My War Experiences in Two Continents Part 26

We know very few details concerning the journey home, and I think my aunt herself did not remember much about it. One can hardly bear to think of the suffering it caused her. A few incidents stood out in her memory from the indeterminate recollection of pain and discomfort in which most of the expedition was mercifully veiled, and we learnt them after she returned.

There was the occasion when she reached the port on the Caspian Sea one hour after the English boat had sailed. She called it the "English"

boat, but whether it could have belonged to an English company, or was merely the usual boat run in connection with the train service to England, I do not know. A "Russian" vessel was due to leave in a couple of hours' time, but for some reason Miss Macnaughtan was obliged to walk three-quarters of a mile to get permission to go by it. We can never forget her piteous description of how she staggered and crawled to the office and back, so ill that only her iron strength of will could force her tired body to accomplish the distance. She obtained the necessary sanction, and started forth once more upon her way.

She stayed for a week at the British Emba.s.sy in Petrograd, where her escort was obliged to leave her, so the rest of the journey was undertaken alone.

We know nothing of how she got to Helsingfors, but I believe it was at that place that she had to walk some considerable distance over a frozen lake to reach the s.h.i.+p. She was hobbling along, leaning heavily on two sticks, and just as she stumbled and almost fell, a young Englishman came up and offered her his arm.

In an old diary, written years before in the Argentine, during a time when Miss Macnaughtan was faced with what seemed overwhelming difficulties, and when she had in her charge a very sick man, a kind stranger came to the rescue. Her diary entry for that day is one of heartfelt grat.i.tude, and ends with the words: "G.o.d always sends someone."

Certainly at Helsingfors some Protecting Power sent help in a big extremity, and this young fellow--Mr. Seymour--devoted himself to her for the rest of the journey in a marvellously unselfish manner. He could not have been kinder to her if she had been his mother, and he actually altered all his plans on arriving in England, and brought her to the very door of her house in Norfolk Street. Without his help I sometimes wonder whether my aunt would have succeeded in reaching home, and her own grat.i.tude to him knew no bounds. She used to say that in her experience if people were in a difficulty and wanted help they ought to go to a young man for it. She said that young men were the kindest members of the human race.

[Page Heading: ARRIVAL IN ENGLAND]

It was on the 8th of May that Miss Macnaughtan reached home, and her travels were over for good and all. One is only thankful that the last weeks of her life were not spent in a foreign land but among her own people, surrounded by all the care and comfort that love could supply.

Two of her sisters were with her always, and her house was thronged with visitors, who had to wait their turn of a few minutes by her bedside, which, alas! were all that her strength allowed.

She was nursed night and day by her devoted maid, Mary King, as she did not wish to have a professional nurse; but no skill or care could save her. The seeds of her illness had probably been sown some years before, during a shooting trip in Kashmir, and the hard work and strain of the first year of the war had weakened her powers of resistance. But it was Russia that killed her.

Before she went there many of her friends urged her to give up the expedition. Her maid had a premonition that the enterprise would end in disaster, and had begged her mistress to stay at home.

"I feel sure you will never return alive ma'am," she had urged, and Miss Macnaughtan's first words to her old servant on her return were: "You were right, Mary. Russia has killed me."

Miss Macnaughtan rallied a little in June, and was occasionally carried down to her library for a few hours in the afternoon, but even that amount of exertion was too much for her. For the last weeks of her life she never left her room.

Surely there never was a sweeter or more adorable invalid! I can see her now, propped up on pillows in a room filled with ma.s.ses of most exquisite flowers. She always had things dainty and fragrant about her, and one had a vision of pale blue ribbons, and soft laces, and lovely flowers, and then one forgot everything else as one looked at the dear face framed in such soft grey hair. She looked so fragile that one fancied she might be wafted away by a summer breeze, and I have never seen anyone so pale. There was not a tinge of colour in face or hands, and one kissed her gently for fear that even a caress might be too much for her waning strength.

Her patience never failed. She never grumbled or made complaint, and even in the smallest things her interest and sympathy were as fresh as ever. A new dress worn by one of her sisters was a pleasure, and she would plan it, and suggest and admire.

It was a supreme joy to Miss Macnaughtan to hear, some time in June, that she had received the honour of being chosen to be a Lady of Grace of the Order of St. John of Jerusalem. Any recognition of her good work was an unfailing source of gratification to her sensitive nature, sensitive alike to praise or blame.

She was so wonderfully strong in her mind and will that it seemed impossible in those long June days to believe that she had such a little time to live. She managed all her own business affairs, personally dictated or wrote answers to her correspondence, and was full of schemes for the redecoration of her house and of plans for the future.

I have only been able to procure three of my aunt's letters written after her return to England. They were addressed to her eldest sister, Mrs. ffolliott. I insert them here:

[Page Heading: MISS MACNAUGHTAN'S LAST LETTERS]

1, NORFOLK STREET, PARK LANE, W.

_Tuesday._

MY DEAREST OLD POOT,

How good of you to write. I was awfully pleased to see a letter from you. I have been a fearful crock since I got home, and I have to lie in bed for six weeks and live on milk diet for eight weeks. The illness is of a tropical nature, and one of the symptoms is that one can't eat, so one gets fearfully thin. I am something over six stone now, but I was very much less.

We were right up on the Persian front, and I went on to Tehran. One saw some most interesting phases of the war, and met all the distinguished Generals and such-like people.

The notice you sent me of my little book is charming.

Your loving S. B .M.

1, NORFOLK STREET, PARK LANE, W., _9 June._

DARLING POOT,

I must thank you myself for the lovely flowers and your kind letters. I am sure that people's good wishes and prayers do one good. I so nearly died!

Your loving S. M.

_17th June_

Still getting on pretty well, but it is slow work. Baby and Julia both in town, so they are constantly here. I am to get up for a little bit to-morrow.

Kindest love. It _was_ naughty of you to send more flowers.

As ever fondly, SARAH.

As the hot weather advanced it was hoped to move Miss Macnaughtan to the country. Her friends showered invitations on "dear Sally" to come and convalesce with them, but the plans fell through. It became increasingly clear that the traveller was about to embark on that last journey from which there is no return, and, indeed, towards the end her sufferings were so great that those who loved her best could only pray that she might not have long to wait. She pa.s.sed away in the afternoon of Monday, July 24th, 1916.

A few days later the body of Sarah Broom Macnaughtan was laid to rest in the plot of ground reserved for her kinsfolk in the churchyard at Chart Sutton, in Kent. It is very quiet there up on the hill, the great Weald stretches away to the south, and fruit-trees surround the Hallowed Acre.

But even as they laid earth to earth and dust to dust in this peaceful spot the booming of the guns in Flanders broke the quiet of the sunny afternoon, and reminded the little funeral party that they were indeed burying one whose life had been sacrificed in the Great War.

[Page Heading: THE GRAVE IN CHART SUTTON]

Surely those who pa.s.s through the old churchyard will pause by the grave, with its beautiful grey cross, and the children growing up in the parish will come there sometimes, and will read and remember the simple inscription on it:

"In the Great War, by Word and Deed, at Home and Abroad, She served her Country even unto Death."

And if any ghosts hover round the little place, they will be the ghosts of a purity, a kindness, and of a love for humanity which are not often met with in this workaday world.

CONCLUSION

Perhaps a review of her war work by an onlooker, and a slight sketch of Miss Macnaughtan's character, may form an appropriate conclusion to this book.

I stayed with my aunt for one night, on August 7th, 1914. One may be pardoned for saying that during the previous three days one had scarcely begun to realise the war, but I was recalled by telegram from Northamptons.h.i.+re to the headquarters of my Voluntary Aid Detachment in Kent, and spent a night in town en route, to get uniform, etc. Certainly at my aunt's house my eyes were opened to a little of what lay before us. She was on fire with patriotism and a burning wish to help her country, and I immediately caught some of her enthusiasm.

Every hour we rushed out to buy papers, every minute seemed consecrated to preparation for what we could do. There were uniforms to buy, notes of Red Cross lectures to "rub up," and, in my aunt's case, she was busy offering her services in every direction in which they could be of use.