My War Experiences in Two Continents Part 17

The Germans were beaten already, and had been beaten from the day they gave up their honour. She spoke of the heroism of the troops, and stated that since September last she had been running a soup-kitchen for the wounded. In this humble vocation she had had an opportunity of gauging the spirit of the soldiers. She had seen them sick, wounded, and dying, but had never known them give in.

Why should humble villages in France without soldiers in them be sh.e.l.led? That was Germany, and that was what they saw. The thing was almost inconceivable, but she had seen helpless women and children brought to the hospitals, maimed and wounded by the cruel German sh.e.l.ls. After this war England was going to be a better country than before. Up to now there had been a national selfishness which was growing very strong, and there was a terrible love of money, which, after all, was of very little account unless it was used in the proper direction. She could tell them stories of Belgians who had had to fire upon their own women and children who were being marched in front of German troops. The power of Germany had to be crushed. The spirit of England and Wales was one in this great war, and they would not falter until they had emerged triumphant. (Applause.)

[Page Heading: A CLARION CALL]

Mr. Robinson Smith said the clarion call had been sounded, and they were prepared, if necessary, to give their last shilling, their last drop of blood, and their very selves, body, soul, and spirit, to fight for right till right had won. (Applause.)

Cheers were given for the distinguished auth.o.r.ess, and the proceedings terminated.

After Cardiff (and a most cordial send-off from my committee) I came back to London, and lectured at Eton, at the Polytechnic, and various other places, while all the time I was preparing to go to Russia, and I was also writing.

In the year that has pa.s.sed my time has been fully occupied. To begin with, when the war broke out I studied district-nursing in Walworth for a month. I attended committees, and arranged to go to Belgium, got my kit, and had a good deal of business to arrange in the way of house-letting, etc., etc. Afterwards, I went to Antwerp, till the siege and the bombardment; then followed the flight to Ostend; after that a further flight to Furnes. Then came the winter of my work, day and night at the soup-kitchen for the wounded, a few days at home in January, then back again and to work at Ad.i.n.kerke till June, when I came home to lecture.

During the year I have brought out four books, I have given thirty-five lectures, and written both stories and articles. I have gone from town to town in England, Scotland, and Wales, and I have had a good deal of anxiety and much business at home. I have paid a few visits, but not restful ones, and I have written all my own correspondence, as I have not had a secretary. I have collected funds for my work, and sent off scores of begging letters. Often I have begun work at 5.30 a.m., and I have not rested all day. As I am not very young this seems to me a pretty strenuous time!

[Page Heading: THE DEATH OF YOUTH]

Now I have let my house again, and am off "into the unknown" in Russia!

I shouldn't really mind a few days' rest before we begin any definite work. Behind everyone I suppose at this time lurks the horror of war, the deadly fear for one's dearest; and, above all, one feels--at least I do--that one is always, and quite palpably, in the shadow of the death of youth--beautiful youth, happy and healthy and free. Always I seem to see the white faces of boys turned up to the sky, and I hear their cries and see the agony which joyous youth was never meant to bear. They are too young for it, far too young; but they lie out on the field between the trenches, and bite the mud in their frenzy of pain; and they call for their mothers, and no one comes, and they call to their friends, but no one hears. There is a roar of battle and of bursting sh.e.l.ls, and who can listen to a boy's groans and his shrieks of pain? This is war.

A nation or a people want more sea-board or more trade, so they begin to kill youth, and to torture and to burn, and G.o.d himself may ask, "Where is my beautiful flock?" No one answers. It is war. We must expect a "list of casualties." "The Germans have lost more than we have done;"

"We must go on, even if the war lasts ten years;" "A million more men are needed"--thus the fools called men talk! But Youth looks up with haggard eyes, and Youth, grown old, learns that Death alone is merciful.

One sees even in soldiers' jokes that the thought of death is not far off. I said to one man, "You have had a narrow squeak," and he replied, "I don't mind if I get there first so long as I can stoke up for those Germans." Another, clasping the hand of his dead Captain, said, "Put plenty of sandbags round heaven, sir, and don't let a German through."

The other day, when the forward movement was made in France and Belgium, Charles's Regiment, the 9th Welch, was told to attack at a certain point, which could only be reached across an open s.p.a.ce raked by machine-gun fire. They were not given the order to move for twelve days, during which time the men hardly slept. When the charge had to be made the roar of guns made speaking quite impossible, so directions were given by sending up rockets. When the rockets appeared, not a single man delayed an instant in making the attack. One young officer, in the trench where Charles was, had a football, and this he flung over the parapet, and shouting, "Come on, boys!" he and the men of the regiment played football in the open and in front of the guns. Right across the gun-raked level they kicked the ball, and when they reached the enemy's lines only a few of them were left.

Charles wrote, "I am too old to see boys killed."

Colonel Walton, with a handful of his regiment, was the only officer to get through the three lines of the enemy's trenches, and he and his men dug themselves in. Just in front of them where they paused, he saw a fine young officer come along the road on a motor bicycle, carrying despatches. The next minute a high-explosive sh.e.l.l burst, and, to use his own words, "There was not enough of the young officer to put on a threepenny bit." Always men tell me there is nothing left to bury. One minute there is a splendid piece of upstanding, vigorous manhood, and the next there is no finding one piece of him to lay in the sod.

[Page Heading: A LESSON FOR TURKS]

The Turks seem to have forsaken their first horrible and devilish cruelties towards English prisoners. They have been taught a lesson by the Australians, who took some prisoners up to the top of a ridge and rolled them down into the Turks' trenches like b.a.l.l.s, firing on them as they rolled. Horrible! but after that Turkish cruelties ceased.

Our own men see red since the Canadians were crucified, and I fancy no prisoners were taken for a long time after. We "censor" this or that in the newspapers, but nothing will censor men's tongues, and there is a terrible and awful tale of suffering and death and savagery going on now. Like a ghastly dream we hear of trenches taken, and the cries of men go up, "Mercy, comrade, mercy!" Sometimes they plead, poor caught and trapped and pitiful human beings, that they have wives and children who love them. The slaughter goes on, the bayonet rends open the poor body that someone loved, then comes the internal gush of blood, and another carcase is flung into the burying trench, with some lime on the top of it to prevent a smell of rotting flesh.

My G.o.d, what does it all mean? Are men so mad? And why are they killing all our best and bravest? Our first army is gone, and surely such a company never before took the field! Outmatched by twenty to one, they stuck it at Mons and on the Aisne, and saved Paris by a miracle. All my old friends fell then--men near my own age, whom I have known in many climes--Eustace Crawley, Victor Brooke, the Goughs, and other splendid men. Now the sons of my friends are falling fast--Duncan Sim's boy, young Wilson, Neville Strutt, and scores of others. I know one case in which four brothers have fallen; another, where twins of nineteen died side by side; and this one has his eyes blown out, and that one has his leg torn off, and another goes mad; and boys, creeping back to the base holding an arm on, or bewildered by a bullet through the brain, wander out of their way till a piece of shrapnel or torn edge of sh.e.l.l finds them, and they fall again, with their poor boyish faces buried in the mud!

Mr. ---- dined with us last night. He had been talking of his brother who was killed, and he said: "I think it makes a difference if you belong to a family which has always given its lives to the country. We are accustomed to make these sacrifices."

Thus bravely in the light of day, but when evening came and we sat together, then we knew just what the life of the boy had cost him. They tell us--these defrauded broken-hearted ones--just how tall the lad was, and how good to look at! That seems to me so sad--as if one reckoned one's love by inches! And yet it is the beauty of youth that I mourn also, and its horribly lonely death.

"They never got him further than the dressing-station," Mr. ---- said; "but--he would always put up a fight, you know--he lived for four days.

No, there was never any hope. Half the back of his head was shattered.

But he put up a fight. My brother would always do that."

PART III

RUSSIA AND THE PERSIAN FRONT

CHAPTER I

PETROGRAD

Mrs. Wynne, Mr. Bevan, and I left London for Russia on October 16, 1915.

We are attached provisionally to the Anglo-Russian hospital, with a stipulation that we are at liberty to proceed to the front with our ambulances as soon as we can get permission to do so. We understand that the Russian wounded are suffering terribly, and getting no doctors, nurses, or field ambulances. We crossed from Newcastle to Christiania in a Norwegian boat, the _Bessheim_. It was supposed that in this ship there was less chance of being stopped, torpedoed, or otherwise inconvenienced.

We reached Christiania after a wonderfully calm crossing, and went to the Grand Hotel at 1 a.m. No rooms to be had, so we went on to the Victoria--a good old house, not fashionable, but with a nice air about it, and some solid comforts. We left on Wednesday, the 20th, at 7 a.m.

This was something of a feat, as we have twenty-four boxes with us. I only claim four, and feel as if I might have brought more, but everyone has a different way of travelling, and luggage is often objected to.

Indeed, I think this matter of travelling is one of the most curious in the world. I cannot understand why it is that to get into a train or a boat causes men and women to leave off restraint and to act in a primitive way. Why should the companionship of the open road be the supreme test of friendship? and why should one feel a certain fear of getting to know people too well on a journey? The last friends I travelled with were very careful indeed, and we used to reckon up accounts and divide the price of a bottle of "vin ordinaire" equally. My friends to-day seem inclined to do themselves very well, and to scatter largesse everywhere.

[Page Heading: STOCKHOLM]

_Stockholm. 21 October._--After a long day in the train we reached Stockholm yesterday evening, and went to the usual "Grand Hotel." This time it is very "grand," and very expensive. Mr. Bevan has a terrible pink boudoir-bedroom, which costs 3 per night, and I have a small room on the fourth floor, which costs 17s. 6d. without a bath. There is rather a nice court in the middle of the house, with flowers and a band and tables for dinner, but the sight of everyone "doing himself well"

always makes me feel a little sick. The wines and liqueurs, and the big cigars at two shillings each, and the look of repletion on men's faces as they listen to the band after being fed, somewhat disgust me.

One's instinct is to dislike luxury, but in war-time it seems horrible.

We ourselves will probably have to rough it badly soon, so I don't mind, but it's a side of life that seems to me as beastly as anything I know. Fortunately, the luxury of an hotel is minimised by the fact that there are no "necessaries," and one lives in an atmosphere of open trunks and bags, with things pulled out of them, which counterbalances crystal electric fittings and marble floors.

We rested all this morning, lunched out, and in the afternoon went to have tea with the Crown Prince and Princess of Sweden. They were very delightful. The British Minister's wife, Lady Isobel Howard, went with us. The Princess had just finished reading my "Diary of the War," and was very nice about it. The children, who came in to tea, were the prettiest little creatures I have ever seen, with curly hair, and faces like the water-colour pictures of a hundred years ago. The Princess herself is most attractive, and reminds one of the pictures of Queen Victoria as a young woman. Her sensitive face is full of expression, and her colour comes and goes as she speaks of things that move her.

This afternoon we went to tea at the Legation with the Howards. The House is charmingly situated on the Lake, with lovely trees all about it. It isn't quite finished yet, but will be very delightful.

_22 October._--It is very strange to find oneself in a country where war is not going on. The absence of guns and Zeppelins, the well-lighted streets, and the peace of it all, are quite striking. But the country is pro-German almost to a man! And it has been a narrow squeak to prevent war. Even now I suppose one wrong move may lead to an outbreak of hostilities, and the recent German victories may yet bring in other countries on her side. Bulgaria has been a glaring instance of siding with the one she considers the winning side (Gott strafe her!), and Greece is still wondering what to do! Thank G.o.d, I belong to a race that is full of primitive instincts! Poor old England still barges in whenever there is a fight going on, and gets her head knocked, and goes on fighting just the same, and never knows that she is heroic, but blunders on--simple-hearted, stupid, sublime!

_24 October._--I went to the English church this morning with Mr.

Lancelot Smith, but there was no service as the chaplain had chicken-pox! So I came home and packed, and then lunched with Mr. Eric Hambro, Mr. Lancelot Smith, and Mr. ----, all rather interesting men at this crisis, when four nations at least are undecided what to do in the matter of the war.

About 6 o'clock we and our boxes got away from Stockholm. Our expenses for the few days we spent there were 60, although we had very few meals in the hotel. We had a long journey to Haparanda, where we stopped for a day. The cold was terrible and we spent the day (my birthday) on a sort of luggage barge on the river. On my last birthday we were bolting from Furnes in front of the Germans, and the birthday before that I was on the top of the Rocky Mountains.

Talking of the Rockies reminds me (did I need reminding) of Elsie Northcote, my dear friend, who married and went to live there. The other night some friends of mine gave me a little "send-off" before I left London--dinner and the Palace Theatre, where I felt like a ghost returned to earth. All the old lot were there as of yore--Viola Tree, Lady Diana Manners, Harry Lindsay, the Raymond Asquiths, etc., etc. I saw them all from quite far away. Lord Stanmore was in the box with us, and he it was who told me of Elsie Northcote's sudden death. It wasn't the right place to hear about it. Too many are gone or are going. My own losses are almost stupefying; and something dead within myself looks with sightless eyes on death; with groping hands I touch it sometimes, and then I know that I am dead also.

[Page Heading: LOVE AND PAIN]

There is only one thing that one can never renounce, and that is love.

Love is part of one, and can't be given up. Love can't be separated from one, even by death. It comes once and remains always. It is never fulfilled; the fulfilment of love is its crucifixion; but it lives on for ever in a pa.s.sion-week of pain until pain itself grows dull; and then one wishes one had been born quite a common little soul, when one would probably have been very happy.

_28 October._--We arrived at midnight last night at Petrograd. Ian Malcolm was at the hotel, and had remained up to welcome us. To-day we have been unpacking, and settling down into rather comfortable, very expensive rooms. My little box of a place costs twenty-six shillings a night. We lunched with two Russian officers and Mr. Ian Malcolm, and then I went to the British Emba.s.sy, where the other two joined me. Sir George Buchanan, our Amba.s.sador, looks overworked and tired. Lady Georgina and I got on well together....