My War Experiences in Two Continents Part 9

I am going back to-morrow to the station, with its train-loads of wounded men. I _want_ to go, and to give them soup and comforts and cigarettes, but just ten days' illness and idleness have "balmed my soul."

_22 February._--Waited all day for a car to come and fetch me away. It was dull work as I could never leave the flat, and all my things were packed up, and there was no coal.

_23 February._--Waited again all day. I got very tired of standing by the window looking out on a strip of beach at the bottom of the street, and on the people pa.s.sing to and fro. Then I went down to the dock to try and get a car there, but the new police regulations made it impossible to cross the bridge. I went to the airmen opposite. No luck.

There is a peculiar brutality which seems to possess everyone out here during the war. I find it nearly everywhere, and it entails a good deal of unnecessary suffering. Always I am reminded of birds on a small ledge pushing each other into the sea. The big bird that pushes another one over goes to sleep comfortably.

I remember one evening at Dunkirk when we couldn't get rooms or food because the landlady of the hotel had lost all her servants. The staff at the ---- gave me a meal, but there was a queer want of courtesy about it. I said that anything would do for my supper, and I went to help get it myself. I spied a roll of cold veal on a shelf, and said helpfully that that would do splendidly, but the answer was: "Yes, but I believe that is for our next meal." However, in the end I got a sc.r.a.p, consisting mostly of green stuffing.

"But when thou art bidden, go and sit down in the lowest room"--ah, my dear Lord, in this world one may certainly take the lowest place, and keep it. It is only the great men who say, "Friend, come up higher."

"You can't have it," is on everyone's lips, and a general sense of bustle goes with the brutality. "You can't come here," "We won't have her," are quite common phrases. G.o.d help us, how nasty we all are!

I find one can score pretty heavily nowadays by being a "psychologist."

All the most disagreeable people I know are psychologists, notably ----, who breaks his promises and throws all his friends to the wolves, but who can still explain everything in his sapient way by saying he is a psychologist.

One thing I hope--that no one will ever call me "highly strung." I wish good old-fashioned bad temper was still the word for highly strung and nervy people.

... I am longing for beautiful things, music, flowers, fine thoughts....

[Page Heading: LA PANNE]

_La Panne. 25 February._--At last I have succeeded in getting away from Dunkirk! The d.u.c.h.ess of Sutherland brought me here in her car. Last night I dined with Mrs. c.l.i.theroe. She was less bustled than usual, and I enjoyed a chat with her as we walked home through the cold white mist which enshrouded La Panne.

This long war has settled down to a long wait. Little goes on except desultory sh.e.l.ling, with its occasional quite useless victims. At the station we have mostly "malades" and "eclopes"; in the trenches the soldiers stand in the bitter cold, and occasionally are moved out by sh.e.l.ls falling by chance amongst them. The men who are capable of big things wait and do nothing.

If it was not for the wounded how would one stand the life here? A man looks up patiently, dumbly, out of brown eyes, and one is able to go on again.

_La Panne. 27 February_.--I have been staying for three nights at the Kursaal Hotel, but my room was wanted and I had to turn out, so I packed my things and came down to the Villa les Chrysanthemes, and shared Mrs.

c.l.i.theroe's room for a night. In the morning all our party packed up and left to go to Furnes, and I took on these rooms. I may be turned out any minute for "le militaire," but meanwhile I am very comfortable.

The heroic element (a real thing among us) takes queer forms sometimes.

"No sheets, of course," is what one hears on every side, and to eat a meal standing and with dirty hands is to "play the game." Maxine Elliott said, "The nervous exhaustion attendant upon discomfort hinders work,"

and she "does herself" very well, as also do all the men of the regular forces. But volunteer corps--especially women--are heroically bent on being uncomfortable. In a way they like it, and they eat strange meals in large quant.i.ties, and feel that this is war.

Lord Leigh took me into Dunkirk in his car to-day, and I managed to get lots of vegetables for the soup-kitchen, and several other things I wanted. A lift is everything at this time, when one can "command"

nothing. If one might for once feel that by paying a fare, however high, one could ensure having something--a railway journey, a motor-car, or even a bed! My work isn't so heavy at the kitchen now, and the hours are not so long, so I hope to do some work of a literary nature.

[Page Heading: LA PANNE]

_To Miss Macnaughtan's Sisters._

VILLA LES CHRYSANTHeMES LA PANNE, BELGIUM, _Sunday, 28 February._

MY DEAR FAMILY,

It is so long since I wrote a decently long letter that I think I must write to you all, to thank you for yours, and to give you what news there is of myself.

Of war news there is none. The long war is now a long wait, and the huge expense still goes on, while we lock horns with our foes and just sway backwards and forwards a little, and this, as you know, we have done for weeks past. Every day at the station there is a little stream of men with heads or limbs bandaged, and our work goes on as before, although it is not on quite the same lines now. I used to make every drop of the soup myself, and give it out all down the train. Now we have a receiving-room for the wounded, where they stay all day, and we feed them four times, and then they are sent away. The whole thing is more military than it used to be, the result, I think, of officers not having much to do, and with a pa.s.sion for writing out rules and regulations with a nice broad pen. Two orderlies help in the kitchen, the soup is "inspected," and what used to be "la cuisine de la dame ecossaise" is not so much a charitable inst.i.tution as it was.

One sees a good deal of that sort of thing during this war. Women have been seeing what is wanted, and have done the work themselves at really enormous difficulty, and in the face of opposition, and when it is a going concern it is taken over and, in many cases, the women are turned out. This was the case at Dunkirk station, which was known everywhere as "the shambles." I myself tried to get the wounded attended to, and I went there with a naval doctor, who told me that he couldn't uncover a single wound because of the awful atmosphere (it was quite common to see 15,000 men lying on straw). One woman took this matter in hand, purged the place, got mattresses, clean straw, stoves, etc., and when all was in order the voice of authority turned her out.

This long waiting is being much more trying for people than actual fighting. In every corps the old heroic outlook is a little bit fogged by petty things. One sees the result of it in some wrangling and jealousy, but this will soon be forgotten when fighting with all its realities begins again.

I think Britain on the subject of "piracy" is about as fine as anything in her history. Her determination to ignore ultimatums and threats is really quite funny, and English people still put out in boats as they have always done, and are quite undismayed. Our own people here continue to travel by sea, as if submarines were rather a joke, and when going over to England on some small and useless little job they say apologetically, "Of course, I wouldn't go if I hadn't got to." The fact is, if there is any danger about they have to be in it.

Some of our own corps have gone back to Furnes--I believe because it is being sh.e.l.led. The rest of us are at La Panne, a cold seaside place amongst the dunes. In summer-time I fancy it is fashionable, but now it contains nothing but soldiers. They are quartered everywhere, and one never knows how long one will be able to keep a room. The station is at Ad.i.n.kerke, where I have my kitchen. It is about two miles from La Panne, and it also is crammed with soldiers. There seems to be no attempt at sanitation anywhere.

I wish I had more interesting news to tell you, but I am at my station all day, and if there is anything to hear (which I doubt) I do not hear it.

There is a barge on the ca.n.a.l at Ad.i.n.kerke which is our only excitement.

It is the property of Maxine Elliott, Lady Drogheda, and Miss Close, and to go to tea with them is everyone's ambition. The barge is crammed with things for Belgian refugees, and Maxine told me that the cargo represents "nearer 10,000 than 5,000." It is piled with flour in sacks, clothing, medical comforts, etc. The work is good.

I am sending home some long pins like nails. They are called "Silent Death," and are dropped from German aeroplanes. Boys pick them up and give them to us in exchange for cigarettes.

[Page Heading: MRS. PERCIVAL'S SLIPPERS]

I want to tell Tabby how immensely pleased everyone is with her slippers. The men who have stood long in the trenches are in agonies of frost-bite and rheumatism, and now that I can give them these slippers when they arrive at the station, they are able to take off their wet boots caked with mud.

If J. would send me another little packet of groceries I should love it.

Just what can come by post. That Benger's Food of hers nearly saved my life when I was ill at Dunkirk. What I should like better than anything is a few good magazines and books. I get _Punch_ and the _Spectator_, but I want the _English Review_ and the _National_, and perhaps a _Hibbert_. I enclose ten shillings for these. What is being read?

Stephen Coleridge seems to have brought out an interesting collection, but I can't remember its name. I wonder if any notice will be taken of "They who Question." The reviews speak well of the Canadian book.

Love to you all, and tell Alan how much I think of him. Bless you, my dears. Write often.

Yours as ever, SARAH.

_1 March._--Woe betide the person who owns anything out here: he is instantly deprived of it. "Pinching" is proverbial, and people have taken to carrying as many of their possessions as possible on their person, with the result that they are the strangest shapes and sizes.

Still, one hopes the goods are valuable until one discovers that they generally consist of the following items: a watch that doesn't go, a fountain-pen that is never filled, an electric torch that won't light, a much-used hanky, an empty iodine bottle, and a scarf.

_5 March._--I went as usual to-day to the muddy station and distributed soup, which I no longer make now that the station has become militarised. My hours are from 12 noon to 5 o'clock. This includes the men's dinner-hour and the washing of the kitchen. They eat and smoke when I am there, and loll on the little bench. They are Belgians and I am English, and one is always being warned that the English can't be too careful! We are entertaining 40,000 Belgians in England, but it must be done "carefully."

[Page Heading: THIEVING AND GIVING]

It is a great bore out here that everything is stolen. One can hardly lay a thing down for an instant that it isn't taken. To-day my Thermos flask in a leather case, in which I carry my lunch, was prigged from the kitchen. Things like metal cups are stolen by the score, and everyone begs! Even well-to-do people are always asking for something, and they simply whine for tobacco. The fact is, I think, the English are giving things away with their usual generosity and want of discrimination, and--it is a horrid word--they are already pauperising a nice lot of people. I can't help thinking that the thing is being run on wrong lines. We should have given or lent what was necessary to the Belgian Government, and let them undertake to provide for soldiers and refugees through the proper channels. No lasting good ever came of gifts--every child begs for cigarettes, and they begin smoking at five years old.

I often think of our poor at home, and wish I had a few sacks full of things for them! I have not myself come across any instances of poverty nearly as bad as I have seen in England. I understand from Dr. Joos and other Belgians who know about these things that there is still a good deal of money tucked away in this country. I hope there is, and we all want to help the Belgians over a bad time, but it would be better and more dignified for them to get it through their own Government.

I had tea with Lady Bagot the other day, and afterwards I had a chat with Prince Francis at the English Mission. Another afternoon I went down to the Kursaal Hotel for tea. The stuffy sitting-room there is always filled with knickerbockered, leather-coated ladies and with officers in dark blue uniform, who talk loudly and pat the barmaid's cheeks. She seems to expect it; it is almost etiquette. A cup of bad tea, some German trophies examined and discussed, and then I came away with a "British" longing for skirts for my ladies, and for something graceful and (odious word) dainty about them. Yesterday evening Lady Bagot dined with me. This Villa is the only comfortable place I have been in since the war began: it makes an amazing difference to my health.

It is odd to have to admit that one has hardly ever been unhappy for a long time before this war. The year my brother died, the year one went through a tragedy, the year of deadly dullness in the country--but now it isn't so much a personal matter. War and the sound of guns, and the sense of destruction and death abroad, the solitude of it, and the disappointing people! Oh, and the poor wounded--the poor, smelly, dirty wounded, whom one sees all day, and for whom one just sticks this out.

I have only twice been for a drive out here, and I have not seen a single place of interest, nor, indeed, a single interesting person connected with the war. That, I suppose, is the result of being a "cuisiniere!" It is rather strange to me, because for a very long time I always seem to have had the best of things. To-day I hear of this General or that Secretary, or this great personage or that important functionary, but the only people whom I see are three little Sisters and two Belgian cooks.