Through St. Dunstan's to Light Part 1

Through St. Dunstan's to Light.

by James H. Rawlinson.

CHAPTER I

MY TICKET FOR BLIGHTY

In the World War, it was not only the men who went "over the top" to a.s.sault enemy positions who ran great risks. Scouts, snipers, patrols, working parties, all took their lives in their hands every time they ventured into No Man's Land, and even those who were engaged in essential work behind the lines were far from being safe from death or wounds. On the morning of June 7th, 1917, before dawn had broken, I was out with a working party. Suddenly, overhead, sounded the ominous drumming and droning of an aeroplane. It proved to be a Hun plane; the aviator had spotted us, and was speedily in touch with the battery for which he was working. Fortunately for us, he had mistaken our exact position, and evidently thought we were on a road which ran towards the front line about thirty yards to our left. The enemy guns, in answer to his signals, opened up with a terrific fire, and the scenery round about was soon in a fine mess. Sh.e.l.ls of varying calibre came thundering in our direction, throwing up, as they burst, miniature volcanoes and filling the air with dust and mud and smoke. This sh.e.l.l-fire continued for about three-quarters of an hour, but due to the defect in the aviator's signals and our own skill in taking cover we suffered no casualties. We were congratulating ourselves that we were to pa.s.s through this ordeal uninjured, when suddenly a 5.9-inch sh.e.l.l fell short. It exploded almost in our midst, and I was unlucky enough to get in the way of one of the shrapnel bullets. I felt a slight sting in my right temple as though p.r.i.c.ked by a red-hot needle--and then the world became black.

Dawn was now breaking, but night had sealed my eyes, and I could only grope my way among my comrades. I was. .h.i.t about 2.30 a.m., and it speaks volumes for the Medical Service that at 2 p.m. I was tucked safely in bed in a thoroughly-equipped hospital many miles from the scene of my mishap.

Willing hands tenderly dressed my wounds and led me to the foot of the ridge on which we were located. I was then placed on a stretcher, and carried up the slope to one of the narrow-gauge railways that had been run to the crest of Vimy Ridge. I was now taken to the end of what is called the Y Road, and thence borne to one of the ambulances which are always in waiting there, grim reminders of the work in hand.

My first impression of my ambulance driver was that I had fallen into the hands of a Good Samaritan. He was most solicitous about the welfare of the "head-case," and kept showering me with questions, such as: "Are you comfortable, Mac?" (everyone in the Canadian Corps was "Mac" to the stranger). "Tell me if I am driving too fast for you; you know, the roads are a little lumpy round here." I didn't know it, but I was quickly to become aware of the fact. His words and his driving did not harmonize; if he missed a single sh.e.l.l-hole in the wide stretch of France through which he drove, it was not his fault. I shall never forget the agony of that drive; but at length, bruised and shaken, I arrived at the Casualty Clearing Station at--but, no, I will not mention its name; some of my readers may know the men who were there at the time of my arrival, and there is pain enough in the world without unnecessarily adding to the total. At the Clearing Station I learned two things: First, that all the best souvenirs of the war are in the possession of men who seldom or never saw the front line; and, secondly, the real meaning, so far as the wounded "Tommy" is concerned, of the letters R.A.M.C. The official records say they stand for the Royal Army Medical Corps; but ask the men who have pa.s.sed through the hands of the Corps. They'll tell you with picturesque vehemence, and there will be nothing Royal or Medical in their answer. For my own poor part, here's hoping that the thirty-eight francs that disappeared from my pockets while in their hands did some good somewhere. But I sadly wanted that money while in the hospital at Boulogne to satisfy a craving I had for oranges. Perhaps the beer or _eau de vie_ that it no doubt purchased did more good than the oranges would have done me. Again, let us hope so!

From the Casualty Clearing Station I was taken to the hospital at St.

Omer, which was later to be laid flat by Hun air raids. And here, for the first time, I realized the full weight of the calamity that had overtaken me, and what being "windy" really meant. I was first visited by the M.O., who removed my bandage and had my head skilfully dressed; after him came a priest of the Church to which I belonged, who administered to me the rites of the Church; then followed the a.s.sistant matron, who endeavoured to cheer me up by asking if I wished to have any letters written home. Before my inward eyes there began to flash visions of a newspaper notice: "Died of wounds." But although a bit alarmed, more by the attentions shown me than by my physical condition, the thought of pegging-out never seriously entered my mind.

I spent four days at the hospital at St. Omer, and was then transferred to Boulogne, together with a New Zealand sergeant who was in the same plight as myself, and whom I later had the pleasure of meeting under more favourable and happier conditions at dear old St. Dunstan's. At Boulogne, I was given a thorough examination, and the doctors concluded that an absolutely useless member of the body was an unnecessary burden to the bearer, and so they removed what remained of my left eye. I was still vainly hoping that my right eye, which was remote from my wound, might recover its sight; but as the days crept by while the blackness of night hung about me I grew alarmed, and one day I asked the O.C.

hospital why he was constantly lifting up my right eyelid. Truth to tell, I was scared stiff with the thought that they were contemplating removing my remaining eye, but I gave no outward sign of my fear. No matter how "windy" one is, it would never do to let the other fellow know it, at least not while you are wearing the uniform of the Canadians. I, therefore, quickly followed my first question with the inquiry if he thought he might yet get some daylight into my right eye.

"When?" he questioned. And, still clinging to the hope that I was not to be forever in the dark, I replied, "In five, ten, fifteen, twenty-five years; any time, so long as I get some light." In answer, he merely patted me on the shoulder, saying: "Never mind, things are not always quite so bad as they look." Then he moved away from my cot, and a moment later I heard him talking in undertones to another officer. This officer, whom he now brought to my bedside, proved to be Captain Towse, the bravest man it has ever been my privilege to meet, and while I was up the line I met many brave men who, where duty called, counted life not at a pin's fee.

Captain Towse is a double V.C. It is hard enough to get the Cross itself, and there are few men who dare even to dream of a bar to it. I was now in personal touch with a man who, in distant Africa, during the Great Boer War, with both eyes shot away, had gallantly stood firm, urging his men to the charge. He came to my bedside with a cheery: "Good morning, Canada! How is the boy this morning?" My answer was the usual one of the boys in France: "Jakealoo!" Then he pointedly asked me a question that set me wondering at its purport.

"You are a soldier, are you not, Canada?"

I replied with a somewhat mournful: "Well, I was one time, but I can't say much as to the truth of that now."

Then he hit me harder than any Hun sh.e.l.l could hit a man. He snapped out in a voice penetrating, yet with a cheery ring to it: "Well, you are blind, and for life. How do you like it?"

For about five seconds (it was no longer) the night that sealed my eyes seemed to clutch my soul. I was for the moment "down and out"; but I braced my spirits in the presence of this dominating man. I would show him how a Canadian soldier could bear misfortune. So I gathered myself together as best I could under the circ.u.mstances; swore just a little to ease my nervous strain, and replied: "That's a h.e.l.l of a thing to tell a guy."

Then came words that rolled a mighty load from heart and brain. Captain Towse praised my soldierly bearing under misfortune, and praise from this blind double V.C. meant much. He had been sorely smitten at a time when there was no St. Dunstan's, no Sir Arthur Pearson, to make his blindness into just a handicap, instead of what it nearly always was before the days of St. Dunstan's, an unparalleled affliction. But Captain Towse beat blindness, and did it, for the most part, alone.

Now the cruel fact had to be faced; the only world I would see henceforth would be that conjured up by the imagination from memories of the past. Then the difficulties of the future crowded upon me. Even if I were not to see as other people do I should still have to eat; and dinners do not grow by the roadside, and if they did I could not see to pick them up.

"Well, Jim," I said to myself, "you are in a fine fix; what are you going to do to get those three square meals a day that you were accustomed to in civil life?" Then I began to wonder what particular street and what street corner in old Toronto would be best suited for selling matches, bootlaces, pencils, and postcards. While in this vein, I conjured up visions of cold, grey days, days when customers did not appear, and imagined myself led home at night without having enough to buy even a meal. My humour suggested strolling along the roadside singing doleful songs. I even chose a song, "The Blind Boy," by the late W. G. Chirgwin, on which I might try my voice.

All this pa.s.sed through my mind while Captain Towse was still standing by my cot.

I was suddenly startled from my gruesome speculations by the captain asking me if I had made up my mind to go to St. Dunstan's. I had to confess that I did not know the place, where it was, or what it was for.

Then he told me that he wished to take down some particulars regarding me. He wanted to know my full name, regimental number, when I was. .h.i.t, where I received my wound, who was my next of kin, and many other particulars, all of which I, at that time, thought a most unnecessary and foolish proceeding.

While the Captain was questioning me, I heard a rapid, clicking sound following each of my answers. The noise fascinated me, and after a brief time I made bold to ask him what it was. The answer fairly staggered me.

"It's a Braille machine," he replied. "I am writing down your answers."

I knew he was blind--blinder than any bat; and, in my ignorance, I asked him, in an irritated voice, if he thought that it was fair to try "to kid" a man who had just been told that he would never again have the use of his eyes. He uttered no word, but I had a feeling that a smile was playing on his lips; and the next moment the machine he had been operating was placed in my hands. He then began patiently to explain its use, and what a moment before had seemed an utter impossibility I realized to be a fact. Although the blind could not see, they at least had it in their power to put down their thoughts without the aid of a second party; and, not only that, the world of knowledge was no longer a sealed book--they could read as well as write. The eye had been accustomed to carry the printed word to the brain; now the finger tips could take the place of eyes. I now recalled that I had seen a blind man sitting at a street corner, running his fingers over the pages of a big book; but I had paid no heed to it, thinking it merely a fake performance to gain sympathy from the public. I told this to Captain Towse, and he replied kindly that I should soon learn much greater things about the blind. At St. Dunstan's, he said, there were about three hundred men, all more or less sightless, making baskets, mats, hammocks, nets, bags, and dozens of other useful articles, mending boots, doing carpentry, learning the poultry business, fitting themselves for ma.s.sage work, and, what seemed to me most incredible, taking up stenography as an occupation.

[Ill.u.s.tration: The Boot-Repairing Workshop]

Men--men who could not see as did other men, were doing these things; straightway, the old street corner, the selling of matches and shoelaces, the street strolling singing in a cracked voice while tw.a.n.ging some tuneless instrument, vanished. Other men had risen above this crowning infirmity; why could not I. Boulogne and this meeting with Captain Towse had saved me. Gloom vanished, for the moment at any rate, and my whole being was animated by a great resolve--the resolve to win in the battle of life, even though I had to fight against fearful odds.

CHAPTER II

IN BLIGHTY

It was with a sense of relief that, shortly after this, I received word that I was to be sent to England. To me, it was the promised land, in which I was to be fitted to take my place as a useful, independent member of society. The trip to Dover was pleasant and exhilarating; the run to London a bit tedious. But an incident that occurred on my arrival at Charing Cross Station touched my heart as has nothing else in my life, and my misfortune seemed, for the moment, almost a blessing; it taught me that hearts beat right and true, and that about me were men and women eager to cheer me on as I played the game of life.

It was just one of London's flower-girls, one of the women who religiously meet the hospital trains and shower on the wounded soldiers the flowers they have not sold--flowers, no doubt, held back from sale in most cases for this charitable purpose. When the attendants were moving me from the train and placing me on a stretcher, I was gently touched, and a large bunch of roses placed in my hand. The act was accompanied by the words: "'Ere ye are, Tommy. These 'ere roses will 'elp to liven things up a bit when yer gets in the 'ospital. Good luck to you, matey; may yer soon get better." The voice was harsh and unmusical. Grammar and accent showed that it had been trained in the slums; but the kindly act, the sympathetic words, touched my soul.

The act was much to me, but the flowers were nothing. In answer to the girl's good wishes, I replied that I did not see as well as I used to, and that my power of enjoying the perfume of flowers had also been taken from me; perhaps there were some other wounded boys who could appreciate the beauty and scent of the flowers better than I could, and she had better put them on one of their stretchers. But she left them with me, and, in a voice in which I could detect a tear, said:--

"Well, matey, if yer can't see, yer can feel. Let's give yer a kiss."

I nodded a.s.sent, and then I received the first kiss from a woman's lips that I had had since I left home--and then she pa.s.sed away, but the memory of that kiss remains, and will remain while life lasts.

I was now taken to St. George's Hospital, and from there to No. 2 London General Hospital (old St. Mark's College), Chelsea. In this inst.i.tution I met for the first time one of the geniuses of the present age, a man who spent his life working not with clay or marble, or wood or metal, but with human beings, taking the derelicts of life and moulding them into useful vessels--Sir Arthur Pearson, a true miracle worker, a man who has given the equivalent of eyes to hundreds of blind people, who has enabled many men who felt themselves down and out to face life's battle bravely, teaching them to look upon their affliction as nothing more than a petty handicap. A few years ago, as everyone knows, Sir Arthur was one of the leading journalists and publishers in the British Empire, the true founder of Imperial journalism. At the summit of his career, while still a comparatively young man, he was smitten with blindness. He would not let a thing like that beat him; he conquered blindness, and set himself to help others to conquer it. He soon became the leading spirit in the education of the blind in Great Britain, and, despite his handicap, was elected President of the National Inst.i.tute for the Blind, and was the guiding star in many organizations established to aid the sightless. When war broke out his success as an organizer, his power as a teacher, caused the authorities to choose him to look after the blinded of the Army and Navy.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Sir Arthur Pearson]

My meeting with Sir Arthur occurred in the following manner. The ward door was open--I knew that by the gentle breeze that swept across my cot. Suddenly, from the direction of the door, a cheery voice exclaimed: "Are any new men here? Where's Rawlinson?"

I answered: "Right here, sir! But who are you?"

"Well, Rawlinson, and how are you getting along? When do they figure on letting you get away from here? You know, we are waiting for you at St.

Dunstan's."

I knew then that the man standing by my cot was the famous Sir Arthur. I shook hands with him, and thanked him for his kindly interest in asking about me. I offered him the chair that always stands beside the hospital bed. He must have heard me moving some objects I had placed on it, in order to have them within reach of my hands.

"Never mind the chair," he said. "Just sit up a bit; there is room enough on the bed for both of us. Have you got a cigarette to give a fellow?"

I apologized, saying that I had only ---- ----, and that I didn't think he would care to smoke them.

"Do you smoke them?" he questioned. "If they're good enough for you to smoke, they're good enough for me."

That set me right at my ease. I was in the presence of a knight; but he was first and last a _man_. Straight to the point he went. He never puts a man through that bugbear of the soldier, a host of seemingly inconsequential questions; he has the particulars of each man who is likely to come under his direction long before he visits him.

"Have you," he said, "made up your mind to join our happy band at St.

Dunstan's. There's lots of room up there for you, and we want you."

Just here I would remark that No. 2 General was a sort of preparatory school for St. Dunstan's. The adjutant from one of the St. Dunstan's establishments, either the House, College, or Bungalow, came to read the newspapers and talk with the men who were to study under him. So we had by this means picked up much information about Sir Arthur, and knew the man even before meeting him; but the being conjured up by our imagination fell far short of the real man. He did not come to your bedside commiserating with you over your misfortune. He was totally unlike the average visitor, whose one aim seemed to be to impress on you some appropriate--often most inappropriate, considering your condition--text of scripture. Well, he was with me, and we talked and smoked, the knight and the private soldier, both blind, but both completely ignoring the fact. During our talk darkness seemed to vanish, and I saw a great light--the battle could be won, and I would win it. After that conference, I knew full well that I should not be a burden upon anybody, sightless though I was.