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There are several inconsistencies in spelling and punctuation
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MY WAR EXPERIENCES IN TWO CONTINENTS
by
S. MACNAUGHTAN
Edited by Her Niece, Mrs. Lionel Salmon (Betty Keays-Young)
With a Portrait
[Illustration: Camera Portrait by E. O. Hoppé.]
London
John Murray, Albemarle Street, W.
1919
THIS BOOK IS DEDICATED,
IN ACCORDANCE WITH A WISH EXPRESSED BY
MISS MACNAUGHTAN BEFORE HER DEATH,
TO
THOSE WHO ARE FIGHTING AND
THOSE WHO HAVE FALLEN,
WITH ADMIRATION AND RESPECT,
AND TO
HER NEPHEWS,
CAPTAIN LIONEL SALMON, 1st Bn. the Welch Regt.
CAPTAIN HELIER PERCIVAL, M.C., 9th Bn. the Welch Regt.
CAPTAIN ALAN YOUNG, 2nd Bn. the Welch Regt.
CAPTAIN COLIN MACNAUGHTAN, 2nd Dragoon Guards.
LIEUTENANT RICHARD YOUNG, 9th Bn. the Welch Regt.
CONTENTS
PAGE
PREFACE ix
PART I
BELGIUM
CHAPTER I
ANTWERP 1
CHAPTER II
WITH DR. HECTOR MUNRO'S FLYING AMBULANCE CORPS 24
CHAPTER III
AT FURNES RAILWAY-STATION 60
CHAPTER IV
WORKING UNDER DIFFICULTIES 85
CHAPTER V
THE SPRING OFFENSIVE 111
CHAPTER VI
LAST DAYS IN FLANDERS 135
PART II
AT HOME
HOW THE MESSAGE WAS DELIVERED 159
PART III
RUSSIA AND THE PERSIAN FRONT
CHAPTER I
PETROGRAD 179
CHAPTER II
WAITING FOR WORK 204
CHAPTER III
SOME IMPRESSIONS OF TIFLIS AND ARMENIA 219
CHAPTER IV
ON THE PERSIAN FRONT 237
CHAPTER V
THE LAST JOURNEY 258
CONCLUSION 272
INDEX 281
PREFACE
In presenting these extracts from the diaries of my aunt, the late Miss
Macnaughtan, I feel it necessary to explain how they come to be
published, and the circumstances under which I have undertaken to edit
them.
After Miss Macnaughtan's death, her executors found among her papers a
great number of diaries. There were twenty-five closely written volumes,
which extended over a period of as many years, and formed an almost
complete record of every incident of her life during that time.
It is amazing that the journal was kept so regularly, as Miss
Macnaughtan suffered from writer's cramp, and the entries could only
have been written with great difficulty. Frequently a passage is begun
in the writing of her right, and finished in that of her left hand, and
I have seen her obliged to grasp her pencil in her clenched fist before
she was able to indite a line. In only one volume, however, do we find
that she availed herself of the services of her secretary to dictate the
entries and have them typed.
The executors found it extremely difficult to know how to deal with such
a vast mass of material. Miss Macnaughtan was a very reserved woman.{1}
She lived much alone, and the diary was her only confidante. In one of
her books she says that expression is the most insistent of human needs,
and that the inarticulate man or woman who finds no outlet in speech or
in the affections, will often keep a little locked volume in which self
can be safely revealed. Her diary occupied just such a place in her own
inner life, and for that reason one hesitates to submit its pages even
to the most loving and sympathetic scrutiny.
But Miss Macnaughtan's diary fulfilled a double purpose. She used it
largely as material for her books. Ideas for stories, fragments of plays
and novels, are sketched in on spare sheets, and the pages are full of
the original theories and ideas of a woman who never allowed anyone else
to do her thinking for her. A striking sermon or book may be criticised
or discussed, the pros and cons of some measure of social reform weighed
in the balance; and the actual daily chronicle of her busy life, of her
travels, her various experiences and adventures, makes a most
interesting and fascinating tale.
So much of the material was obviously intended to form the basis for an
autobiography that the executors came to the conclusion that it would be
a thousand pities to withhold it from the public, and at some future
date it is very much hoped to produce a complete life of Miss
Macnaughtan as narrated in her diaries. Meanwhile, however, the
publisher considers that Miss Macnaughtan's war experiences are of
immediate interest to her many friends and admirers, and I have been
asked to edit those volumes which refer to her work in Belgium, at
home, in Russia, and on the Persian front.
Except for an occasional word where the meaning was obscure, I have
added nothing to the diaries. I have, of course, omitted such passages
as appeared to be private or of family interest only; but otherwise I
have contented myself with a slight rearrangement of some of the
paragraphs, and I have inserted a few letters and extracts from letters,
which give a more interesting or detailed account of some incident than
is found in the corresponding entry in the diary. With these exceptions
the book is published as Miss Macnaughtan wrote it. I feel sure that her
own story of her experiences would lose much of its charm if I
interfered with it, and for this reason I have preserved the actual
diary form in which it was written.
To many readers of Miss Macnaughtan's books her diaries of the war may
come as a slight surprise. There is a note of depression and sadness,
and perhaps even of criticism, running through them, which is lacking in
all her earlier writings. I would remind people that this book is the
work of a dying woman; during the whole of the period covered by it, the
author was seriously ill, and the horror and misery of the war, and the
burden of a great deal of personal sorrow, have left their mark on her
account of her experiences.
I should like to thank those relations and friends of Miss Macnaughtan
who have allowed me to read and publish the letters incorporated in this
book, and I gratefully acknowledge the help and advice I have received
in my task from my mother, from my husband, and from Miss Hilda Powell,
Mr. Stenning, and Mr. R. Sommerville. I desire also to express my
gratitude to Mr. John Murray for many valuable hints and suggestions
about the book, and for the trouble he has so kindly taken to help me to
prepare it for the press.
BETTY SALMON.
ZILLEBEKE, WALTHAM ST. LAWRENCE,
TWYFORD, BERKSHIRE,
_October, 1918._
MY WAR EXPERIENCES IN TWO CONTINENTS
PART I
BELGIUM
CHAPTER I
ANTWERP
On September 20th, 1914, I left London for Antwerp. At the station I
found I had forgotten my passport and Mary had to tear back for it.
Great perturbation, but kept this dark from the rest of the staff, for
they are all rather serious and I am head of the orderlies. We got under
way at 4 a.m. next morning. All instantly began to be sick. I think I
was the worst and alarmed everybody within hearing distance. One more
voyage I hope--home--then dry land for me.
We arrived at Antwerp on the 22nd, twenty-four hours late. The British
Consul sent carriages, etc., to meet us. Drove to the large Philharmonic
Hall, which has been given us as a hospital. Immediately after breakfast
we began to unpack beds, etc., and our enormous store of medical things;
all feeling remarkably empty and queer, but put on heroic smiles and
worked like mad. Some of the staff is housed in a convent and the rest
in rooms over the Philharmonic Hall.
_23 September._--Began to get things into order and to allot each person
her task. Our unit consists of Mrs. St. Clair Stobart, its head; Doctors
Rose Turner, F. Stoney, Watts, Morris, Hanson and Ramsey (all women);
orderlies--me, Miss Randell (interpreter), Miss Perry, Dick, Stanley,
Benjamin, Godfrey,{2} Donnisthorpe, Cunliffe, and Mr. Glade. Everyone
very zealous and inclined to do anybody's work except their own. Keen
competition for everyone else's tools, brooms, dusters, etc. Great
roaming about. All mean well.
_25 September._--Forty wounded men were brought into our hospital
yesterday. Fortunately we had everything ready, but it took a bit of
doing. We are all dead tired, and not so keen as we were about doing
other people's work.
The wounded are not very bad, and have been sent on here from another
hospital. They are enchanted with their quarters, which indeed do look
uncommonly nice. One hundred and thirty beds are ranged in rows, and we
have a bright counterpane on each and clean sheets. The floor is
scrubbed, and the bathrooms, store, office, kitchens, and
receiving-rooms have been made out of nothing, and look splendid. I
never saw a hospital spring up like magic in this way before. There is a
wide verandah where the men play cards, and a garden to stump about in.
The gratitude of our patients is boundless, and they have presented Mrs.
Stobart with a beautiful basket of growing flowers. I do not think
Englishmen would have thought of such a thing. They say they never
tasted such cooking as ours outside Paris, and they are rioting in good
food, papers, nice beds, etc. Nearly all of them are able to get out a
little, so it is quite cheery nursing them. There is a lot to do, and we
all fly about in white caps. The keenest competition is for sweeping out
the ward with a long-handled hair brush!
[Page Heading: THE DEFENCES OF THE TOWN]
I went into the town to-day. It is very like every other foreign town,
with broad streets and tram-lines and shops and squares, but to-day I
had an interesting drive. I took a car and went out to the second line
of forts. The whole place was a mass of wire entanglements, mined at
every point, and the fields were studded with strong wooden spikes.
There were guns everywhere, and in one place a whole wood and a village
had been laid level with the ground to prevent the enemy taking cover.
We heard the sound of firing last night!
* * * * *
_To Mrs. Keays-Young._
RUE DE L'HARMONIE 68, ANTWERP,
_25 September._
DEAREST BABE,
It was delightful getting your letter. Our wounded are all French or
Belgians, but there is a bureau of enquiry in the town where I will go
to try to hear tidings of your poor friends.
We heard the guns firing last night, and fifty wounded were sent in
during the afternoon. In one day 2,500 wounded reached Antwerp. I can
write this sort of thing to-day as I know my letter will be all right.
To show you that the fighting is pretty near, two doctors went for a
short motor drive to-day and they found two wounded men. One was just
dying, the other they brought back in the car, but he died also. In the
town itself everything seems much as usual except for crowds of
refugees. Do not believe people when they say German barbarity is
exaggerated. It is hideously true.
We are fearfully busy, and it seems a queer side of war to cook and race
around and make doctors as comfortable as possible. We have a capital
staff, who are made up of zeal and muscle. I do not know how long it can
last. We breakfast at 7.30, which means that most of the orderlies are
up at 5.45 to prepare and do everything. The fare is very plain and
terribly wholesome, but hardly anyone grumbles. I am trying to get girls
to take two hours off duty in the day, but they won't do it.
Have you any friends who would send us a good big lot of nice jam? It is
for the staff. If you could send some cases of it at once to Miss Stear,
39, St. James's Street, London, and put my name on it, and say it is for
our hospital, she will bring it here herself with some other things.
Some of your country friends might like to help in a definite little way
like this.
Your loving
SARAH.
---- is going to England to-night and will take this.
* * * * *
_27 September._--Yesterday, when we were in the town, a German airship
flew overhead and dropped bombs. A lot of guns fired at it, but it was
too high up to hit. The incident caused some excitement in the streets.
[Page Heading: ARRIVAL OF WOUNDED]
Last night we heard that more wounded were coming in from the
fighting-line near Ghent. We got sixty more beds ready, and sat up late,
boiling water, sterilising instruments, preparing operating-tables and
beds, etc., etc. As it got later all the lights in the huge ward were
put out, and we went about with little torches amongst the sleeping men,
putting things in order and moving on tip-toe in the dark. Later we
heard that the wounded might not get in till Monday.
The work of this place goes on unceasingly. We all get on well, but I
have not got the communal spirit, and the fact of being a unit of women
is not the side of it that I find most interesting. The communal food is
my despair. I can _not_ eat it. All the same this is a fine experience,
and I hope we'll come well out of it. There is boundless opportunity,
and we are in luck to have a chance of doing our darndest.
_28 September._--Last night I and two orderlies slept over at the
hospital as more wounded were expected. At 11 p.m. word came that "les
blessés" were at the gate. Men were on duty with stretchers, and we went
out to the tram-way cars in which the wounded are brought from the
station, twelve patients in each. The transit is as little painful as
possible, and the stretchers are placed in iron brackets, and are
simply unhooked when the men arrive. Each stretcher was brought in and
laid on a bed in the ward, and the nurses and doctors undressed the men.
We orderlies took their names, their "matricule" or regimental number,
and the number of their bed. Then we gathered up their clothes and put
corresponding numbers on labels attached to them--first turning out the
pockets, which are filled with all manner of things, from tins of
sardines to loaded revolvers. They are all very pockety, but have to be
turned out before the clothes are sent to be baked.
We arranged everything, and then got Oxo for the men, many of whom had
had nothing to eat for two days. They are a nice-looking lot of men and
boys, with rather handsome faces and clear eyes. Their absolute
exhaustion is the most pathetic thing about them. They fall asleep even
when their wounds are being dressed. When all was made straight and
comfortable for them, the nurses turned the lights low again, and
stepped softly about the ward with their little torches.
A hundred beds all filled with men in pain give one plenty to think
about, and it is during sleep that their attitudes of suffering strike
one most. Some of them bury their heads in their pillows as shot
partridges seek to bury theirs amongst autumn leaves. Others lie very
stiff and straight, and all look very thin and haggard. I was struck by
the contrast between the pillared concert-hall where they lie, with its
platform of white paint and decorations, and the tragedy of suffering
which now fills it.
At 2 a.m. more soldiers were brought in from the battlefield, all caked
with dirt, and we began to work again. These last blinked oddly at the
concert-hall and nurses and doctors, but I think they do not question
anything much. They only want to go to sleep.
[Page Heading: A VISIT FROM SOME DESERTERS]
I suppose that women would always be tender-hearted towards deserters.
Three of them arrived at the hospital to-day with some absurd story
about having been told to report themselves. We got them supper and a
hot bath and put them to bed. One can't regret it. I never saw men sleep
as they did. All through the noise of the wounded being brought in, all
through the turned-up lights and bustle they never even stirred, but a
sergeant discovered them, and at 3 a.m. they were marched away again. We
got them breakfast and hot tea, and at least they had had a few hours
between clean sheets. These men seem to carry so much, and the roads are
heavy.
At 5 o'clock I went to bed and slept till 8. Mrs. Stobart never rests. I
think she must be made of some substance that the rest of us have not
discovered. At 5 a.m. I discovered her curled up on a bench in her
office, the doors wide open and the dawn breaking.
_2 October._--Here is a short account of one whole day. Firing went on
all night, sometimes it came so near that the vibration of it was rather
startling. In the early morning we heard that the forts had been heavily
fired on. One of them remained silent for a long time, and then the
garrison lighted cart-loads of straw in order to deceive the Germans,
who fell into the trap, thinking the fort was disabled and on fire, and
rushed in to take it. They were met with a furious cannonade. But one of
the other forts has fallen.
At 7 a.m. the men's bread had not arrived for their 6 o'clock breakfast,
so I went into the town to get it. The difficulty was to convey home
twenty-eight large loaves, so I went to the barracks and begged a
motor-car from the Belgian officer and came back triumphant. The
military cars simply rip through the streets, blowing their horns all
the time. Antwerp was thronged with these cars, and each one contained
soldiers. Sometimes one saw wounded in them lying on sacks stuffed with
straw.
I came down to breakfast half-an-hour late (8 o'clock) and we had our
usual fare--porridge, bread and margarine, and tea with tinned
milk--amazingly nasty, but quite wholesome and filling at the price. We
have reduced our housekeeping to ninepence per head per day. After
breakfast I cleaned the two houses, as I do every morning, made nine
beds, swept floors and dusted stairs, etc. When my rooms were done and
jugs filled, our nice little cook gave me a cup of soup in the kitchen,
as she generally does, and I went over to the hospital to help prepare
the men's dinner, my task to-day being to open bottles and pour out beer
for a hundred and twenty men; then, when the meat was served, to procure
from the kitchen and serve out gravy. Our own dinner is at 12.30.
Afterwards I went across to the hospital again and arranged a few
things with Mrs. Stobart. I began to correct the men's diagnosis sheets,
but was called off to help with wounded arriving, and to label and sort
their clothes. Just then the British Minister, Sir Francis Villiers, and
the Surgeon-General, Sir Cecil Herslet, came in to see the hospital, and
we proceeded to show them round, when the sound of firing began quite
close to us and we rushed out into the garden.
[Page Heading: A TAUBE OVERHEAD]
From out the blue, clear autumn sky came a great grey dove flying
serenely overhead. This was a German aeroplane of the class called the
Taube (dove). These aeroplanes are quite beautiful in design, and fly
with amazing rapidity. This one wafted over our hospital with all the
grace of a living creature "calm in the consciousness of wings," and
then, of course, we let fly at it. From all round us shells were sent up
into the vast blue of the sky, and still the grey dove went on in its
gentle-looking flight. Whoever was in it must have been a brave man! All
round him shells were flying--one touch and he must have dropped. The
smoke from the burst shells looked like little white clouds in the sky
as the dove sailed away into the blue again and was seen no more.
We returned to our work in hospital. The men's supper is at six o'clock,
and we began cutting up their bread-and-butter and cheese and filling
their bowls of beer. When that was over and visitors were going, an
order came for thirty patients to proceed to Ostend and make room for
worse cases. We were sorry to say good-bye to them, especially to a nice
fellow whom we call Alfred because he can speak English, and to Sunny
Jim, who positively refused to leave.
Poor boys! With each batch of the wounded, disabled creatures who are
carried in, one feels inclined to repeat in wonder, "Can one man be
responsible for all this? Is it for one man's lunatic vanity that men
are putting lumps of lead into each other's hearts and lungs, and boys
are lying with their heads blown off, or with their insides beside them
on the ground?" Yet there is a splendid freedom about being in the midst
of death--a certain glory in it, which one can't explain.
A piece of shell fell through the roof of the hospital to-day--evidently
a part of one that had been fired at the Taube. It fell close beside the
bed of one of our wounded, and he went as white as a ghost. It must be
pretty bad to be powerless and have shells falling around. The doctors
tell me that nothing moves them so much as the terror of the men. Their
nerves are simply shattered, and everything frightens them. Rather late
a man was brought in from the forts, terribly wounded. He was the only
survivor of twelve comrades who stood together, and a shell fell amongst
them, killing all but this man.
At seven o'clock we moved all the furniture from Mrs. Stobart's office
to the dispensary, where she will have more room, and the day's work was
then over and night work began for some. The Germans have destroyed the
reservoir and the water-supply has been cut off, so we have to go and
fetch all the water in buckets from a well. After supper we go with our
pails and carry it home. The shortage for washing, cleaning, etc., is
rather inconvenient, and adds to the danger in a large hospital, and to
the risk of typhoid.
[Page Heading: ORDERS TO EVACUATE THE HOSPITAL]
_4 October._--Yesterday our work was hardly over when Mrs. Stobart sent
a summons to all of us "heads" to come to her bureau. She had grave news
for us. The British Consul had just been to say that all the English
must leave Antwerp; two forts had fallen, and the Germans were hourly
expected to begin shelling the town. We were told that all the wounded
who could travel were to go to Ostend, and the worst cases were to be
transferred to the Military Hospital.
I do not think it would be easy to describe the confusion that followed.
All the men's clothes had to be found, and they had to be got into them,
and woe betide if a little cap or old candle was missing! All wanted
serving at once; all wanted food before starting. In the midst of the
general mêlée I shall always remember one girl, silently, quickly, and
ceaselessly slicing bread with a loaf pressed to her waist, and handing
it across the counter to the men.
With one or two exceptions the staff all wanted to remain in Antwerp. I
myself decided to abandon the unit and stay on here as an individual or
go to Ostend with the men. Mrs. Stobart, being responsible, had to take
the unit home. It was a case of leaving immediately; we packed what
stores we could, but the beds and X-ray apparatus and all our material
equipment would have to be left to the Germans. I think all felt as
though they were running away, but it was a military order, and the
Consul, the British Minister, and the King and Queen were leaving. We
went to eat lunch together, and as we were doing so Mrs. Stobart brought
the news that the Consul had come to say that reinforcements had come
up, the situation changed for the better, and for the present we might
remain. Anyone who wanted to leave might do so, but only four did.
We have since heard what happened. The British Minister cabled home to
say that Antwerp was the key to the whole situation and must not fall,
as once in here the Germans would be strongly entrenched, supplied with
provisions, ammunition, and everything they want. A Cabinet Council was
held at 3 a.m. in London, and reinforcements were ordered up. Winston
Churchill is here with Marines. They say Colonel Kitchener is at the
forts.
The firing sounds very near. Dr. Hector Munro and Miss St. Clair and
Lady Dorothy Fielding came over to-day from Ghent, where all is quiet.
They wanted me to return with them to take a rest, which was absurd, of
course.
Some fearful cases were brought in to us to-day. My God, the horror of
it! One has heard of men whom their mothers would not recognise. Some of
the wounded to-day were amongst these. All the morning we did what we
could for them. One man was riddled with bullets, and died very soon.
It is awful work. The great bell rings, and we say, "More wounded," and
the men get stretchers. We go down the long, cold covered way to the
gate and number the men for their different beds. The stretchers are
stiff with blood, and the clothes have to be cut off the men. They cry
out terribly, and their _horror_ is so painful to witness. They are so
young, and they have seen right into hell. The first dressings are
removed by the doctors--sometimes there is only a lump of cotton-wool to
fill up a hole--and the men lie there with their tragic eyes fixed upon
one. All day a nurse has sat by a man who has been shot through the
lungs. Each breath is painful; it does not bear writing about. The pity
of it all just breaks one's heart. But I suppose we do not see nearly
the worst of the wounded.
The lights are all off at eight o'clock now, and we do our work in the
dark, while the orderlies hold little torches to enable the doctors to
dress the wounds. There are not _half_ enough nurses or doctors out
here. In one hospital there are 400 beds and only two trained nurses.
[Page Heading: ARRIVAL OF BRITISH TROOPS]
Some of our own troops came through the town in London omnibuses to-day.
It was quite a Moment, and we felt that all was well. We went to the
gate and shook hands with them as they passed, and they made jokes and
did us all good. We cheered and waved handkerchiefs.
_5-6 October._--I think the last two days have been the most ghastly I
ever remember. Every day seems to bring news of defeat. It is awful, and
the Germans are quite close now. As I write the house shakes with the
firing. Our troops are falling back, and the forts have fallen. Last
night we took provisions and water to the cellars, and made plans to get
the wounded taken there.
They say the town will be shelled to-morrow. All these last two days
bleeding men have been brought in. To-day three of them died, and I
suppose none of them was more than 23. We have to keep up all the time
and show a good face, and meals are quite cheery. To-day, Tuesday, was
our last chance of leaving, and only two went.
The guns boom by day as well as by night, and as each one is heard one
thinks of more bleeding, shattered men. It is calm, nice autumn weather;
the trees are yellow in the garden and the sky is blue, yet all the time
one listens to the cries of men in pain. To-night I meant to go out for
a little, but a nurse stopped me and asked me to sit by a dying man.
Poor fellow, he was twenty-one, and looked like some brigand chief, and
he smiled as he was dying. The horror of these two days will last
always, and there are many more such days to come. Everyone is behaving
well, and that is all I care about.
_7 October._--It is a glorious morning: they will see well to kill each
other to-day.
The guns go all day and all night. They are so close that the earth
shakes with them. Last night in the infernal darkness we were turning
wounded men away from the door. There was no room for them even on the
floor. The Belgians scream terribly. Our own men suffer quite quietly.
One of them died to-day.
Day and night a stream of vehicles passes the gate. It never ceases.
Nearly all are motors, driven at a furious pace, and they sound horns
all the time. These are met by a stream of carts and old-fashioned
vehicles bringing in country people, who are flying to the coast. In
Antwerp to-day it was "sauve qui peut"! Nearly all the men are
going--Mr. ----, who has helped us, and Mr. ----, they are going to
bicycle into Holland. A surgeon (Belgian) has fled from his hospital,
leaving seven hundred beds, and there seem to be a great many deserters
from the trenches.
[Page Heading: THE SITUATION GETS WORSE]
The news is still the same--"very bad"; sometimes I walk to the gate and
ask returning soldiers how the battle goes, but the answer never varies.
At lunch-time to-day firing ceased, and I heard it was because the
German guns were coming up. We got orders to send away all the wounded
who could possibly go, and we prepared beds in the cellars for those who
cannot be moved. The military authorities beg us to remain as so many
hospitals have been evacuated.
The wounded continue to come in. One sees one car in the endless stream
moving slowly (most of them _fly_ with their officers sitting upright,
or with aeroplanes on long carriages), and one knows by the pace that
more wounded are coming. Inside one sees the horrible six shelves behind
the canvas curtain, and here and there a bound-up limb or head. One of
our men had his leg taken off to-day, and is doing well. Nothing goes on
much behind the scenes. The yells of the men are plainly heard, and
to-day, as I sat beside the lung man who was taking so long to die,
someone brought a sack to me, and said, "This is for the leg." All the
orderlies are on duty in the hospital now. We can spare no one for
rougher work. We can all bandage and wash patients. There are wounded
everywhere, even on straw beds on the platform of the hall.
Darkness seems to fall early, and it is the darkness that is so
baffling. At 5 p.m. we have to feed everyone while there is a little
light, then the groping about begins, and everyone falls over things.
There is a clatter of basins on the floor or an over-turned chair. Any
sudden noise is rather trying at present because of the booming of the
guns. At 7 last night they were much louder than before, with a sort of
strange double sound, and we were told that these were our "Long Toms,"
so we hope that our Naval Brigade has come up.
We know very little of what is going on except when we run out and ask
some returning English soldiers for news. Yesterday it was always the
same reply "Very bad." One of the Marines told me that Winston Churchill
was "up and down the road amongst the shells," and I was also told that
he had given orders that Antwerp was not to be taken till the last man
in it was dead.
The Marines are getting horribly knocked about. Yesterday Mrs. O'Gormon
went out in her own motor-car and picked wounded out of the trenches.
She said that no one knew why they were in the trenches or where they
were to fire--they just lay there and were shot and then left.
[Page Heading: HOW WE KEPT UP OUR COURAGE]
I think I have seen too much pain lately. At Walworth one saw women
every day in utter pain, and now one lives in an atmosphere of bandages
and blood. I asked some of the orderlies to-day what it was that
supported them most at a crisis of this sort. The answers varied, and
were interesting. I myself am surprised to find that religion is not my
best support. When I go into the little chapel to pray it is all too
tender, the divine Mother and the Child and the holy atmosphere. I begin
to feel rather sorry for myself, I don't know why; then I go and move
beds and feel better; but I have found that just to behave like a
well-bred woman is what keeps me up best. I had thought that the Flag or
Religion would have been stronger incentives to me.
Our own soldiers seem to find self-respect their best asset. It is
amazing to see the difference between them and the Belgians, who are
terribly poor hands at bearing pain, and beg for morphia all the time.
An officer to-day had to have a loose tooth out. He insisted on having
cocaine, and then begged the doctor to be careful!
The firing now is furious--sometimes there are five or six explosions
almost simultaneously. I suppose we shall read in the _Times_ that "all
is quiet," and in _Le Matin_ that "pour le reste tout est calme."
The staff are doing well. They are generally too busy to be frightened,
but one has to speak once or twice to them before they hear.
On Wednesday night, the 7th October, we heard that one more ship was
going to England, and a last chance was given to us all to leave. Only
two did so; the rest stayed on. Mrs. Stobart went out to see what was to
be done. The ---- Consul said that we were under his protection, and
that if the Germans entered the town he would see that we were treated
properly. We had a deliberately cheerful supper, and afterwards a man
called Smits came in and told us that the Germans had been driven back
fifteen kilometres. I myself did not believe this, but we went to bed,
and even took off our clothes.
At midnight the first shell came over us with a shriek, and I went down
and woke the orderlies and nurses and doctors. We dressed and went over
to help move the wounded at the hospital. The shells began to scream
overhead; it was a bright moonlight night, and we walked without
haste--a small body of women--across the road to the hospital. Here we
found the wounded all yelling like mad things, thinking they were going
to be left behind. The lung man has died.
Nearly all the moving to the cellars had already been done--only three
stretchers remained to be moved. One wounded English sergeant helped us.
Otherwise everything was done by women. We laid the men on mattresses
which we fetched from the hospital overhead, and then Mrs. Stobart's
mild, quiet voice said, "Everything is to go on as usual. The night
nurses and orderlies will take their places. Breakfast will be at the
usual hour." She and the other ladies whose night it was to sleep at the
convent then returned to sleep in the basement with a Sister.
[Page Heading: THE BOMBARDMENT]
We came in for some most severe shelling at first, either because we
flew the Red Cross flag or because we were in the line of fire with a
powder magazine which the Germans wished to destroy. We sat in the
cellars with one night-light burning in each, and with seventy wounded
men to take care of. Two of them were dying. There was only one line of
bricks between us and the shells. One shell fell into the garden, making
a hole six feet deep; the next crashed through a house on the opposite
side of the road and set it on fire. The danger was two-fold, for we
knew our hospital, which was a cardboard sort of thing, would ignite
like matchwood, and if it fell we should not be able to get out of the
cellars. Some people on our staff were much against our making use of a
cellar at all for this reason. I myself felt it was the safest place,
and as long as we stayed with the wounded they minded nothing. We sat
there all night.
The English sergeant said that at daybreak the firing would probably
cease, as the German guns stopped when daylight came in order to conceal
the guns. We just waited for daybreak. When it came the firing grew
worse. The sergeant said, "It is always worse just before they stop,"
but the firing did not stop. Two hundred guns were turned on Antwerp,
and the shells came over at the rate of four a minute. They have a
horrid screaming sound as they come. We heard each one coming and
wondered if it would hit us, and then we heard the crashing somewhere
else and knew another shell was coming.
The worst cases among the wounded lay on the floor, and these wanted
constant attention. The others were in their great-coats, and stood
about the cellar leaning on crutches and sticks. We wrapped blankets
round the rheumatism cases and sat through the long night. Sometimes
when we heard a crash near by we asked "Is that the convent?" but
nothing else was said. All spoke cheerfully, and there was some laughter
in the further cellar. One little red-haired nurse enjoyed the whole
thing. I saw her carry three wounded men in succession on her back down
to the cellar. I found myself wishing that for me a shot would come and
finish the horrible night. Still we all chatted and smiled and made
little jokes. Once during that long night in the cellar I heard one
wounded man say to another as he rolled himself round on his mattress,
"Que les anglais sont comme il faut."
At six o'clock the convent party came over and began to prepare
breakfast. The least wounded of the men began to steal away, and we were
left with between thirty and forty of them. The difficulty was to know
how to get away and how to remove the wounded, two of whom were nearly
dead. Miss Benjamin went and stood at the gate, while the shells still
flew, and picked up an ambulance. In this we got away six men, including
the two dying ones. Mrs. Stobart was walking about for three hours
trying to find anything on wheels to remove us and the wounded. At last
we got a motor ambulance, and packed in twenty men--that was all it
would hold. We told them to go as far as the bridge and send it back for
us. It never came. Nothing seemed to come.
The ---- Vice-Consul had told us we were under his protection, and he
would, as a neutral, march out to meet the Germans and give us
protection. But when we enquired we heard he had bolted without telling
us. The next to give us protection was the ---- Field Hospital, who said
they had a ship in the river and would not move without us. But they
also left and said nothing.
We got dinner for the men, and then the strain began to be much worse.
We had seven wounded and ourselves and not a thing in which to get out
of Antwerp. I told Mrs. Stobart we must leave the wounded at the convent
in charge of the Sisters, and this we did, telling them where to take
them in the morning. The gay young nurses fetched them across on
stretchers.
[Page Heading: FLIGHT]
About 5 o'clock the shelling became more violent, and three shells came
with only an instant between each. Presently we heard Mrs. Stobart say,
"Come at once," and we went out and found three English buses with
English drivers at the door. They were carrying ammunition, and were the
last vehicles to leave Antwerp. We got into them and lay on the top of
the ammunition, and the girls began to light cigarettes! The noise of
the buses prevented our hearing for a time the infernal sound of shells
and our cannons' answering roar.
As we drove to the bridge many houses and sometimes a whole street was
burning. No one seemed to care. No one was there to try and save
anything. We drove through the empty streets and saw the burning houses,
and great holes where shells had fallen, and then we got to the bridge
and out of the line of fire.
We set out to walk towards Holland, but a Belgian officer got us some
Red Cross ambulances, and into these we got, and were taken to a
convent at St. Gilles, where we slept on the floor till 3 a.m. At 3 a
message was brought, "Get up at once--things are worse." Everyone seemed
to be leaving, and we got into the Red Cross ambulances and went to the
station.
_9 October._--We have been all day in the train in very hard third-class
carriages with the R.M.L.I. The journey of fifty miles took from 5
o'clock in the morning, when we got away, till 12 o'clock at night, when
we reached Ostend. The train hardly crawled. It was the longest I have
ever seen. All Ostend was in darkness when we arrived--a German airship
having been seen overhead. We always seem to be tumbling about in the
dark. We went from one hotel to another trying to get accommodation, and
at last (at the St. James's) they allowed us to lie on the floor of the
restaurant. The only food they had for us was ten eggs for twenty-five
hungry people and some brown bread, but they had champagne at the house,
and I ordered it for everybody, and we made little speeches and tried to
end on a good note.
_10 October._--Mrs. Stobart took the unit back to England to-day. The
wounded were found in a little house which the Red Cross had made over
to them, and Dr. Ramsey, Sister Bailey, and the two nurses had much to
say about their perilous journey. One man had died on the road, but the
others all looked well. Their joy at seeing us was pathetic, and there
was a great deal of handshaking over our meeting.
[Page Heading: THE UNIT RETURNS TO ENGLAND]
Miss Donnisthorpe and I got decent rooms at the Littoral Hotel, and
brought our luggage there, and had baths, which we much needed. Dr.
Hanson had got out of the train at Bruges to bandage a wounded man, and
she was left behind, and is still lost. I suppose she has gone home. She
is the doctor I like best, and she is one of the few whose nerves are
not shattered. It was a sorry little party which Mrs. Stobart took back
to England.