot away or burned, but "the hands were stretched out still."

As we came away firing began all round about, and we saw the toss of smoke as the sh.e.l.ls fell.

[Page Heading: STEENKERKE]

_31 May._--We went to Steenkerke yesterday and called on Mrs. Knocker, and saw a terrible infirmary, which must be put right. It isn't fit for dogs.

At the station to-day our poor Irishman died. Ah, it was terrible! His lungs never recovered from the gas, and he breathed his last difficult breath at 5 o'clock.

In the evening a Zeppelin flew overhead on its way to England.

[Page Heading: NIGHTINGALES]

There is a nightingale in a wood near here. He seems to sing louder and more purely the heavier the fighting that is going on. When men are murdering each other he loses himself in a rapture, of song, recalling all the old joyous things which one used to know.

The poetry of life seems to be over. The war songs are forced and foolish. There is no time for reading, and no one looks at pictures, but the nightingale sings on, and the long-ago spirit of youth looks out through Time's strong bars, and speaks of evenings in old, dim woods at home, and of girlish, splendid drives home from some dance where "he"

was, when we watched the dawn break, and saw our mother sleeping in the carriage, and wondered what it would be like not to "thrill" all the time, and to sleep when the nightingale was singing.

Later there came the time when the song of the throbbing nightingale made one impatient, because it sang in intolerable silence, and one ached for the roar of things, and for the clash of endeavour and for the strain of purpose. Peace was at a discount then, and struggle seemed to be the eternal good. The silent woods had no word for one, the nightingale was only a mate singing a love-song, and one wanted something more than that.

And afterwards, when the struggle and the strain were given one in abundant measure, the song of the nightingale came in the lulls that occurred in one's busy life. One grew to connect it with coffee out on the lawn in some houses of surpa.s.sing comfort, where (years and years ago) one dressed for dinner, and a crinkly housemaid brought hot water to one's room. The song went on above the smug comfort of things, and the amusing conversation, and the smell of good cigars. Within, we saw some pleasant drawing-room, with lamps and a big table set with candles and cards, and we felt that the nightingale provided a very charming orchestra. We listened to it as we listened to amusing conversation, with a sense of comfortable enjoyment and rest. Why talk of the time when it sang of breaking hearts and high endeavour never satisfied, and things which no one ever knew or guessed except oneself?

It sings now above the sound of death and of tears. Sometimes I think to myself that G.o.d has sent his angel to open the prison doors when I hear that bird in the little wood close beside the tram-way line.

On Thursday, June 3rd, I drove in the "bug" to Boulogne, and took the steamer to England. I went through a nasty time in Belgium, but now a good deal of queer affection is shown me, and I believe they all rather like me in the corps.

The following brief impression of Miss Macnaughtan's work at the soup-kitchen forms the most appropriate conclusion to her story of her experiences in Belgium. She cut it out of some paper, and sent it home to a friend in England, and we seem to learn from it--more than from any words of her own--how much she did to help our Allies in their hour of need:

"It was dark when my car stopped at the little station of Ad.i.n.kerke, where I had been invited to visit a soup-kitchen established there by a Scotchwoman. In peace she is a distinguished author; in war she is being a mother to such of the Belgian Army as are lucky enough to pa.s.s her way. I can see her now, against a background of big soup-boilers and cooking-stoves, handing out woollen gloves and m.u.f.flers to the men who were to be on sentry duty along the line that night. It was bitterly cold, and the comforts were gratefully received.

"For a long time this most versatile lady made every drop of the soup that was prepared for the men herself, and she has, so a Belgian military doctor says, saved more lives than he has with her timely cups of hot, nouris.h.i.+ng food. It is only the most seriously wounded men who are taken to the field hospital, the others are carried straight to the railway-station, and have to wait there, sometimes for many hours, till a train can take them on. Even then trains carrying the wounded have constantly to be shunted to let troop trains through. But, thanks to the enterprise and hard work of this clever little lady, there is always a plentiful supply of hot food ready for the men who, weak from loss of blood, are often besides faint with hunger."

PART II

AT HOME

HOW THE MESSAGE WAS DELIVERED

_October, 1915._--So much has happened since I came home from Flanders in June, and I have not had one moment in which to write of it. I found my house occupied when I returned, so I went to the Petrograd Hotel and stayed there, going out of London for Sundays.

Everyone I met in England seemed absorbed in pale children with adenoids. No one cared much about the war. Children in houses nowadays require food at weird hours, not roast mutton and a good plain Christian pudding, but, "You will excuse our beginning, I know, dear, Jane has to have her ma.s.sage after lunch, and Tom has to do his exercises, and baby has to learn to breathe." This one has its ears strapped, and that one is "nervous" and must be "understood," and nothing is talked of but children. My mother would never have a doctor in the house; "nervousness" was called bad temper, and was dosed, and stooping was called "a trick," and was smacked. The children I now see eat far too much, and when they finish off lunch with gravy drunk out of tumblers it makes me feel very unwell.

I went to the Breitmeyers, at Rushton Hall, Kettering; it's a fine place, but I was too tired to enjoy anything but a bed. The next Sunday I stayed at Chenies, with the d.u.c.h.ess of Bedford--always a favourite resort of mine--and another week I went to Welwyn.

I met a few old men at these places, but no one else. Everyone is at the front. The houses generally have wounded soldiers in them, and these play croquet with a nurse on the lawn, or smoke in the sun. None of them want to go back to fight. They seem tired, and talk of the trenches as "proper 'ell."

There is always a little too much walking about at a "week-end." One feels tired and stiff on Monday. I well remember last summer having to take people three times to a distant water garden--talking all the time, too! People are so kind in making it pleasant that they wear one out.

[Page Heading: ERITH]

All the time I was in London I was preparing my campaign of lecturing. I began with Vickers-Maxim works at Erith, on Wednesday, 9th June, and on the 8th I went to stay with the Cameron Heads. There was great bustle and preparation for my lecture, Press people in the house at all hours of the day, and so on. A great bore for my poor friends; but they were so good about it, and I loved being with them.

The lecture was rather a red-letter occasion for me, everyone praising, the Press very attentive, etc., etc. The audience promised well for future things, and the emotion that was stirred nearly bowled myself over. In some of the hushes that came one could hear men crying. The Scott Gattys and a few of my own friends came to "stand by," and we all drove down to Erith in motor-cars, and returned to supper with the Vickers at 10.30.

The next day old Vickers sent for me and asked me to name my own price for my lectures, but I couldn't mix money up with the message, so I refused all pay, and feel happy that I did so. I can't, and won't, profit by this war. I'd rather lose--I am losing--but that doesn't matter. Nothing matters much now. The former things are swept away, and all the old barriers are disappearing. Our old G.o.ds of possession and wealth are crumbling, and cla.s.s distinctions don't count, and even life and death are pretty much the same thing.

The Jews say the Messiah will come after the war. I think He is here already--but on a cross as of yore!

I went up to Glasgow to make arrangements there, and my task wasn't an easy one. Somehow I knew that I must speak, that I must arouse slackers, and tell rotters about what is going on. One goes forth (led in a way), and only then does one realise that one is going in unasked to s.h.i.+p-building yards and munition sheds and docks, and that one is quite a small woman, alone, and up against a big thing.

Always the answer I got was the same: "The men are not working; forty per cent. are slackers. The output of sh.e.l.ls is not what it ought to be, but they _won't_ listen!"

In the face of this I arranged seven meetings in seven days, to take place early in August, and then I went back to give my lecture in the Queen's Hall, London. I took the large Hall, because if one has a message to deliver one had better deliver it to as many people as possible. It was rather a breathless undertaking, but people turned up splendidly, and I had a full house. Sir F. Lloyd gave me the band of the Coldstream Guards, and things went with a good swing.

I am still wondering how I did it. The whole "campaign" has already got rather an unreal atmosphere about it, and often, after crowded meetings, I have come home and lain in the dark and have seen nothing but a sea of faces, and eyes all turned my way. It has been a most curious and unexpected experience, but England did not realise the war, and she did not realise the wave of heroism that is sweeping over the world, and I had to tell about it.

Well, my lectures went on--Erith, Queen's Hall, Sheffield (a splendid meeting, 3,000 people inside the hall and 300 turned away at the door!), Barrow-in-Furness. I gave two lectures at Barrow, at 3 and 7.30. They seemed very popular. In the evening quite a demonstration--pipe band playing "Auld lang syne," and much cheering. After that Newcastle, and back to the south again to speak there. Everywhere I took my magic-lantern and showed my pictures, and I told "good stories" to attract people to the meetings, although my heart was, and is, nearly breaking all the time.

[Page Heading: GLASGOW]

Then I began the Glasgow campaign--Parkhead, Whiteinch, Rose-Bank, Dumbarton, Greenock, Beardmore's, Denny's, Armour's, etc., etc.

Everywhere there were big audiences, and although I would have spoken to two listeners gladly, I was still more glad to see the halls filled. The cheers of h.o.r.n.y-handed workmen when they are really roused just get me by the throat till I can't speak for a minute or two!

At one place I spoke from a lorry in the dinner-hour. All the men, with blackened faces, crowded round the car, and others swung from the iron girders, while some perched, like queer bronze images, on pieces of machinery. They were all very intent, and very polite and courteous, no interruptions at any of the meetings. A keen interest was shown in the war pictures, and the cheers were deafening sometimes.

After Glasgow I went to dear Clemmie Waring's, at Lennel, and found her house full of convalescent officers, and she herself very happy with them and her new baby. I really wanted to rest, and meant to enjoy five days of repose; but I gave a lecture the first night, and then had a sort of breakdown and took to my bed. However, that had to be got over, and I went down to Wales at the end of the week. The Butes gave me their own rooms at Cardiff Castle, and a nice housekeeper looked after me.

[Page Heading: CARDIFF]