Field Hospital and Flying Column Part 4

"I beg your pardon for speaking to you," he said, "but I received so much kindness from every one when I was in England, that it would be the greatest pleasure I could have if I could help you at all." And he started by giving the waiter the biggest blowing-up he had ever had in his life, for which I could have hugged him. He then went off and came back in a few minutes with fruit and chocolate and everything he could find for us to take with us. He was a very bright and shining star in a dark place. Then along the platform past that horrible, jeering crowd and into the train once more.

It was night, and most of us were asleep when the train stopped with a jerk, the doors of the train were thrown open, and the fresh, salty smell of the sea met our nostrils. Some of the party, hardly awake, thought they had to get out, and began to descend, but such volumes of wrath met their attempt that they hastily got in again. Every window in the train was shut, every blind pulled down and curtains closed, and a soldier with loaded rifle stood at each window. We were crossing the Kiel Ca.n.a.l. There were a great many people in England who would have given anything to have been in our shoes just then. But we saw absolutely nothing.

They forgot to give us any breakfast that day, but we did not mind.

Every mile now, along this flat, marshy country, was a mile nearer Denmark and freedom, and our spirits rose higher every moment. Though why the Germans should take us all through Germany and Denmark, when they could just as easily have dropped us on the Dutch frontier, I cannot even now imagine.

Early that afternoon we arrived at Vendrup, the Danish frontier, and the soldiers and the train that had brought us all the way from Cologne went back to Germany. It was difficult to realize that we were free once more, after two months of being prisoners with no news of home, tied down to a thousand tiresome regulations, and having witnessed terrible sights that none of us will ever forget. Strange and delightful it was to be able to send a telegram to England once more and to buy a paper; wonderful to see the friendly, smiling faces all round us. It felt almost like getting home again.

VI

A PEACEFUL INTERLUDE

Late that night we arrived in Copenhagen. The kindness we received there surpa.s.ses all imagination. The Danish people opened their arms in welcome and gave us of their best with both hands. Every one went out of their way to be good to us, from the manager of the delightful Hotel Cosmopolite, where we were staying, to the utter strangers who sent us flowers, fruit, sweets, ill.u.s.trated papers and invitations to every possible meal in such profusion.

Miss Jessen, the secretary of the Danish Council of Nurses, called at once and arranged a most delightful programme for every day of our stay in Copenhagen, bringing us invitations to see over the most important hospitals, and the Finsen Light Inst.i.tute, the old Guildhall, the picture gallery, and anything else any of us wanted to see.

[Ill.u.s.tration: MAP OF OUR NORTHERN JOURNEY]

The president, Madame Tscherning, and the members of the same council, arranged a most delightful afternoon reception for us at the Palace Hotel, at which Dr. Norman Hansen welcomed us in the name of Denmark, and read us a poem which he had written in our honour.

TO THE BRITISH SURGEONS AND NURSES Pa.s.sING COPENHAGEN ON THEIR WAY FROM BELGIUM

Silent, we bid you welcome, in silence you answer'd our greeting Because our lips must be closed, and your teeth are set Against the gale.

Our mouths are mute, our minds are open-- We shall greet you farewell in silence; Sowers of good-will on fields where hate is sown-- Fare ye well.

C. NORMAN HANSEN, M.D.

That evening at dinner we all found a beautiful bunch of violets tied up with the Danish colours on our plates, and a pretty Danish medal with the inscription "Our G.o.d--our Land--our Honour" which had been issued to raise a fund for the Danish Red Cross Society. This was a little surprise for us on the part of the manager of the hotel, who, like every one else, simply overwhelmed us with kindness. One simply felt dreadfully ashamed of oneself for not having done more to deserve all this.

On the first day of our arrival in Denmark came the news of the downfall of Antwerp, and through all these delightful invitations and receptions there was a feeling in my heart that I was not free yet to enjoy myself.

The downfall of Antwerp seemed almost like a personal loss. We had been so close to it, had shared our Belgian friends' hopes and fears, had watched the big German howitzers going out on the Antwerp road, had heard the bombardment of the forts, on our long journey through Belgium had seen the enormous reinforcements being sent up to take it. And now it had gone, and the Germans were marching on Ostend. What was the end of all this going to be? We _must_ win in the end--but they are so strong and well organized--so _dreadfully_ strong.

In that same paper I read an account from a Russian correspondent, telling of the distress in Poland, which they described as the "Belgium of Russia." It stated that the news just then was not good; the Germans were approaching Warsaw, and that the people in many of the villages were almost starving, as the Germans had eaten up almost everything.

(How well I could believe that!) The paper went on to say that the troops were suffering severely from cholera and from typhoid fever and that there was a great scarcity of trained nurses. That gave me the clue for which I was unconsciously seeking--we had been turned out of Belgium, and now, perhaps, our work was to be in that other Belgium of Russia.

Three other Sisters wished to join me, and I telegraphed to St. John's to ask permission to offer our services to the Russian Red Cross. The answer was delayed, and as we could not go to Russia without permission from headquarters, we most reluctantly prepared to go back to England with all the others.

On the last morning our luggage, labelled Christiania-Bergen-Newcastle, had already gone down to the station when the expected telegram arrived: "You and three Sisters named may volunteer Russian Red Cross." We flew down to the station and by dint of many tips and great exertions we got our luggage out again. I should have been sorry to have lost my little all for the second time.

This permission to serve with the Russian Red Cross was confirmed later by a most kind letter from Sir Claude Macdonald, chairman of the St.

John's Committee, so we felt quite happy about our enterprise.

We could not start for Russia for another ten days. We were to be inoculated against cholera for one thing, and then there were pa.s.sports and vises to get and arrangements for the journey to be made. The ordinary route was by Abo, Stockholm and Helsingfors, but we were very strongly advised not to go this way, first, because of the possibility of mines in the Baltic, and, secondly, because a steamer, recently crossing that way, had been actually boarded, and some English people taken off by the Germans. And we had no desire to be caught a second time.

So it was decided to my great joy that we should travel all the way round by land, through Sweden, through a little bit of Lapland, just touching the Arctic Circle, through Finland and so to Petrograd. The thought of the places we had to go through thrilled me to the core--Karungi, Haparanda, Lapptrask, Torneo--the very names are as honey to the lips.

One might have expected that all the kindness and hospitality would cease on the departure of the majority of the party, but it was not so.

Invitations of all kinds were showered on us. Lunches were the chief form of entertainment and very interesting and delightful they were.

There was a lunch at the British Legation, one at the French Legation, one at the Belgian Legation where the minister was so pathetically glad of any crumbs of news of his beloved country; a delightful dinner to meet Prince Gustav of Denmark, an invitation to meet Princess Mary of Greece, another lunch with Madame Tscherning, the president of the Danish Council of Nurses, and the "Florence Nightingale of Denmark."

Altogether we should have been thoroughly spoilt if it had lasted any longer! One of the most delightful invitations was to stay at Vidbek for the remainder of our time, a dear little seaside place with beautiful woods, just then in their full glory of autumnal colouring. It was within easy reach of Copenhagen and we went in almost every day, for one reason or another, and grew very fond of the beautiful old city.

The time came for us to say good-bye. I was very sorry indeed to leave dear little Denmark where we had had such a warm welcome. Denmark is, of course, officially, absolutely neutral, but she cannot forget the ties of blood and friendship that bind the two island countries together.

They are indeed a splendid people to be kin to, tall and fair and strong, as becomes an ancient race of sea-kings. I only hope that it may be my good fortune, some day, to be able to repay in some small measure all the wealth of kindness so freely poured out for us.

On Sat.u.r.day, October 24, at 7 P. M. we started for Lapland! Many of our very kind friends came down to the station to give us a good send-off and with last presents of flowers, fruit, chocolates and papers. We crossed first to Malmo on the ferry, which took about an hour and a half. It was very calm and clear, and we watched the little twinkling lights of Denmark gradually disappear and the lights of Sweden gradually emerge in exchange. At Malmo there was a customs examination which was not very severe, as our things were all marked with a huge Red Cross, and then we got into a funny little horse tram that conveyed us to the station.

When morning broke we were speeding along towards Stockholm. The country was very different from Denmark, much wilder, with rocks and trees and sand and an occasional glimpse of lake. At that time Sweden was supposed to bear little good-will towards England, and certainly our reception in that land was distinctly a chilly one. We drove on arrival to a hotel which had been recommended to us and asked the concierge if there were rooms. He said there were, so we had our luggage taken down and dismissed the cab. The concierge then looked at us suspiciously, and said, "You are English?" "Yes, we are English." He then went and confabbed for some minutes with the manageress, and returned. "There are people still in the rooms, they will not be ready for twenty minutes."

"Then we will have breakfast now and go to our rooms after." Another long conversation with the manageress, and then he returned again.

"There are no rooms." "But you said there were rooms." "There are no rooms." Evidently there were none for English travellers anyway, so we went to another hotel opposite the station, where they were civil, but no more. We had to stay in Stockholm twenty-four hours and simply hated it. I had heard much of this "Venice of the North," but the physical atmosphere was as chilly and unfriendly as the mental one.

The recollection stamped on my memory is of a grey, cheerless town where it rained hard almost the whole time, and a bitter wind blowing over the quays which moaned and sobbed like a lost banshee.

I was asked to luncheon at the British Legation, and this proved a very fortunate occurrence for us all, as the minister was so kind as to go to great trouble in getting us a special permit from the Swedish Foreign Office to sleep at Boden. Boden is a fortified frontier town and no foreigners are, as a rule, allowed to stay the night there, but have to go on to Lulea, and return to Boden the next morning. We started off on the next lap of our northern journey that evening, and again through the minister's kind intervention were lucky in getting a carriage to ourselves in a very full train, and arrived twenty-four hours later at Boden.

It was extraordinarily interesting to sleep in that little shanty at Boden, partly, no doubt, because it was not ordinarily allowed. The forbidden has always charms. It was the most glorious starlight night I have ever seen, but bitterly cold, with the thermometer ten degrees below zero, and everything sparkling with h.o.a.r frost. It was here we nearly lost a bishop. A rather pompous Anglican bishop had been travelling in the same train from Stockholm, and hearing that we insignificant females had been permitted to sleep at Boden, he did not see why he should not do the same and save himself the tiresome journey to Lulea and back. So in spite of all remonstrances he insisted on alighting at Boden, and with the whole force of his ecclesiastical authority announced his intention of staying there. However, it was not allowed after all, and he missed the train, and while we were comfortably having our supper in the little inn, we saw the poor bishop and his chaplain being driven off to Lulea. They turned up again next morning, but so late that we were afraid they had got lost on the way the night before.

All the next morning we went through the same kind of country, past innumerable frozen lakelets, and copses of stubby pines and silver birches, till we arrived at Karungi where the railway ends. We made friends with a most delightful man, who was so good in helping us all the way through that we christened him St. Raphael, the patron saint of travellers. He was a fur trader from Finland, and had immense stores of information about the land and the queer beasts that live in it. He was a sociable soul, but lived in such out-of-the-way places that he seldom saw anyone to talk to except the peasants, and it was a great treat, he said, to meet some of his fellow-countrymen, and his satisfaction knew no bounds when he heard that one of us hailed from Lancashire, near his old home.

From Karungi we had to drive to Haparanda. Our carriage was already booked by telegram, but a very irate gentleman from Port Said got into it with his family and declined to get out, using such dreadful language that I wondered the snow did not begin to sizzle. We did not want to have a scene there, so when "St. Raphael" said if we would wait till the evening he would take us over by starlight, we graciously let the dusky gentleman with the bad temper keep our carriage.

We went in the meantime to the little wooden inn and ate largely of strange dishes, dried reindeer flesh, smoked strips of salmon, lax, I think it is called, served with a curious sweet sauce, and drank many gla.s.ses of tea. At 9 P. M. behold an open motor-car arrived to take us the thirty miles' drive to Haparanda. It seemed absolutely absurd to see a motor-car up there on the edge of the Arctic Circle, where there was not even a proper road. There were several reindeer sleighs about, and I felt that one of those would have been much more in keeping. The drivers look most attractive, they wear very gay reindeer leggings, big sheep-skin coats and wild-looking wolf-skin caps.

The frozen track was so uneven that we rocked from side to side, and were thrown violently about in the car, like little kernels in a very large nut. But it was a wonderful night all the same, the air was thin and intoxicating like champagne, and the stars up in these northern lat.i.tudes more dazzlingly brilliant than anything I have seen before. We had to get out at Haparanda and walk over the long bridge which led to Torneo, where the Finnish Custom House was, and where our luggage and pa.s.sports had to be examined.

We arrived there very cheerful and well pleased with ourselves, to find all our old travelling companions waiting till the Custom House was open; the bishop and his party; the bad-tempered man and his family; a Russian and a Chinese student who were travelling together, and some others. They had been waiting in the cold for hours, and had not had their papers or luggage examined yet, so we had had the best of it after all.

And we scored yet once more, for "St. Raphael," who spoke fluent Finnish, at once secured the only cart to take our things over the ferry to the railway station about half a mile away.

It was borne in upon me during this journey what an immense country Russia is. From Torneo to Petrograd does not look far on the map, but we left Torneo on Wednesday night, and did not arrive in Petrograd till 12.30 A. M. on Sat.u.r.day, about fifty-two hours' hard travelling to cover this little track--a narrow thread, almost lost the immensity of this great Empire.

Petrograd is not one of those cities whose charms steal upon you unawares. It is immense, insistent, arresting, almost thrusting itself on your imagination. It is a city for giants to dwell in, everything is on such an enormous scale, dealt out in such careless profusion. The river, first of all, is immense; the palaces grandiose, the very blocks of which they are fashioned seem to have been hewn by t.i.tans. The names are full of romance and mystery. The fortress of St. Peter and St. Paul, for instance, how it brings back a certain red and gold book of one's youth, full of innocent prisoners in clanking chains confined in fetid underground dungeons. It seemed incredible to really behold its slender, golden minarets on the other side of the Neva. But this was no time for sight-seeing, we were all very anxious to get to work at once. So my first excursion in Petrograd was to the Central Bureau of the Red Cross.

The director of the Red Cross received me most kindly and promised that we should have work very soon. He suggested that in the meantime we should go and stay in a Russian Community of Sisters, who had a hospital in Petrograd. I was very glad to accept this offer for us all, for we must a.s.similate Russian methods and ways of thought as soon as possible, if we were to be of real use to them. Still I very much hoped that we should not be kept in Petrograd very long, as we wanted, if possible, to get nearer the front. I told the director that we had been inoculated against cholera and typhoid, and would be quite pleased to be sent to the infectious hospitals if that would be more help, as there are always plenty of people to nurse the wounded, but comparatively few who for one reason or another are able to devote themselves to this other very necessary work.

We betook ourselves without delay to the Community of Russian Sisters, and were installed in dear little cell-like rooms at the top of the house devoted to the Sisters. The other side of the house is a beautiful little hospital with several wards set apart for wounded soldiers. There are a great many similar communities in Russia--all nursing orders. They are called Sisters of Mercy, but are not nuns in any sense, as they take no vows and are free to leave whenever they like. The course of training varies from two to three years and is very complete, comprising courses in dispensing and other useful subjects.

The pity of it is that there are comparatively few of these trained Sisters at the front; the vast majority of those working there have only been through a special "War Course" of two months' training, and are apt to think that bandaging is the beginning and the end of the art of nursing.

The Russian Sisters were most interested in our adventures, and most kind and nice to us in every way, but a.s.sured us that we should not be allowed anywhere near the front, as only Russian Sisters were allowed there. They were very surprised when the order came a few days after our arrival, that we were to get ready to go to Warsaw at once. That was certainly not quite at the front at that moment, as just then Russia was in the flush of victory, following the retreating Germans back from Warsaw to the German frontier. But it was a good long step on the way.

One errand still remained to be done. I had not posted the letter given me by the English lady at the Brussels station to her husband in Petrograd, wishing to have the pleasure of delivering it myself after carrying it at such risks all through Germany. Directly I arrived I made inquiries for this Englishman, picturing his joy at getting the long-deferred news of his wife. Almost the first person I asked knew him quite well, but imagine what a blow it was to hear that he had a Russian wife in Petrograd! I vowed never again to carry any more letters to sorrowing husbands.

Before we went I received a very kind message that the Empress Marie Federovna would like to see us before our departure. Prince Gustav of Denmark had been most kind in writing to his aunt, the Empress, about us, and had also been good enough to give me a letter of introduction to her which I sent through the British Emba.s.sy.