enough to eat; it is not made on festivals, nor on the day after a
festival. I can honestly say we hardly ever see one.
With much fear and trembling I have bought a motor-car. No work seems
possible without it. The price is heavy, but everyone says I shall be
able to get it back when I leave. All the same I shake in my shoes--a
chauffeur, tyres, petrol, mean money all the time. One can't stop
spending out here. It is like some fate from which one can't escape.
Still the car is bought, and I suppose now I shall get work.
[Page Heading: DIFFICULTIES]
We are all in the same boat. Mrs. Wynne has waited for her ambulances
for three months, and I hear that even the Anglo-Russian hospital, with
every name from Queen Alexandra's downwards on the list of its patrons,
is in "one long difficulty." It is Russia, and nothing but Russia, that
breaks us all. Everything is promised, nothing is done. The only _hope_
of getting a move on is by bribery, and one may bribe the wrong people
till one finds one's way about.
_13 January._--The car took us up the Kajour road, and behaved well; but
the chauffeur drove us into a bridge on the way down, and had to be
dismissed. Tried to go to Erivan, but the new chauffeur mistook the
road, so we had to return to Tiflis. N.B.--Another holiday was coming
on, and he wanted to be at home. _I actually used to like difficulties!_
_15 January._--Started again for Erivan. All went well, and we had a
lovely drive till about 6 p.m. The dusk was gathering and we were up in
the hills, when "bang!" went something, and nothing on earth would make
the car move. We unscrewed nuts, we lighted matches, we got out the
"jack," but we could not discover what was wrong. So where were we to
spend the night?
In a fold of the grey hills was a little grey village--just a few huts
belonging to Mahomedan shepherds, but there was nothing for it but to
ask them for shelter. Fortunately, Dr. Wilson knew the language, and he
persuaded the "head man" to turn out for us. His family consisted of
about sixteen persons, all sleeping on the floor. They gave us the
clay-daubed little place, and fortunately it contained a stove, but
nothing else. The snow was all round us, but we made up the fire and got
some tea, which we carried with us, and finally slept in the little
place while the chauffeur guarded the car.
In the morning nothing would make the car budge an inch, and, seeing our
difficulty, the Mahomedans made us pay a good deal for horses to tow the
thing to the next village, where we heard there was a blacksmith. We
followed in a hay-cart. We got to a Malokand settlement about 5 o'clock,
and found ourselves in an extraordinarily pretty little village, and
were given shelter in the very cleanest house I ever saw. The woman was
a perfect treasure, and made us soup and gave us clean beds, and honey
for breakfast. The chauffeur found that our shaft was broken, and the
whole piece had to go back to Tiflis.
It was a real blow, our trip knocked on the head again, and now how were
we to get on? The railway was 48 versts away, and the railway had to be
reached. We hired one of those painful little carts, which are made of
rough poles on wheels, and, clinging on by our eyelids, we drove as far
as an Armenian village, where a snowstorm came on, and we took shelter
with a "well-to-do" Armenian family, who gave us lunch and displayed
their wool-work and were very friendly. From there we got into another
"deelyjahns" of the painful variety, and jolted off for about 25 miles,
till, as night fell, we struck the railway, and were given two wooden
benches to sleep on in a small waiting-room. People came and went all
night, and we slept with one eye open till 2 a.m., when the chauffeur
took a train to Tiflis. We sat up till 6 a.m., when the train, two hours
late, started for Erivan, where we arrived pretty well "cooked" at 11
p.m.
[Page Heading: ERIVAN]
_Erivan. 20 January._--Last night's experiences were certainly very
"Russian." We had wired for rooms, but although the message had been
received nothing was prepared. The miserable rooms were an inch thick in
dust, there were no fires, and no sheets on the beds! We went to a
restaurant--fortunately no Russian goes to bed early--and found the
queerest place, empty save for a band and a lady. The lady and the band
were having supper. She, poor soul, was painted and dyed, but she
offered her services to translate my French for me when the waiters
could understand nothing but Russian. I was thankful to eat something
and go to bed under my fur coat.
To-day we have been busy seeing the Armenian refugees. There are 17,000
of them in this city of 30,000 inhabitants. We went from one place to
another, and always one saw the same things and heard the same tales.
Since the war broke out I think I have seen the actual breaking of the
wave of anguish which has swept over the world (I often wonder if I can
"feel" much more!). There was Dunkirk and its shambles, there was ruined
Belgium, and there was, above all, the field hospital at Furnes, with
its horrible courtyard, the burning heap of bandages, and the mattresses
set on edge to drip the blood off them and then laid on some bed again.
I can never forget it. I was helping a nurse once, and all the time I
was sitting on a dead man and never knew it!
And now I am hearing of one million Armenians slaughtered in cold blood.
The pitiful women in the shelters were saying, "We are safe because we
are old and ugly; all the young ones went to the harems." Nearly all the
men were massacred. The surplus children and unwanted women were put
into houses and burned alive. Everywhere one heard, "We were 4,000 in
one village, and only 143 escaped;" "There were 30 of us, and now only a
few children remain;" "All the men are killed." These were things one
saw for oneself, heard for oneself. There was nothing sensational in the
way the women told their stories.
Russia does what she can in the way of "relief." She gives 4-1/2 Rs. per
month to each person. This gives them bread, and there might be fires,
for stoves are there, but no one seems to have the gumption to put them
up. Here and there men and women are sleeping on valuable rugs, which
look strange in the bare shelters. Most of the women knitted, and some
wove on little "fegir" looms. The dullness of their existence matches
the tragedy of it. The food is so plain that it doesn't want
cooking--being mostly bread and water; but sometimes a few rags are
washed, and there is an attempt to try and keep warm. Yet I have heard
an English officer say that nothing pleases a Russian more than to ask,
"When is there to be another Armenian massacre?"
The Armenians are hated. I wonder Christ doesn't do more for them
considering they were the first nation in the world to embrace
Christianity; but then, one wonders about so many things during this
war. Oh, if we could stamp out the madness that seems to accompany
religion, and just live sober, kind, sensible lives, how good it would
be; but the Turks must burn women and children, alive, because, poor
souls, they think one thing and the Turks think another! And men and
women are hating and killing each other because Christ, says one, had a
nature both human and divine, and, says another, the two were merged in
one. And a third says that Christ was equal to the Father, while a whole
Church separated itself on the question of Sabellianism, or "The
Procession of the Son."
Poor Christ, once crucified, and now dismembered by your own disciples,
are you glad you came to earth, or do you still think God forsook you,
and did you, too, die an unbeliever? The crucifixion will never be
understood until men know that its worst agony consisted in the
disbelief which first of all doubts God and then must, by all reason,
doubt itself. The resurrection comes when we discover that we are God
and He is us.
[Page Heading: ETCHMIADZIN]
_21 January._--To-day, I drove out to Etchmiadzin with Mr. Lazarienne,
an Armenian, to see that curious little place. It is the ecclesiastical
city of Armenia--its little Rome, where the Catholicus lives. He was
ill, but a charming Bishop--Wardepett by name--with a flowing brown
beard and long black silk hood, made us welcome and gave us lunch, and
then showed us the hospital--which had no open windows, and smelt
horrible--and the lovely little third-century "temple." Then he took us
round the strange, quiet little place, with its peaceful park and its
three old brown churches, which mark what must once have been a great
city and the first seat of a national Christianity. Now there are
perhaps 300 inhabitants, but Mount Ararat dominates it, and Mount Ararat
is not a hill. It is a great white jewel set up against a sheet of
dazzling blue.
Hills and ships always seem to me to be alive, and I think they have a
personality of their own. Ararat stands for the unassailable. It is like
some great fact, such as that what is beautiful must be true. It is
grand and pure and lovely, and when the sun sets it is more than this,
for then its top is one sheet of rose, and it melts into a mystic hill,
and one knows that whatever else may "go to Heaven" Ararat goes there
every night.
We visited the old Persian palace built on the river's cliff, and looked
out over the gardens to the hills beyond, and saw the mosque, with its
blue roof against the blue sky, and its wonderful covering of old tiles,
which drop like leaves and are left to crumble.
_Tiflis. 24 January._--I left Erivan on Sunday, January 23rd. It was
cold and sharp, and the train was crowded. People were standing all down
the corridors, as usual. Nothing goes quicker than eight miles an hour,
nothing is punctual, nothing arrives. The stations are filthy, and the
food is quite uneatable. I often despair of this country, and if the
Russians were not our Allies I should feel inclined to say that nothing
would do them so much good as a year or two of German conquest. No one,
after the first six months, has been enthusiastic over the war, and the
soldiers want to get home. One young officer, 26 years old, has been
loafing in Tiflis for six months, and has at last been arrested. Another
took his ticket on eight successive nights to leave the place and never
moved. At last he was locked in his room, and a motor-car ordered to
take him to the station. He got into it, and was not heard of for three
days, when his wife appeared, and found her husband somewhere in the
town.
Mrs. Wynne and Mr. Bevan have gone on ahead to Baku, but I must wait for
my damaged car. A young officer in this hotel shot himself dead this
morning. No one seems to mind much.
[Page Heading: RUSSIAN SOCIETY]
_25 January._--Last night I was invited to play bridge by one of the
richest women in Russia. Her room was just a converted bedroom, with a
dirty wall-paper. The packs of cards were such as one might see
railway-men playing with in a lamp-room. Our stakes were a few kopeks,
and the refreshments consisted of one tepid cup of tea, without either
milk or lemon, and not a biscuit to eat. We all sat with shawls on, as
our hostess said it wasn't worth while to light a fire so late at night.
A nice little Princess Musaloff and Prince Napoleon Murat played with
me. We were rich in titles, but our shoulders were cold.
I have not seen a single nice or even comfortable room since I left
England, and although some women dress well, and have pretty
cigarette-boxes from the renowned Faberjé, other things about them are
all wrong. The furniture in their rooms is covered with plush, and the
ornaments (to me) suggest a head-gardener's house at home with "an
enlargement of mother" over the mantelpiece; or a Clapham drawing-room,
furnished during some happy year when cotton rose, or copper was
cornered. In this hotel the carpets are in holes in the passages, and
there are few servants; but I don't fancy that the people here notice
things very much.
I went to see Mme. ---- one day in her new house. The rooms were large
and handsome. There was a picture of a cow at one end of the
drawing-room, and a mirror framed in plush at the other!
I must draw a "character" one day of the very charming woman who is
absolutely indifferent to people's feelings. The fact that some humble
soul has prepared something for her, or that a sacrifice has been made,
or that one kind speech would satisfy, does not occur to her. These are
the people who chuck engagements when they get better invitations, and
always I seem to see them with expensive little bags and chains and
Faberjé enamels. Men will slave for such women--will carry things for
them, and serve them. They have "success" until they are quite old, and
after they have taken to rouge and paint. A tired woman hardly ever gets
anything carried for her.
_26 January._--A day's march nearer home! This is the Feast of St. Nina.
There is always a feast or a fête here. People walk about the streets,
they give each other rich cakes, and work a little less than usual.
This hotel still keeps its cripples. Prince Murat sits on his little
chair on the landing. Prince Tschelikoff has his heart all wrong; there
is the man with one leg.
Now Mlle. Lepnakoff, the singer, Musaloff, in his red coat, and some
heavy Generals are here. We have the same food every day.
[Page Heading: ENFORCED IDLENESS]
Perhaps I was pretty near having a breakdown when I came abroad, and the
enforced idleness of this life may have been Providential (all my hair
was falling out, and my eyes were very bad, and the war was wearing me
down rather); but to sit in an hotel bedroom or to potter over trifles
in sitting-rooms seems a poor sort of way of passing one's time. To rest
has always seemed to me very hard work. I can't even go to bed without a
pile of papers beside me to work at during the night or in the early
morning!
When the power of writing leaves me, as it does fitfully and without
warning, I have a feeling of loneliness, which helps to convince me of
what I have always felt, that this power comes from outside, and can
only be explained psychically. I asked a great writer once if he ever
experienced the feeling I had of being "left," and he told me that
sometimes during the time of desolation he had seriously contemplated
suicide.
_30 January._--I got a telephone message from Mr. Bevan last night. He
says Baku is too horrible, and there is no news of the cars. People are
telling me now that if instead of cars we had given money, we should
have been fêted and decorated and extolled to the skies; but then, where
would the money have gone? Last week the two richest Armenian merchants
in this town were arrested for cheating the soldiers out of thousands of
yards of stuff for their coats. A Government official could easily be
found to say that the cloth had been received, and meanwhile what has
the soldier to cover him in the trenches?
Armenians are certainly an odious set of people, and their ingratitude
is equalled by their meanness and greed. Mr. Hills, who is doing the
Armenian relief work here, pays all his own expenses, and he can't get a
truck to take his things to the refugees without paying for it, while he
is often asked the question, "Why can't you leave these things alone?"
Now that Mrs. Wynne has left I am asked the same question about her.
Russia can "break" one very successfully.
The weather has turned cold, and there is tearing wind and snow.
_1 February._--"No," says I to myself, in a supremely virtuous manner,
"I shall not be beaten by this enervating existence here. I'll do
_something_--if it's only sewing a seam."
So out came needles and cotton and mending and hemming, but, would it be
believed, I am afflicted with two "doigts blancs" (festered fingers),
and have to wear bandages, which prevent my doing even the mildest seam.
Oddly enough, this "maladie" is a sort of epidemic here. The fact is,
the dust is full of microbes, and no one is too well nourished.
[Page Heading: SOME "MALADES IMAGINAIRES"]
I am rather amused by those brave strong people who "don't make a fuss
about their health." One hears from them almost daily that their
temperature has gone up to 103°; "but it's nothing," they say
heroically, "or if it is, it's only typhoid, and who cares for a little
typhoid?" Does a head ache, there is "something very queer about it,
but"--pushing back hair from hot brow--"no one is to worry about it. It
will be better to-morrow; or if it really is going to be fever, we must
just try to make the best of it." A sty in the eye is cataract, "but
lots of blind people are very happy;" and a bilious attack is generally
that mysterious, oft-recurring and interesting complaint "camp fever."
Cheer up, no one is to be discouraged if the worst happens! A
thermometer is produced and shaken and applied. The temperature is too
low now; it is probably only typhus, and we mean to be brave and get up.
_3 February._--Last night we played bridge. All the princes and
princesses moistened their thumbs before dealing, and no one is above
using a "crachoir" on the staircase! Oh for one hour of England! In all
my travels I have only found one foreign race which seemed to me to be
well-bred (as I understand it), and that is the native of India. The
very best French people come next; and the Spaniard knows how to bow,
but he clears his throat in an objectionable manner. None of them have
been licked! That is the trouble. An Eton boy of fifteen could give them
all points, and beat them with his hands in his pockets.
I am quite sure that the British nation is really superior to all
others. Ours is the only well-bred race, and the only generous or
hospitable nation. Fancy a foreigner keeping "open house"! Here the
entertainment is a glass of thickened tea, and the stove is frequently
not lighted even on a chilly evening. Since I have been in Russia I have
had nothing better or more substantial given to me (by the Russians)
than a piece of cake, except by the Grand Duke. We brought heaps of
letters of introduction, and people called, but that is all, or else
they gave an "evening" with the very lightest refreshments I have ever
seen. Someone plays badly on the piano, there is a little bridge, and a
samovar!
_6 February._--The queer epidemic of "gathered fingers" continues here.
Having two I am in the fashion. They make one awkward, and more idle
than ever. A lot of people come in and out of my sitting-room to "cheer
me up," and everyone wants me to tell their fortune. Mrs. Wynne and Mr.
Bevan are still at Baku.
Last night I went to Prince Orloff's box to hear Lipkofskaya in "Faust."
My car has come back, and is running well, but the weather has been cold
and stormy, with snow drifting in from the hills. I took Mme. Derfelden
and her husband to Kajura to-day. Now that I have the car everyone wants
me to work with them. The difficulty of transport is indescribable.
Without a car is like being without a leg. One simply can't get about.
In order to get a seat on a train people walk up the line and bribe the
officials at the place where it is standing to allow them to get on
board.{11}
CHAPTER IV
ON THE PERSIAN FRONT
_8 February._--A "platteforme" having been found for my car, I and M.
Ignatieff of the Red Cross started for Baku to-day. We found our little
party at the Métropole Hotel. Went to the MacDonell's to lunch. He is
Consul. They are quite charming people, and their little flat was open
to us all the time we were at Baku.
The place itself is wind-blown and fly-blown and brown, but the harbour
is very pretty, with its crowds of shipping, painted with red hulls,
which make a nice bit of colour in the general drab of the hills and the
town. There are no gardens and no trees, and all enterprise in the way
of town-planning and the like is impossible owing to the Russian habit
of cheating. They have tried for sixteen years to start electric trams,
but everyone wants too much for his own pocket. The morals become
dingier and dingier as one gets nearer Tartar influence, and no shame is
thought of it. Most of the stories one hears would blister the pages of
a diary. When a house of ill-fame is opened it is publicly blessed by
the priest!
_Kasvin. 18 February._.--We spent a week at Baku and grumbled all the
time, although really we were not at all unhappy. The MacDonells were
always with us, and we had good games of bridge with Ignatieff in the
evenings. We went to see the oil city at Baku, and one day we motored to
the far larger one further out. One of the directors, an Armenian, went
with us, and gave us at his house the very largest lunch I have ever
seen. It began with many plates of zakouska (hors d'oeuvres), and went
on to a cold entrée of cream and chickens' livers; then grilled salmon,
with some excellent sauce, and a salad of beetroot and cranberries. This
was followed by an entrée of kidneys, and then we came to soup, the best
I have ever eaten; after soup, roast turkey, followed by chicken pilau,
sweets and cheese. It was impossible even to taste all the things, but
the Georgian cook must have been a "cordon bleu."
On February 16th one of the long-delayed cars arrived, and we were in
ecstasies, and took our places on the steamer for Persia; but the
radiator had been broken on the way down, and Mrs. Wynne was delayed
again. I started, as my car was arranged for, and had to go on board.
Also, I found I could be of use to Mr. Scott of the Tehran Legation, who
was going there. We travelled on the boat together, and had an excellent
crossing to Enzeli, a lovely little port, and then we took my car and
drove to Resht, where Mr. and Mrs. McLaren, the Consul and his wife,
kindly put us up. Their garden is quiet and damp; the house is damp too,
and very ugly. There are only two other English people (at the bank) to
form the society of the place, and it must be a bit lonely for a young
woman. I found the situation a little tragic.
[Page Heading: KASVIN]
We drove on next day to this place (Kasvin), and Mr. and Mrs. Goodwin
were good enough to ask us to stay with them. The big fires in the house
were very cheering after our cold drive in the snow. The moonlight was
marvellous, and the mountain passes were beyond words picturesque. We
passed a string of 150 camels pacing along in the moonlight and the
snow. All of them wore bells which jingled softly. Around us were the
weird white hills, with a smear of mist over them. The radiant moon, the
snow, and the chiming camels I shall never forget.
Captain Rhys Williams was also at the Goodwins; and as he was in very
great anxiety to get to Hamadan, I offered to take him in my car, and
let Mr. Scott do the last stage of the journey in the Legation car to
Tehran. We were delayed one day at Kasvin, which was passed very
pleasantly in the sheltered sunny compound of the house. My little white
bedroom was part of the "women's quarters" of old days, and with its
bright fire at night and the sun by day it was a very comfortable place
in which to perch.
_Hamadan. 24 February._--Captain Williams and I left Kasvin at 8 a.m. on
February 19th.
I had always had an idea that Persia was in the tropics. _Where_ I got
this notion I can't say. As soon as we left sheltered Kasvin and got out
on to the plains the cold was as sharp as anything I have known. Snow
lay deep on every side, and the icy wind nearly cut one in two. We
stopped at a little "tschinaya" (tea-house), and ate some sandwiches
which we carried with us. I also had a flask of Sandeman's port, given
me last Christmas by Sir Ivor Maxwell. I think a glass of this just
prevented me from being frozen solid. We drove on to the top of the
pass, and arrived there about 3 o'clock. We found some Russian officers
having an excellent lunch, and we shared ours and had some of theirs. We
saw a lot of game in the snow--great coveys of fat partridges, hares by
the score, a jackal, two wolves, and many birds. The hares were very
odd, for after twilight fell, and we lit our lamps, they seemed quite
paralysed by the glare, and used to sit down in front of the car.
We passed a regiment of Cossacks, extended in a long line, and coming
over the snow on their strong horses. We began to get near war once
more, and to see transport and guns. General Baratoff wants us up here
to remove wounded men when the advance begins towards Bagdad.
The cold was really as bad as they make after the sun had sunk, and an
icy mist enveloped the hills. We got within sight of the clay-built,
flat Persian town of Hamadan about 10 p.m., but the car couldn't make
any way on the awful roads, so I left Captain Williams at the barracks,
and came on to the Red Cross hospital with two Russian officers, one a
little the worse for drink.
[Page Heading: ARRIVAL AT HAMADAN]
With the genius for muddling which the Russians possess in a remarkable
degree no preparations had been made for me. Rather an unpleasant Jew
doctor came to the gateway with two nurses, and the officers began to
flirt with the girls, and to pay them compliments. Some young
Englishmen, one of whom was the British Consul, then appeared on the
scene, so we began to get forward a little (although it seemed to me
that we stood about in the snow for a terrible long time and I got quite
frozen!). As it was then past midnight I felt I had had enough, so I
made for the American missionary's house, which was pointed out to me,
and he and his wife hopped out of bed, and, clad in curious grey
dressing-gowns, they came downstairs and got me a cup of hot tea, which
I had wanted badly for many hours. There was no fireplace in my room,
and the other fires of the house were all out, but the old couple were
kindness and goodness itself, and in the end I rolled myself up in my
faithful plaid and slept at their house.
The next day--Sunday, the 20th--Mr. Cowan, the young Consul, and a Mr.
Lightfoot, came round and bore me off to the Consulate. On Monday I
began to settle in, but even now I find it difficult to take my
bearings, as we have been in a heavy mountain fog ever since I got here.
There is a little English colony, the bank manager, Mr. MacMurray, and
his wife--a capable, energetic woman, and an excellent working
partner--Mr. McLean, a Scottish clerk, a Mr. McDowal, also a Scot, and a
few other good folk; whom in Scotland one would reckon the farmer class,
but none the worse for that, and never vulgar however humbly born.
On Monday, the 21st, I called on the Russian element--Mme. Kirsanoff,
General Baratoff, etc. They were all cordial, but nothing will convince
me that Russians take this war seriously. They do the thing as
comfortably as possible. "My country" is a word one never hears from
their lips, and they indulge in masterly retreats too often for my
liking. The fire of the French, the dogged pluck of the British, seem
quite unknown to them. Literally, no one seems much interested. There is
a good deal of fuss about a "forward movement" on this front; but I
fancy that at Kermanshah and at ---- there will be very little
resistance, and the troops there are only Persian gendarmerie. No doubt
the most will be made of the Russian "victory," but compared with the
western front, this is simply not war. I often think of the guns firing
day and night, and the Taubes overhead, and the burning towns of
Flanders, and then I find myself living a peaceful life, with an
occasional glimpse of a regiment passing by.
* * * * *
_To Mrs. Charles Percival._
BRITISH VICE-CONSULATE,
HAMADAN.
_23 February, 1916._
MY DEAREST TABBY,
We are buried in snow, and every road is a dug-out, with parapets of
snow on either side. All journeys have to be made by road, and generally
over mountain passes, where you may or may not get through the snow. One
sees "breakdowns" all along the routes, and everywhere we go we have to
take food and blankets in case of a camp out. I have had to buy a
motor-car, and I got a very good one in Tiflis, but they are so scarce
one has to pay a ransom for them. I am hoping it won't be quite smashed
up, and that I shall be able to sell it for something when I leave.
[Page Heading: THE DIFFICULTY OF TRANSPORT]
Transport is the difficulty everywhere in these vast countries, with
their persistent want of railways; so that the most necessary way of
helping the wounded is to remove them as painlessly and expeditiously as
possible, and this can only be done by motor-cars. Only one of Mrs.
Wynne's ambulances has yet arrived, and in the end I came on here
without her and Mr. Bevan. I was wanted to give a member of the Legation
at Tehran a lift; and, still more important, I had to bring a soldier of
consequence here. So long as one can offer a motor-car one is
everybody's friend.
Yesterday I was in request to go up to a pass and fetch two doctors, who
had broken down in the snow. The wind is often a hurricane, and I am
told there will be no warm weather till May. I look at a light silk
dressing-gown and gauze underclothing, and wonder why it is that no one
seems able to tell one what a climate will be like. I have warm things
too, I am glad to say, although our luggage is now of the lightest, and
is only what we can take in a car. The great thing is to be quite
independent. No one would dream of bringing on heavy luggage or anything
of that sort, except, of course, Legation people, who have their own
transport and servants.
On journeys one is kindly treated by the few Scottish people (they all
seem to be Scots) scattered here and there. Everywhere I go I find the
usual Scottish couple trying to "have things nice," and longing for
mails from home. One woman was newly married, and had only one wish in
life, and that was for acid drops. Poor soul, she wasn't well, and I
mean to make her the best imitation I can and send them to her. They
make their houses wonderfully comfortable; _but_ the difficulty of
getting things! Another woman had written home for her child's frock in
August, and got it by post on February 15th. Cases of things coming by
boat or train take far longer, or never arrive at all.
I shall be working with the Russian hospital here till our next move.
There are 25 beds and 120 patients. Of course we are only waiting to
push on further. The political situation is most interesting, but I must
not write about it, of course. It is rather wonderful to have seen the
war from so many quarters.
The long wait for the cars was quite maddening, but I believe it did me
good. I was just about "through." Now I am in a bachelor's little house,
full of terrier dogs and tobacco smoke; and when I am not at the
hospital I darn socks and play bridge.
Now that really is all my news, I think. Empire is not made for nothing,
and one sees some plucky lives in these out-of-the-way parts. I did not
take a fancy to my host at one house where we stayed, and something made
me think his wife was bullied and not very happy. A husband would have
to be quite all right to compensate for exile, mud, and solitude. Always
my feeling is that we want far more people--especially educated people,
of course--to run the world; yet we continue to shoot down our best and
noblest, and when shall we ever see their like again?
Always, my dear,
Your loving
S. MACNAUGHTAN.
I hope to get over to Tehran on my "transport service," and there I may
find a mail. Some people called ----, living near Glasgow, had nine
sons, eight of whom have been killed in the war. The ninth is delicate,
and is doing Red Cross work.
* * * * *
_26 February._--On Tuesday a Jew doctor took my motor-car by fraud, so
there had to be an enquiry, and I don't feel happy about it yet. With
Russians _anything_ may happen. I have begun to suffer from my chillsome
time getting here, and also my mouth and chin are very bad; so I have
had to lie doggo, and see an ancient Persian doctor, who prescribed and
talked of the mission-field at the same time.
[Page Heading: MISSIONARIES AND RELIGION]
I am struck by one thing, which is so naïvely expressed out here that it
is very humorous, and that is the firm and formidable front which the
best sort of men show towards religion. To all of them it means
missionaries and pious talk, and to hear them speak one would imagine it
was something between a dangerous disease and a disgrace. The best they
can say of any clergyman (whom they loathe) or missionary, is, "He never
tried the Gospel on with me." A religious young man means a sneak, and
one who swears freely is generally rather a good fellow. When one lives
in the wilds I am afraid that one often finds that this view is the
right one, although it isn't very orthodox; but the pi-jaw which passes
for religion seems deliberately calculated to disgust the natural man,
who shows his contempt for the thing wholesomely as becomes him. He
means to smoke, he means to have a whisky-peg when he can get it, and a
game of cards when that is possible. His smoke is harmless, he seldom
drinks too much, and he plays fair at all games, but when he finds that
these harmless amusements preclude him from a place in the Kingdom of
Heaven he naturally--if he has the spirit of a mouse--says, "All right.
Leave me out. I am not on in this show."
_27 February._--On Sunday one always thinks of home. I am rather
inclined to wonder what my family imagine I am actually doing on the
Persian front. No doubt some of my dear contemporaries saddle me with
noble deeds, but I still seem unable to strike the "noble" tack. Even my
work in hospital has been stopped by a telegram from the Red Cross,
saying, "Don't let Miss Macnaughtan work yet." A typhus scare, I fancy.
Such rot. But I am used now to hearing all the British out here murmur,
"What _can_ be the good of this long delay?"
[Page Heading: HOW NEWS TRAVELS IN PERSIA]
I am still staying at the British Consulate. The Consul, Mr. Cowan, is a
good fellow, and Mr. Lightfoot, his chum, is a real backwoodsman, full
of histories of adventures, fights, "natives," and wars in many lands.
He seems to me one of those headstrong, straight, fine fellows whom one
only meets in the wilds. England doesn't agree with them; they haven't
always a suit of evening clothes; but in a tight place one knows how
cool he would be, and for yarns there is no one better. He tells one a
lot about this country, and he knows the Arabs like brothers. Their
system of communicating with each other is as puzzling to him as it is
to everyone else. News travels faster among them than any messenger or
post can take it. At Bagdad they heard from these strange people of the
fall of Basra, which is 230 miles away, within 25 hours of its having
been taken. Mr. Lightfoot says that even if he travels by car Arab news
is always ahead of him, and where he arrives with news it is known
already. Telegraphy is unknown in the places he speaks of, except in
Bagdad, of course, and Persia owns exactly one line of railway, eight
miles long, which leads to a tomb!
More important than any man here are the dogs--Smudge, Jimmy, and the
puppy. Most of the conversation is addressed to them. All of it is about
them.
_28 February. A day on the Persian front._--I wake early because it is
always so cold at 4 a.m., and I generally boil up water for my hot-water
bottle and go to sleep again. Then at 8 comes the usual Resident Sahib's
servant, whom I have known in many countries and in many climes. He is
always exactly alike, and the Empire depends upon him! He is thin, he is
mysterious. He is faithful, and allows no one to rob his master but
himself. He believes in the British. He worships British rule, and he
speaks no language but his own, though he probably knows English
perfectly, and listens to it at every meal without even the cock of an
ear! He is never hurried, never surprised. What he thinks his private
idol may know--no one else does. His master's boots--especially the
brown sort--are part of his religion. He understands an Englishman, and
is unmoved by his behaviour, whatever it may be. I have met him in
India, in Kashmir, at Embassies, in Consulates, on steamers, and I have
never known his conduct alter by a hair's breadth. He is piped in red,
and let that explain him, as it explains much else that is British. Just
a thin red line down the length of a trouser or round a coat, and the
man thus adorned is part of the Empire.
The man piped in red lights my fire every morning in Persia, and
arranges my tub, and we breakfast very late because there is nothing to
do on three days of the week--_i.e._, Friday, the Persian Sabbath,
Saturday, the Jewish Sabbath, and Sunday, the Armenian Sunday. On these
three days neither bazaars nor offices are open. Business is at a
standstill. The Consulate smokes pipes, develops photographs, and reads
old novels. On the four busy days we breakfast at 10 o'clock, and during
the meal we learn what the dogs have done during the night--whether
Jimmy has barked, or Smudge has lain on someone's bed, or the puppy
"coolly put his head on my pillow."
About 11 o'clock I, who am acting as wardrobe-mender to some very untidy
clothes and socks, get to work, and the young men go to the town and
appear at lunch-time. We hear what the local news is, and what Mr.
MacMurray has said and Mr. McLean thought, and sometimes one of the
people from the Russian hospital comes in. About 3 we put on goloshes
and take exercise single-file on the pathways cut in the snow. At 5 the
samovar appears and tea and cake, and we talk to the dogs and to each
other. We dress for dinner, because that is our creed; and we burn a
good deal of wood, and go to bed early.
Travel really means movement. Otherwise, it is far better to stay at
home. I am beginning to sympathise with the Americans who insist upon
doing two cities a day. We got some papers to-day dated October 26th,
and also a few letters of the same date.
* * * * *
[Page Heading: UNFINISHED ARTICLE ON PERSIA]
_Unfinished Article on Persia found among Miss Macnaughtan's papers._
Persia is a difficult country to write about, for unless one colours the
picture too highly to be recognisable, it is apt to be uninteresting
even under the haze of the summer sun, while in wintertime the country
disappears under a blanket of white snow. Of course, most of us thought
that Persia was somewhere in the tropics, and it gives us a little shock
when we find ourselves living in a temperature of 8 degrees below zero.
The rays of the sun are popularly supposed to minimise the effect of
this cold, and a fortnight's fog on the Persian highlands has still left
one a believer in this phenomenon, for when the sun does shine, it does
it handsomely, and, according to the inhabitants, it is only when
strangers are here that it turns sulky. Be that as it may, the most
loyal lover of Persia will have to admit that Persian mud is the deepest
and blackest in the world, and that snow and mud in equal proportions to
a depth of 8 inches make anything but agreeable travelling. Snow is
indiscriminately shovelled down off the roofs of houses on to the heads
of passers-by, and great holes in the road are accepted as the
inevitable accompaniment to winter traffic.
In the bazaars--narrow, and filled with small booths, where Manchester
cotton is stacked upon shelves--the merchants sit huddled up on their
counters, each with a cotton lahaf (quilt) over him, under which is a
small brazier of ougol (charcoal). In this way he manages to remain in a
thawed condition, while a pipe consoles him for his little trade and the
horrible weather. Before him, in the narrow alleys of the bazaar,
Persians walk with their umbrellas unfurled, and Russians have put the
convenient bashluk (a sort of woollen hood) over their heads and ears.
The Arab, in his long camel-skin coat, looks impervious to the weather,
and women with veiled faces and long black cloaks pick their way through
the mire. Throngs of donkeys, melancholy and overladen, their small feet
sinking in the slush, may be with the foot-passengers. Some pariah dogs
make a dirty patch in the snow, and a troop of Cossacks, their long
cloaks spotted with huge snow-flakes, trot heavily through the narrow
lanes.
But it is not only, nor principally, of climate that one speaks in
Persia at the present time.
Persia has been stirring, if not with great events, at least with
important ones, and at the risk of telling stale news, one must take a
glance at the recent history of the country and its people. It is
proverbial to say that Persia has been misgoverned for years. It is a
country and the Persians are people who seem fated by circumstances and
by temperament to endure ill-government. A ruler is either a despot or a
knave, and frequently both. Any system of policy is liable to change at
any moment. Property is held in the uneasy tenure of those who have
stolen it, and a long string of names of rulers and politicians reveals
the fact that most of them have made what they could for themselves by
any means, and that perhaps, on the whole, violence has been less
detrimental to the country than weakness.
[Page Heading: THE YOUNG PERSIAN MOVEMENT]
The worst of it is that no one seems particularly to want the
Deliverer--the great and single-minded leader who might free and uplift
the country. Persia does not crave the ideal ruler; he might make it
very unpleasant for those who are content and rich in their own way. It
is this thing, amongst many others, which helps to make the situation in
Persia not only difficult but almost impossible to follow or describe,
and it is, above all, the temperament of the Persians themselves which
is the baffling thing in the way of Persian reform. Yet reform has been
spoken of loudly, and again and again in the last few years, and the
reformation is generally known as the Nationalist or Young Persian
Movement. To follow this Movement through its various ramifications
would require a clue as plain and as clear as a golden thread, and the
best we can do in our present obscurity is to give a few of the leading
features.
The important and critical situation evident in Persia to-day owes its
beginning to the disturbances in 1909, when the Constitutional Party
came into power, forcibly, and with guns ready to train on Tehran, and
when, almost without an effort, they obtained their rights, and lost
them again with even less effort....
* * * * *
_29 February._--The last day of a long month. The snow falls without
ceasing, blotting out everything that there may be to be seen. To-day,
for the first time, I realised that there are hills near. Mr. Lightfoot
and I walked to the old stone lion which marks the gateway of
Ekmadan--_i.e._, ancient Hamadan. I think the snow was rather thicker
than usual to-day. Mr. Lightfoot and I went to Hamadan, plodding our way
through little tramped-down paths, with snow three feet deep on either
side. By way of being cheerful we went to see two tombs. One was an old,
old place, where slept "the first great physician" who ever lived. In it
a dervish kept watch in the bitter cold, and some slabs of dung kept a
smouldering fire not burning but smoking. These dervishes have been
carrying messages for Germans. Mysterious, like all religious men, they
travel through the country and distribute their whispers and messages.
The other tomb is called Queen Esther's, though why they should bury her
at Ekmadan when she lived down at Shushan I don't know.
We went to see Miss Montgomerie the other day. She is an American
missionary, who has lived at Hamadan for thirty-three years. She has
schools, etc., and she lives in the Armenian quarter, and devotes her
life to her neighbours. Her language is entirely Biblical, and it sounds
almost racy as she says it.
There is nothing to record. Yesterday I cleaned out my room for
something to do, and in the evening a smoky lamp laid it an inch thick
in blacks. The pass here is quite blocked, and no one can come or go.
The snow falls steadily in fine small flakes. My car has disappeared,
with the chauffeur, at Kasvin. I hear of it being sent to Enzeli; but
the whole thing is a mystery, and is making me very anxious. There are
no answers to any of my telegrams, and I am completely in the dark.
_3 March._--I think that to be on a frozen hill-top, with fever, some
boils, three dogs, and a blizzard, is about as near wearing down one's
spirits as anything I know.
_5 March, Sunday._--In bed all day, with the ancient Persian in
attendance.
* * * * *
[Page Heading: THE RETURN OF THE PILGRIM]
_The Return of the Pilgrim._
This is not a story for Sunday afternoon. It is true for one thing, and
Sunday afternoon stories are not, as a rule, true. They nearly all tell
of the return of the Prodigals, but they leave out the return of the
Pilgrims, and that is why this parable is not for Sunday afternoon. I
write it because I never knew a true thing yet that was not of use to
someone.
Most of us leave home when we are grown up. The people who never grow up
stop at home. The journey and the outward-bound vision are the signs of
an active mind stirring wholesomely or unwholesomely as the case may be.
The Prodigal is generally accounted one of those whose sane mind demands
an outlet; but he lands in trouble, and gets hungry, and comes back
penitent, as we have heard a thousand million times. The Far Country is
always barren, the husks of swine are the only food to be had, and
bankruptcy is inevitable.
The story has been accepted by many generations of men as a picture of
the world, with its temptations, its sins, its moral bankruptcy, and its
illusionary and unsatisfying pleasures. Preachers have always been fond
of allusions to the husks and swine, and the desperate hunger which
there is nothing to satisfy in the Far Country. The story is true, God
wot; it gives many a man a wholesome fright, and keeps him at home, and
its note of forgiveness for a wasted life has proved the salvation of
many Prodigals.
But there is another journey, far more often undertaken by the young and
by all those who needs must seek--the brave, the energetic, the good. It
is towards a country distant yet ever near, and it lies much removed
from the Far Country where swine feed. Its minarets stand up against a
clear and cloudless sky, its radiancy shines from afar off. It is set on
a hill, and the road thither is very steep and very long, but the
Pilgrims start out bravely. They know the way! They carry torches! They
have the Light within and without, and "watchwords" for every night, and
songs for the morning. Some walk painfully, with bleeding feet, on the
path that leads to the beautiful country, and some run joyously with
eager feet. Whatever anyone likes to say, it is a much more crowded path
than the old trail towards the pigsty. At the first step of the journey
stand Faith and Hope and Charity, and beyond are more wondrous things by
far--Glory, Praise, Vision, Sacrifice, Heroism, sublime Trust, the
Need-to-Give, and the Love that runs to help. And some of the
Pilgrims--most of them--get there.
[Page Heading: DISAPPOINTMENT]
But there is a little stream of Pilgrims sometimes to be met with going
the other way. They are returning, like the Prodigal, but there is no
one to welcome them. Some are very tragic figures, and for them the sun
is for ever obscured. But there are others--quite plain, sober men and
women, some humorists, and some sages. They have honestly sought the
Country, and they, too, have unfurled banners and marched on; but they
have met with many things on the road which do not match the watchwords,
and they have heard many wonderful things which, truthfully considered,
do not always appear to them to be facts. They have called Poverty
beautiful, and they have found it very ugly; and they have called Money
naught, and they have found it to be Power. They have found Sacrifice
accepted, and then claimed by the selfish and mean, and even Love has
not been all that was expected. The Pilgrims return. Their poor tummies,
too, are empty, but no calf is killed for them, there is no feasting
and no joy. They stay at home, but neither Elder Son nor Prodigal has
any use for them. In the end they turn out the light and go to sleep,
regretting--if they have any humour--their many virtues, which for so
long prevented them enjoying the pleasant things of life.
* * * * *
_March._--I lie in bed all day up here amongst these horrible snows. The
engineer comes in sometimes and makes me a cup of Benger's Food. For the
rest, I lean up on my elbow when I can, and cook some little
thing--Bovril or hot milk--on my Etna stove. Then I am too tired to eat
it, and the sickness begins all over again. Oh, if I could leave this
place! If only someone would send back my car, which has been taken
away, or if I could hear where Mrs. Wynne and Mr. Bevan are! But no, the
door of this odious place is locked, and the key is thrown away.
I have lost count of time. I just wait from day to day, hoping someone
will come and take me away, though I am now getting so weak I don't
suppose I can travel.
One wonders whether there can be a Providence in all this
disappointment. I think not. I just made a great mistake coming out
here, and I have suffered for it. Ye gods, what a winter it has
been--disillusioning, dull, hideously and achingly disappointing!
[Page Heading: MEMORIES OF HOME]
It is too odd to think that until the war came I was the happiest woman
in the world. It is too funny to think of my house in London, which
people say is the only "salon"--a small "salon," indeed! But I can
hardly believe now in my crowds of friends, my devoted servants, my
pleasant work, the daily budget of letters and invitations, and the
press notices in their pink slips. Then the big lectures and the
applause--the shouts when I come in. The joy, almost the intoxication of
life, has been mine.
Of course, I ought to have turned back at Petrograd! But I thought all
my work was before me, and in Russia one can't go about alone without
knowing the way and the language of the people. Permits are difficult,
nothing is possible unless one is attached to a body. And now I have
reached the end--_Persia! And there is no earthly use for us, and there
are no roads._
CHAPTER V
THE LAST JOURNEY
My car turned up at Hamadan on March 9th, and on the 13th I said
good-bye to my friends at the Consulate, and left the place with a
Tartar prince, who cleared his throat from the bottom of his soul, and
spat luxuriously all the time. The mud was beyond anything that one
could imagine. There was a sea of it everywhere, and men waded knee-deep
in slush. My poor car floundered bravely and bumped heavily, till at
last it could move no more. Two wheels were sunk far past the hubs, and
the step of the car was under mud.
The Tartar prince hailed a horse from some men and flung himself across
it, and then rode off through the thick sea of mud to find help to move
the car. His methods were simple. He came up behind men, and clouted
them over the head, or beat them with a stick, and drove them in front
of him. Sometimes he took out a revolver and fired over the men's heads,
making them jump; but nothing makes them really work. We pushed on for a
mile or two, and then stuck again. This time there were no men near, and
the prince walked on to collect some soldiers at the next station. It
was a wicked, blowy day, and I crept into a wrecked "camion" and
sheltered there, and ate some lunch and slept a little. I wasn't feeling
a bit well.
That night we only made twenty miles, and then we put up at a little
rest-house, where the woman had ten children. They all had colds, and
coughed all the time. She promised supper at 8 o'clock, but kept us
waiting till 10 p.m., and then a terrible repast of batter appeared in a
big tin dish, and everyone except me ate it, and everyone drank my wine.
Then six children and their parents lay in one tiny room, and I and a
nurse occupied the hot supper-room, and thus we lay until the cold
morning came, and I felt very ill.
So the day began, and it did not improve. I was sick all the time until
I could neither think nor see. The poor prince could do nothing, of
course.
[Page Heading: ILLNESS AT KASVIN]
At last we came to a rest-house, and I felt I could go no further. I was
quite unconscious for a time. Then they told me it was only two hours to
Kasvin, and somehow they got me on board the motor-car, and the horrible
journey began again. Every time the car bumped I was sick. Of course we
punctured a tyre, which delayed us, and when we got into Kasvin it was 9
o'clock. The Tartar lifted me out of the car, and I had been told that I
might put up at a room belonging to Dr. Smitkin, but where it was I had
no idea, and I knew there would be no one there. So I plucked up courage
to go to the only English people in the place--the Goodwins, with whom I
had stayed on my way up--and ask for a bed. This I did, and they let me
spread my camp-bed in his little sitting-room. I was ill indeed, and
aching in every bone.
The next day I had to go to Smitkin's room. It was an absolutely bare
apartment, but someone spread my bed for me, and there were some Red
Cross nurses who all offered to do things. The one thing I wanted was
food, and this they could only get at the soldiers' mess two miles away.
So all I had was one tin of sweet Swiss milk. The day after this I
decided I must quit, whatever happened, and get to Tehran, where there
are hotels. After one night there I was taken to a hospital. I was alone
in Persia, in a Russian hospital, where few people even spoke French!
On March 19th an English doctor rescued me. He heard I was ill, and came
to see me, and took me off to be with his wife at his own home at the
Legation. I shall never forget it as long as I live--the blessed change
from dirty glasses and tin basins and a rocky bed! What does illness
matter with a pretty room, and kindness showered on one, and everything
clean and fragrant? I have a little sitting-room, where my meals are
served, and I have a fire, a bath, and a garden to sit in.
God bless these good people!
* * * * *
[Page Heading: A LETTER FROM TEHRAN]
_To Lady Clémentine Waring._
BRITISH LEGATION, TEHRAN,
_22 March._
DARLING CLEMMIE,
I am coming home, having fallen sick. Do you know, I was thinking about
you so much the other night, for you told me that if ever I was really
"down and out" you would know. So I wondered if, about a week ago, you
saw a poor small person (who has shrunk to about half her size!) in an
empty room, feeling worth nothing at all, and getting nothing to eat and
no attention! Persia isn't the country to be ill in. I was taken to the
Russian hospital--which is an experience I don't want to repeat!--but
now I am in the hands of the Legation doctor, and he is going to nurse
me till I am well enough to go home.
There are no railways in this country, except one of eight miles to a
tomb! Hence we all have to flounder about on awful roads in motor-cars,
which break down and have to be dug out, and always collapse at the
wrong moment, so we have to stay out all night.
You thought Persia was in the tropics? So did I! I have been in deep
snow all the time till I came here.
I think the campaign here is nearly over. It might have been a lot
bigger, for the Germans were bribing like mad, but you can't make a
Persian wake up.
Ever, dear Clemmie,
Your loving
S. MACNAUGHTAN.
So nice to know you think of me, as I know you do.
* * * * *
_26 March._--I am getting stronger, and the days are bright. As a great
treat I have been allowed to go to church this morning, the first I have
been to since Petrograd.
* * * * *
_To Miss Julia Keays-Young._
BRITISH LEGATION, TEHRAN.
_1 April._
DARLING JENNY,
In case you want to make plans about leave, etc., will you come and stop
with me when first I get home, say about the 5th or 6th May, I can't say
to a day? It will be nice to see you all and have a holiday, and then I
hope to come out to Russia again. Did I tell you I have been ill, but am
now being nursed by a delightful English doctor and his wife, and
getting the most ideal attention, and medicines changed at every change
in the health of the patient.
I've missed everything here. I was to be presented to the Shah, etc.,
etc., and to have gone to the reception on his birthday. All the time
I've lain in bed or in the garden, but as I haven't felt up to anything
else I haven't fashed, and the Shah must do wanting me for the present.
The flowers here are just like England, primroses and violets and Lent
lilies, but I'm sure the trees are further out at home.
Your most loving
AUNT SALLY.
* * * * *
_To Mrs. Keays-Young._
BRITISH LEGATION, TEHRAN,
_8 April._
DEAREST BABY,
I don't think I'll get home till quite the end of April, as I am not
supposed to be strong enough to travel yet. My journey begins with a
motor drive of 300 miles over fearful roads and a chain of mountains
always under snow. Then I have to cross the lumpy Caspian Sea, and I
shall rest at Baku two nights before beginning the four days journey to
Petrograd. After that the fun really begins, as one always loses all
one's luggage in Finland, and one finishes up with the North Sea. What
do you think of that, my cat?
[Page Heading: CONVALESCENCE]
Dr. Neligan is still looking after me quite splendidly, and I never
drank so much medicine in my life. No fees or money can repay the dear
man.
Tehran is _the_ most primitive place! You can't, for instance, get one
scrap of flannel, and if a bit of bacon comes into the town there is a
stampede for it. People get their wine from England in two-bottle
parcels.
Yours as ever,
S.
* * * * *
_Tehran. April._--The days pass peacefully and even quickly, which is
odd, for they are singularly idle. I get up about 11 a.m., and am pretty
tired when dressing is finished. Then I sit in the garden and have my
lunch there, and after lunch I lie down for an hour. Presently tea
comes; I watch the Neligans start for their ride, and already I wonder
if I was ever strong and rode!
It is such an odd jump I have taken. At home I drifted on, never feeling
older, hardly counting birthdays--always brisk, and getting through a
heap of work--beginning my day early and ending it late. And now there
is a great gulf dividing me from youth and old times, and it is filled
with dead people whom I can't forget.
In the matter of dying one doesn't interfere with Providence, but it
seems to me that _now_ would be rather an appropriate time to depart. I
wish I could give my life for some boy who would like to live very much,
and to whom all things are joyous. But alas! one can't swop lives like
this--at least, I don't see the chance of doing so.
I should like to have "left the party"--quitted the feast of life--when
all was gay and amusing. I should have been sorry to come away, but it
would have been far better than being left till all the lights are out.
I could have said truly to the Giver of the feast, "Thanks for an
excellent time." But now so many of the guests have left, and the fires
are going out, and I am tired.
END OF THE DIARY.
* * * * *
The rest of the story is soon told.
Miss Macnaughtan left Tehran about the middle of April. The Persian hot
weather was approaching, and it would have been impossible for her to
travel any later in the season. The long journey seemed a sufficiently
hazardous undertaking for a person in her weak state of health, but in
Dr. Neligan's opinion she would have run an even greater risk by
remaining in Persia during the hot weather.
[Page Heading: STARTING FOR HOME]
Dr. Neligan's goodness and kindness to Miss Macnaughtan will always be
remembered by her family, and he seems to have taken an enormous amount
of trouble to make arrangements for her journey home. He found an escort
for her in the shape of an English missionary who was going to
Petrograd, and gave her a pass which enabled her to travel as
expeditiously as possible. The authorities were not allowed to delay or
hinder her. She was much too ill to stop for anything, and drove night
and day--even through a cholera village--to the shores of the Caspian
Sea.
We know very few details concerning the journey home, and I think my
aunt herself did not remember much about it. One can hardly bear to
think of the suffering it caused her. A few incidents stood out in her
memory from the indeterminate recollection of pain and discomfort in
which most of the expedition was mercifully veiled, and we learnt them
after she returned.
There was the occasion when she reached the port on the Caspian Sea one
hour after the English boat had sailed. She called it the "English"
boat, but whether it could have belonged to an English company, or was
merely the usual boat run in connection with the train service to
England, I do not know. A "Russian" vessel was due to leave in a couple
of hours' time, but for some reason Miss Macnaughtan was obliged to walk
three-quarters of a mile to get permission to go by it. We can never
forget her piteous description of how she staggered and crawled to the
office and back, so ill that only her iron strength of will could force
her tired body to accomplish the distance. She obtained the necessary
sanction, and started forth once more upon her way.
She stayed for a week at the British Embassy in Petrograd, where her
escort was obliged to leave her, so the rest of the journey was
undertaken alone.
We know nothing of how she got to Helsingfors, but I believe it was at
that place that she had to walk some considerable distance over a frozen
lake to reach the ship. She was hobbling along, leaning heavily on two
sticks, and just as she stumbled and almost fell, a young Englishman
came up and offered her his arm.
In an old diary, written years before in the Argentine, during a time
when Miss Macnaughtan was faced with what seemed overwhelming
difficulties, and when she had in her charge a very sick man, a kind
stranger came to the rescue. Her diary entry for that day is one of
heartfelt gratitude, and ends with the words: "God always sends
someone."
Certainly at Helsingfors some Protecting Power sent help in a big
extremity, and this young fellow--Mr. Seymour--devoted himself to her
for the rest of the journey in a marvellously unselfish manner. He could
not have been kinder to her if she had been his mother, and he actually
altered all his plans on arriving in England, and brought her to the
very door of her house in Norfolk Street. Without his help I sometimes
wonder whether my aunt would have succeeded in reaching home, and her
own gratitude to him knew no bounds. She used to say that in her
experience if people were in a difficulty and wanted help they ought to
go to a young man for it. She said that young men were the kindest
members of the human race.
[Page Heading: ARRIVAL IN ENGLAND]
It was on the 8th of May that Miss Macnaughtan reached home, and her
travels were over for good and all. One is only thankful that the last
weeks of her life were not spent in a foreign land but among her own
people, surrounded by all the care and comfort that love could supply.
Two of her sisters were with her always, and her house was thronged with
visitors, who had to wait their turn of a few minutes by her bedside,
which, alas! were all that her strength allowed.
She was nursed night and day by her devoted maid, Mary King, as she did
not wish to have a professional nurse; but no skill or care could save
her. The seeds of her illness had probably been sown some years before,
during a shooting trip in Kashmir, and the hard work and strain of the
first year of the war had weakened her powers of resistance. But it was
Russia that killed her.
Before she went there many of her friends urged her to give up the
expedition. Her maid had a premonition that the enterprise would end in
disaster, and had begged her mistress to stay at home.
"I feel sure you will never return alive ma'am," she had urged, and Miss
Macnaughtan's first words to her old servant on her return were: "You
were right, Mary. Russia has killed me."
Miss Macnaughtan rallied a little in June, and was occasionally carried
down to her library for a few hours in the afternoon, but even that
amount of exertion was too much for her. For the last weeks of her life
she never left her room.
Surely there never was a sweeter or more adorable invalid! I can see her
now, propped up on pillows in a room filled with masses of most
exquisite flowers. She always had things dainty and fragrant about her,
and one had a vision of pale blue ribbons, and soft laces, and lovely
flowers, and then one forgot everything else as one looked at the dear
face framed in such soft grey hair. She looked so fragile that one
fancied she might be wafted away by a summer breeze, and I have never
seen anyone so pale. There was not a tinge of colour in face or hands,
and one kissed her gently for fear that even a caress might be too much
for her waning strength.
Her patience never failed. She never grumbled or made complaint, and
even in the smallest things her interest and sympathy were as fresh as
ever. A new dress worn by one of her sisters was a pleasure, and she
would plan it, and suggest and admire.
It was a supreme joy to Miss Macnaughtan to hear, some time in June,
that she had received the honour of being chosen to be a Lady of Grace
of the Order of St. John of Jerusalem. Any recognition of her good work
was an unfailing source of gratification to her sensitive nature,
sensitive alike to praise or blame.
She was so wonderfully strong in her mind and will that it seemed
impossible in those long June days to believe that she had such a little
time to live. She managed all her own business affairs, personally
dictated or wrote answers to her correspondence, and was full of schemes
for the redecoration of her house and of plans for the future.
I have only been able to procure three of my aunt's letters written
after her return to England. They were addressed to her eldest sister,
Mrs. ffolliott. I insert them here:
* * * * *
[Page Heading: MISS MACNAUGHTAN'S LAST LETTERS]
1, NORFOLK STREET,
PARK LANE, W.
_Tuesday._
MY DEAREST OLD POOT,
How good of you to write. I was awfully pleased to see a letter from
you. I have been a fearful crock since I got home, and I have to lie in
bed for six weeks and live on milk diet for eight weeks. The illness is
of a tropical nature, and one of the symptoms is that one can't eat, so
one gets fearfully thin. I am something over six stone now, but I was
very much less.
We were right up on the Persian front, and I went on to Tehran. One saw
some most interesting phases of the war, and met all the distinguished
Generals and such-like people.
The notice you sent me of my little book is charming.
Your loving
S. B .M.
* * * * *
1, NORFOLK STREET,
PARK LANE, W.,
_9 June._
DARLING POOT,
I must thank you myself for the lovely flowers and your kind letters. I
am sure that people's good wishes and prayers do one good. I so nearly
died!
Your loving
S. M.
* * * * *
_17th June_
Still getting on pretty well, but it is slow work. Baby and Julia both
in town, so they are constantly here. I am to get up for a little bit
to-morrow.
Kindest love. It _was_ naughty of you to send more flowers.
As ever fondly,
SARAH.
* * * * *
As the hot weather advanced it was hoped to move Miss Macnaughtan to the
country. Her friends showered invitations on "dear Sally" to come and
convalesce with them, but the plans fell through. It became increasingly
clear that the traveller was about to embark on that last journey from
which there is no return, and, indeed, towards the end her sufferings
were so great that those who loved her best could only pray that she
might not have long to wait. She passed away in the afternoon of Monday,
July 24th, 1916.
A few days later the body of Sarah Broom Macnaughtan was laid to rest in
the plot of ground reserved for her kinsfolk in the churchyard at Chart
Sutton, in Kent. It is very quiet there up on the hill, the great Weald
stretches away to the south, and fruit-trees surround the Hallowed Acre.
But even as they laid earth to earth and dust to dust in this peaceful
spot the booming of the guns in Flanders broke the quiet of the sunny
afternoon, and reminded the little funeral party that they were indeed
burying one whose life had been sacrificed in the Great War.
[Page Heading: THE GRAVE IN CHART SUTTON]
Surely those who pass through the old churchyard will pause by the
grave, with its beautiful grey cross, and the children growing up in the
parish will come there sometimes, and will read and remember the simple
inscription on it:
"In the Great War, by Word and Deed, at Home and Abroad,
She served her Country even unto Death."
And if any ghosts hover round the little place, they will be the ghosts
of a purity, a kindness, and of a love for humanity which are not often
met with in this workaday world.
CONCLUSION
Perhaps a review of her war work by an onlooker, and a slight sketch of
Miss Macnaughtan's character, may form an appropriate conclusion to this
book.
I stayed with my aunt for one night, on August 7th, 1914. One may be
pardoned for saying that during the previous three days one had scarcely
begun to realise the war, but I was recalled by telegram from
Northamptonshire to the headquarters of my Voluntary Aid Detachment in
Kent, and spent a night in town en route, to get uniform, etc. Certainly
at my aunt's house my eyes were opened to a little of what lay before
us. She was on fire with patriotism and a burning wish to help her
country, and I immediately caught some of her enthusiasm.
Every hour we rushed out to buy papers, every minute seemed consecrated
to preparation for what we could do. There were uniforms to buy, notes
of Red Cross lectures to "rub up," and, in my aunt's case, she was busy
offering her services in every direction in which they could be of use.
[Page Heading: VOLUNTARY RATIONING]
Miss Macnaughtan must surely have been one of the first people to begin
voluntary rationing. We had the simplest possible meals during my visit,
and although she was proud of her housekeeping, and usually gave one
rather perfect food, on this occasion she said how impossible it was for
her to indulge in anything but necessaries, when our soldiers would so
soon have to endure hardships of every kind. She said that we ought to
be particularly careful to eat very little meat, because there would
certainly be a shortage of it later on.
I recollect that there was some hitch about my departure from Norfolk
Street on August 8th. It did not seem clear whether my Voluntary Aid
Detachment was going to provide billets for all recalled members, and I
remember my aunt's absolute scorn of difficulties at such a time.
"Of course, go straight to Kent and obey orders," she cried. "If you
can't get a bed, come back here; but at least go and see what you can
do."
That was typical of Miss Macnaughtan. Difficulties did not exist for
her. When quite a young girl she made up her mind that no lack of money,
time, or strength should ever prevent her doing anything she wanted to
do. It certainly never prevented her doing anything she felt she _ought_
to do.
The war provided her with a supreme opportunity for service, and she did
not fail to take advantage of it. Of her work in Belgium, especially at
the soup-kitchen, I believe it is impossible to say too much. According
to _The Times_, "The lady with the soup was everything to thousands of
stricken men, who would otherwise have gone on their way fasting."
Among individual cases, too, there were many men who benefited by some
special care bestowed on them by her. There was one wounded Belgian to
whom my aunt gave my address before she left for Russia that he might
have someone with whom he might correspond. I used to hear from him
regularly, and every letter breathed gratitude to "la dame écossaise."
He said she had saved his life.
Miss Macnaughtan's lectures to munition-workers were, perhaps, the best
work that she did during the war. She was a charming speaker, and I
never heard one who got more quickly into touch with an audience. As I
saw it expressed in one of the papers "Stiffness and depression vanished
from any company when she took the platform." Her enunciation was
extraordinarily distinct, and she had an arresting delivery which
compelled attention from the first word to the last.
She never minced the truth about the war, but showed people at home how
far removed it was from being a "merry picnic."
"They say recruiting will stop if people know what is going on at the
Front," she used to tell them. "I am a woman, but I know what I would do
if I were a man when I heard of these things. _I would do my durndest._"
All through her life the idea of personal service appealed to Miss
Macnaughtan. She never sent a message of sympathy or a gift of help
unless it was quite impossible to go herself to the sufferer.
She was only a girl when she heard of what proved to be the fatal
accident to her eldest brother in the Argentine. She went to him by the
next ship, alone, save for the escort of his old yacht's skipper, and a
journey to the Argentine in those days was a big undertaking for a
delicate young girl. On another occasion she was in Switzerland when
she heard of the death, in Northamptonshire, of a little niece. She left
for England the same day, to go and offer her sympathy, and try to
comfort the child's mother.
"When I hear of trouble I always go at once," she used to say.
I have known her drive in her brougham to the most horrible slum in the
East End to see what she could do for a woman who had begged from her in
the street--yes, and go there again and again until she had done all
that was possible to help the sad case.
[Page Heading: ZEAL TO HELP OTHERS]
It was this burning zeal to help which sent her to Belgium and carried
her through the long dark winter there, and it was, perhaps, the same
feeling which obscured her judgment when her expedition to Russia was
contemplated. She was a delicate woman, and there did not seem to be
much scope for her services in Russia. She was not a qualified nurse,
and the distance from home, and the handicap of her ignorance of the
Russian language, would probably have prevented her organising anything
like comforts for the soldiers there as she had done in Belgium. To
those of us who loved her the very uselessness of her efforts in Russia
adds to the poignancy of the tragedy of the death which resulted from
them.
The old question arises: "To what purpose is this waste?" And the old
answer comes still to teach us the underlying meaning and beauty of what
seems to be unnecessary sacrifice: "She hath done what she could."
Indeed, that epitaph might fitly describe Miss Macnaughtan's war work.
She grudged nothing, she gave her strength, her money, her very life.
The precious ointment was poured out in the service of her King and
Country and for the Master she served so faithfully.
* * * * *
I have been looking through some notices which appeared in the press
after Miss Macnaughtan's death. Some of them allude to her wit, her
energy and vivacity, the humour which was "without a touch of cynicism";
others, to her inexhaustible spirit, her geniality, and the "powers of
sarcasm, which she used with strong reserve." Others, again, see through
to the faith and philosophy which lay behind her humour, "Scottish in
its penetrating tenderness."
In my opinion my aunt's strongest characteristic was a dazzling purity
of soul, mind, and body. She was a person whose very presence lifted the
tone of the conversation. It was impossible to think of telling her a
nasty story, a "double entendre" fell flat when she was there. She was
the least priggish person in the world, but no one who knew her could
doubt for an instant her transparent goodness. I have read every word of
her diary; there is not in it the record of an ugly thought, or of one
action that would not bear the full light of day. About her books she
used to say that she had tried never to publish one word which her
father would not like her to have written.
She had a tremendous capacity for affection, and when she once loved
she loved most faithfully. Her devotion to her father and to her eldest
brother influenced her whole life, and it would have been impossible for
those she loved to make too heavy claims on her kindness.
[Page Heading: SOCIAL CHARM]
Miss Macnaughtan had great social charm. She was friendly and easy to
know, and she had a wonderful power of finding out the interesting side
of people and of seeing their good points. Her popularity was
extraordinary, although hers was too strong a personality to command
universal affection. Among her friends were people of the most varied
dispositions and circumstances. Distinction of birth, position, or
intellect appealed to her, and she was always glad to meet a celebrity,
but distinction was no passport to her favour unless it was accompanied
by character. To her poorer and humbler friends she was kindness itself,
and she was extraordinarily staunch in her friendships. Nothing would
make her "drop" a person with whom she had once been intimate.
In attempting to give a character-sketch of a person whose nature was as
complex as Miss Macnaughtan's, one admits defeat from the start. She had
so many interests, so many sides to her character, that it seems
impossible to present them all fairly. Her love of music, literature,
and art was coupled with an enthusiasm for sport, big-game shooting,
riding, travel, and adventure of every kind. She was an ambitious woman,
and a brilliantly clever one, and her clearness of perception and
wonderful intuition gave her a quick grasp of a subject or idea. She had
a thirst for knowledge which made learning easy, but hers was the brain
of the poet and philosopher, not of the mathematician. Accuracy of
thought or information was often lacking. Her imagination led the way,
and left her with a picture of a situation or a subject, but she was
very vague about facts and statistics. As a woman of business she was
shrewd, with all a Scotchwoman's power of looking at both sides of a
bawbee before she spent it, but she was also extraordinarily generous in
a very simple and unostentatious way, and her hospitality was boundless.
Miss Macnaughtan was almost hypersensitive to criticism. Her intense
desire to do right and to serve her fellow-beings animated her whole
life, and it seemed to her rather hard to be found fault with. Indeed,
she had not many faults, and the defects of her character were mostly
temperamental.
As a girl she was unpunctual, and subject to fits of indecision when it
seemed impossible for her to make up her mind one way or the other. The
inconvenience caused by her frequent changes of times and plans was
probably not realised by her. Later in life, when she lived so much
alone, she did not always see that difficulties which appeared nothing
to her might be almost insuperable to other people, and that in houses
where there are several members of a family to be considered, no
individual can be quite as free to carry out his own plans as a person
who is independent of family ties. But when one remembered how
splendidly she always responded to any claim on her own kindness one
forgave her for being a little exacting.
Perhaps Miss Macnaughtan's greatest handicap in life was her immense
capacity for suffering--suffering poignantly, unbearably, not only for
her own sorrows but for the sorrows of others. Only those who appealed
to her in trouble knew the depth of her sympathy, and how absolutely she
shared the burden of the grief. But perhaps they did not always know how
she agonised over their misfortunes, and at what price her sympathy was
given.
[Page Heading: RELIGIOUS VIEWS]
My aunt was a passionately religious woman. Her faith was the
inspiration of her whole life, and it is safe to say that from the
smallest to the greatest things there was never a struggle between
conscience and inclination in which conscience was not victorious. As
she grew older, I fancy that she became a less orthodox member of the
Church of England, to which she belonged, but her love for Christ and
for His people never wavered.
As each Sunday came round during her last illness, when she could not go
to church, she used to say to a very dear sister, "Now, J., we must have
our little service." Then the bedroom door was left ajar, and her sister
would go down to the drawing-room and play the simple hymns they had
sung together in childhood. And on the last Sunday, the day before her
death, when the invalid lay in a stupor and seemed scarcely conscious,
that same dear sister played the old hymns once more, and as the sound
floated up to the room above those who watched there saw a gleam of
pleasure on the dying woman's face.
My aunt had no fear of death. There had been a time, some weeks before
the end, when her feet had wandered very close to the waters which
divide us from the unknown shore, and she told her sisters afterwards
that she had almost seemed to see over to the "other side," and that so
many of those she loved were waiting for her, and saying, "Come over to
us, Sally. We are all here to welcome you."
Perhaps just at the last, when her body had grown weak, the journey
seemed rather far, and she clung to earth more closely, but such
weakness was purely physical. The brave spirit was ready to go, and as
the music of her favourite hymn pierced her consciousness when she lay
dying, so surely the words summed up all that she felt or wished to say,
and formed her last prayer in death, as they had been her constant
prayer in life:
"In death's dark vale I fear no ill
With Thee, dear Lord, beside me;
Thy rod and staff my comfort still,
Thy Cross before to guide me.
"And so through all the length of days
Thy goodness faileth never;
Good Shepherd, may I sing Thy praise
Within Thy house for ever."
INDEX
Aberdare, 164
Aberystwyth, 164
Adinkerke, 116;
soup-kitchen, 82, 86, 157;
bombardment, 139
Airships, German, over Antwerp, 5, 9;
Dunkirk, 81;
Furnes, 80;
St. Malo-les-Bains, 55;
destroyed, 27, 194
Andrews, John, 171
Antwerp, 1;
Hospital, 2;
arrival of wounded, 2, 3, 5, 12;
siege, 3-21;
reinforcements, 12, 16;
shelled, 18-21;
retreat of the Marines, 28
Arabs, rapid system of communication, 247
Ararat, Mount, 230
Armenians, massacres of, 209, 214, 217, 228;
refugees, 227;
character, 234
Artvin, 211
Asquith, Raymond, 183
Australians, treatment of the Turks, 177
Bagdad, 247
Bagot, Lady, 100;
at St. Malo-les-Bains, 49, 55;
hospital, 104, 113, 114;
arrival of wounded, 144;
entertains them, 147
Bailey, Sister, 22, 24
Baku, 233, 237
Baratoff, General, 240, 241
Bark, M., Russian Finance Minister, 195
Barrow-in-Furness, lectures by Miss Macnaughtan, 162
Bartlett, Ashmead, war correspondent, at Furnes, 35
Batoum, 208, 213
"Beau Garde," farm, 140
Bedford, Adeline, Duchess of, 59
Belgians, King of the, 141
Belgians, Queen of the, visits the Hospital at Furnes, 38
Benjamin, Miss, 2, 20
Bernoff, General, 208, 209
_Bessheim_, the, 179
Bevan, Mr., at Furnes, 80, 83;
Calais, 86;
Nieuport, 151;
Christiania, 179;
Stockholm, 180;
Baku, 231, 233
Bible, the, a Universal Human Document, 101
Boulderoff, M., 216
Boulogne, 55;
wounded at, 114
Bray, Mrs., 192
British man-of-war, 125
Brockville, Mr., at Dixmude, 35
Brooke, Victor, 178
Buchanan, Sir George, Ambassador at Petrograd, 184
Buchanan, Lady Georgina, at Petrograd, 184;
soup-kitchen, 192;
work-party, 196
Bute Docks, 171
Cabour hospital, 151
Calais, 83, 86
Cardiff, lecture by Miss Macnaughtan, 164, 167-171
Cardiff Castle, 163
Carlile, Mr., 120
Caspian Sea, 265
Caucasia, 210
Cavell, Miss, execution, 186
Cazalet, Mr., 207
Chart Sutton, churchyard at, 270
Chenies, 160
Children wounded, 116, 118
Chimay, Countess de Caraman, dame d'honneur of the Queen of the
Belgians, 139
Chisholm, Miss, 26, 63
Christiania, 179
Churchill, Winston, at Antwerp, 12, 16;
Dunkirk, 44
Clarry, Mr. G., President of the Cardiff Chamber of Trade, 170
Clegg, Mr., 105, 143
Clitheroe, Mrs., 86, 93
Close, Miss Etta, barge, 97, 126, 135;
work for the refugees, 140
Cocks, W., 171
Constant, Count Stanislas, 213
Cooper, Mr., 115
Courage, definition of, 24
Coventry, Mr., 112
Cowan{12}, Mr., Consul at Hamadan, 241, 246
Coxide, bombardment of, 69;
refugees at, 138
Crawley, Eustace, 178
Cunard, Mr., 198
Cunliffe, Miss, 2
Curie, Mme., at Furnes, 68
Cyril, Grand Duchess, 205
Decies, Lady, 55
Decker, Mrs., 26
Denniss, Colonel, 164;
speech at the Bute Docks, 171
Derfelden, Mme., 236
Dick, Miss, 2
Dinant, atrocities of the Germans at, 137
Dixmude, 127;
bombardment, 35, 39
Donnisthorpe, Miss, 2, 22
Drogheda, Lady, 97
Dunkirk, 25, 43, 57, 73, 86, 87, 94, 123, 151;
arrival of wounded, 44;
bombs on, 81;
condition of the station, 96;
shelled by the Germans, 115
Elliot, Lady Eileen, at Boulogne, 58
Elliott, Maxine, 94, 97, 126
Enzeli, 238
Erivan, 225, 227
Etchmiadzin, 229
Ferdinand, King of Bulgaria, 195
ffolliott, Mrs., letters from Miss Macnaughtan, 131, 269, 270
Fielding, Lady Dorothy, 12, 26, 63
Findlay, Mr., 82
Fisher, S., 171
France, armament works, 149
French, Sir John, at Dunkirk, 44
Frere, Sir Bartle, at Furnes, 68
Furley, Sir John, 112
Furnes hospital, 33;
arrival of wounded, 37, 68;
evacuated, 41, 43;
hopeless cases, 46;
soup-kitchen, 60;
shelled by the Germans, 75, 86, 122;
bombs on, 80, 81
Fyfe, Miss, 43
Galicia, fighting in, 223
Galitzin, Prince, 208
Gas, asphyxiating, cases of, 114, 145, 171
Georgia, 211;
custom at, 213
German army, siege of Antwerp, 3-21;
driven back, 18{13};
two regiments surrounded, 121;
atrocities, 126, 132, 137, 138;
throw vitriol, 144
Germany, preparations for war, 30;
treatment of prisoners, 132
Ghent, 12
Gibbs, Mr., war correspondent, at Furnes, 35
Gienst, Mme. van der, 143
Gilbert, 34
Glade, Mr., 2
Glasgow, munition works, output, 149, 161;
lectures by Miss Macnaughtan, 163
Gleeson, Mr., 33, 35
Glover, Bandmaster, K. S., 170
Godfrey, Miss, 2
Goodwin, Mr. and Mrs., 239
Gordon, Dr., American Missionary, 208
Gorlebeff, head of the Russian Red Cross, 208, 221, 222
Graham, Stephen, book on Russia, 208
Groholski, Count, 210, 218
Guest, Mrs., at Adinkerke, 119
Hamadan, 240;
climate, 243, 247;
tombs, 252
Hambro, Mr. Eric, 182
Hanson, Dr., 2, 23
Hanson, Mr., Vice-Consul at Constantinople, at Dunkirk, 151
Haparanda, 182
Harrison, Mr., 164
Haye, M. de la, 139, 140
Helsingfors, 266
_Hermes_, the, torpedoed, 43
Herslet, Sir Cecil, Surgeon-General, at Antwerp, 9
Hills, Mr., American missionary, 208, 222
Holland, Mr., 88
Hoogstadt, 87;
wounded at, 121
Hope, A., 171
Howard, Lady Isobel, 181
Howse, Mr., 164
Ignatieff, M., 237
_Invicta_, the, 43, 52
Jecquier, M., 195
Joffre, Marshal, at Dunkirk, 44
Joos, Dr., 77;
villa at Furnes, 48, 79
Joos, Mme., 77
Kajura, 236
Kasvin, 239, 259
Keays-Young, Mrs., letters from Miss Macnaughtan, 3, 106, 166, 262
Keays-Young, Miss Julia, letters from Miss Macnaughtan, 217, 262
King, Mary, 267;
letters from Miss Macnaughtan, 63, 109
Kirsanoff, Mme., 241
Kitchener, Lord, at Dunkirk, 44
Kluck, General von, at Mons, 133
Knocker, Mrs., 45, 63, 155
La Bassée, British casualties at, 107
Lampernesse, church shelled, 67
La Panne, 87, 93, 97
Lazarienne, Mr., 229
Leigh, Lord, 94
Lennel, 163
Lepnakoff{14}, Mlle., 233
Lightfoot, Mr., at Hamadan, 241, 246, 252
Lindsay, Harry, 183
Lloyd, Sir F., 162
Lloyd, George, 195
Logan, Miss, 87
Logette, Mrs., 72
Lombaertzyde, farm at, 138
Lombard, Mr., 190
_Lusitania_ torpedoed, 123
McDonald, gunner, wounded, 118, 124
MacDonald{15}, Mr. Ramsay, 73
MacDonell, Consul, at Baku, 237
McDowal, Mr., 241
McLaren, Mr. and Mrs., 238
McLean, Mr., 241, 248
MacMurray, Mr., 241, 248
Macnaughtan, Lieut. Colin, 144
Macnaughtan, Sarah, at Antwerp 1;
work in the Hospital, 8;
incentive to keep up, 17;
leaves Antwerp, 21;
at Ostend, 22;
joins Dr. Munro's convoy, 25;
at Dunkirk, 25, 43, 57, 73, 86;
St. Malo-les-Bains, 26, 49;
Furnes, 34-43, 46, 57;
flight to Poperinghe, 43;
description of the ruins of Nieuport, 46, 152-155;
request for travelling-kitchens, 51, 58;
visits her nephew at Boulogne, 55-57;
starts a soup-kitchen, 59-61;
feeding the wounded, 61, 69;
"charette," 69;
at the Villa Joos, 72, 77;
attends a Church service, 74;
return to England, 83, 111, 157, 267;
at Rayleigh House, 85;
soup-kitchen at Adinkerke, 86, 116, 157;
illness, 87, 104, 207, 245, 256, 259-264, 267-270;
at La Panne, 93, 111;
publication of war book, 111;
difficulties in getting her passport, 112;
at Boulogne, 114;
presented with a car, 120;
at Poperinghe, 135;
method of relieving cases of poison gas, 145, 171;
lectures on the war, 160-174, 274;
at Lennel, 163;
Cardiff Castle, 163;
Chevalier de l'Ordre de Léopold conferred, 167;
journey to Russia, 179-183;
at Christiania, 179;
Stockholm, 180;
Petrograd, 183-204, 265;
waiting for work, 191-198, 218;
studies Russian, 193;
works in a hospital, 198;
at Moscow, 204;
Tiflis, 208-210, 214, 230;
delicate appearance, 208;
at Caucasia, 210;
entertained by the Grand Duke Nicholas, 215;
on the administration of war charities, 219-222;
lessons in French, 224;
buys a motor-car, 224;
journey to Erivan, 225-227;
car breaks down, 225;
festered fingers, 234;
at Baku, 237;
Resht, 238;
Kasvin, 239, 259;
Hamadan, 240-257;
a day on the Persian front, 247-249;
unfinished article on Persia, 249-252;
_Return of the Pilgrim_, 253-256;
Tehran, 260-264;
journey home, 264-266;
at Helsingfors, 266;
appearance, 268;
appointed Lady of Grace of the Order of St. John of Jerusalem, 268;
death, 270, 280;
funeral, 270;
review of her war work, 272-276;
ideal of personal service, 274;
sketch of her character, 276-279;
religious views, 279
Malcolm, Colonel Ian, at Boulogne, 58;
Petrograd, 183;
at Moscow, 204
Malokand settlement, 226
Manners, Lady Diana, 183
Marines, British, at Antwerp, 12, 16;
retreat from, 28
Marines, French, 105{16}
Maxwell, Lady Heron, 185
Millis, General, 87
Mons, retreat from, 133;
vision at, 133
Montgomerie, Miss, American missionary at Hamadan, 252
Moorhouse, Rhodes, heroism, 129
Morgan, Mr., 83, 86
Morris, Dr., 2
Moscow, 204
Motono, M., at Petrograd, 195
Munitions, shortage of, 148
Munro, Dr. Hector, 12;
convoy, 25, 90;
at Dixmude, 35;
knocked over by a shell, 49
Murat, Prince Napoleon, 218, 231, 233
Murray, Mr. John, xii
Musaloff, Princess, 231
Needle, Mr., 164
Neligan, Dr., care of Miss Macnaughtan, 260, 263, 264
Neuve Chapelle, ruins of, 123
Neva, the, 200
Nevinson, Mr., at Furnes, 38
Nicholas, Grand Duke, 215
Nieuport, 71, 151;
ruins of, 46, 123, 152-155
Nightingale, song of the, 155-157
Nightingale, Florence, 184
Northcote, Elsie, 182;
death, 183
Ochterlony, gunner, wounded, 118
O'Gormon, Mrs., 16
Oostkerke, Belgian "observateur" killed at, 153
Orloff, Prince, 208;
appearance, 219
Ostend, 22, 24
Oulieheff, Count, 210
Page, Dr. de, 118
Parsons, Johnny{17}, 192
Passport, difficulties, 112
Percival, Mrs. Charles, letters from Miss Macnaughtan, 65, 242-245
Perrin, Dr., 86, 87
Perry, Miss, 2
Persia, climate, 239, 249;
railway, 247;
system of administration, 251;
unfinished article on, 249-252
Pervyse, 63, 64;
bombardment, 81;
ruins of, 123
Peter, Grand Duke, 215
Petrograd, 183, 187, 206, 265;
climate, 194;
number of amputation cases, 198;
return of wounded prisoners, 201-203;
number of hospitals, 220
Philpotts, Mr., 186
_Pilgrim, Return of the_, 253-256
"Pinching," habit of, 98
Poincaré, M., at Dunkirk, 44
Polish refugees, at Petrograd, 192, 193
Pont, Major du, 138
Poperinghe, 43, 135-137;
shelled, 116
Powell, Miss Hilda, xii
Prisoners, German, treatment in England, 132
Queen's Hall, London, lecture by Miss Macnaughtan, 162
Radstock, Lord, anecdote of, 197
Ramsay, Sir William, on the result of the war, 149
Ramsey, Dr., 2, 22
Randell, Miss, 2
Rasputin, malign influence, 209
Rayleigh House, 85
Reading, Mr. "Dick," 42
Rees{18}, T. Vivian, 164, 171
Resht, 238
Rhondda Valley, 164
Richards, Alderman J. T., speech at Cardiff, 167
Roberts, Lord, death, 63, 111
Rocky Mountains, 182
Rotsartz, M., 125;
portrait of Miss Macnaughtan, 104
Rushton Hall, Kettering, 160
Russian army, return of wounded prisoners to Petrograd, 201-203
St. Clair, Miss, 12
St. Gilles, convent at, 22
St. Idesbald, 150
St. Malo-les-Bains, 26, 49;
wounded at, 50
Samson, Commander, 88
Sarrel, Mr., 151
Sawyer, Mr., 112
Sazonoff, Mme., 200
Scherbatoff, Princess Hélène, 197
Scott, Lord Francis, at Boulogne, 58
Scott, Mr., 238
Scott, Miss, 82
Secher, Mr., wounded, 49
Seymour, Mr., kindness to Miss Macnaughtan, 266
Shaw, Bernard, 189
Sheffield, lecture by Miss Macnaughtan, 162
Shoppe, Lieutenant, 132;
at Nieuport, 153
"Should the Germans come," lecture on, 171-173
Sim, 178
Sindici, Mme.{19}, 83, 86
Slippers for the wounded, 66, 98
Smith, Captain, 198
Smith, Mr. Lancelot, 182
Smith, Mr. Robinson, 171, 173
Smitkin, Dr., 259
Sommerville, Mr. R., xii
Soup-kitchen at Adinkerke, 82, 97, 157;
Furnes, 60
Spies, German, shot, 44, 186
Stanley, Miss, 2
Stanmore, Lord, 183
Stear, Miss, 4
Steen, Mme. van den, 137
Steenkerke, 122, 155
Stenning, Mr., xii
Stobart, Mrs. St. Clair, head of the hospital unit at Antwerp, 2;
office, 7, 10;
issues orders, 18;
leaves Antwerp, 21;
return to England, 22
Stockholm, 180
Stoney, Dr. F., 2
"Stories and Pictures of the War," lecture on, 167
Streatfield, Mr., 74
Stretchers, size of, 66, 69
Strickland, Mr., 87
Strutt, Emily, 85
Strutt, Neville, 178
Sutherland, Duchess of, 93;
hospital at St. Malo-les-Bains, 44
Sweden, Crown Prince of, 181
Sweden, Crown Princess of, appearance, 181
Taff river, 164
Takmakoff, Mme., 200, 203
Tapp, Mr., 64
Teck, Prince Alexander of, 141;
at Furnes, 75, 83
Tehran, 260
Thompson, Mr., 138
Tiflis, 208, 214, 230
Tonepentre, 164
Toney Pandy, 164
Travelling-kitchens, 51
Tree, Viola, 183
Tschelikoff, Prince, 233{20}
Turks, cruelties, 177, 209
Turner, Dr. Rose, 2
Tyrell, Major, 151
Tysczkievez{21}, Count, 222
Urumiyah, evacuated, 223
Vaughan, Miss, at Furnes, 68
Vickers-Maxim works, Erith, lecture by Miss Macnaughtan, 160
Victoria, Grand Duchess, 185
Villiers, Sir Francis, British Minister at Antwerp, 9
Vladikavkas, 207
Wales, 163
Walker, Colonel, 112
Walter, Mr. Hubert, 143
Walton, Colonel, 176
War,{22} charities, administration, 219-222;
cost of the, 104;
cruelties, 175-178;
result, 115;
souvenirs, 143
Wardepett, Bishop, 229
Ware, Mr. F., 85
Waring, Lady Clémentine, letters from Miss Macnaughtan, 50-52, 58, 260;
at Lennel, 163
Warship, British, shelled by the Germans, 105
Watts, Dr., 2
Welwyn, 160
Westminster{23}, Duke of, at Dixmude, 127
Whiting, Captain, 73
William II., Emperor of Germany, supposed conversion to
Mahomedanism{24}, 209
William, Capt. Rhys, 239
Williams, Mr. Hume, 223
Wilson, Dr., 69, 225
Wilson, 178
Wood, Mr., 119, 121
Wynne, Mrs., 132, 140;
at Christiania, 179;
Moscow, 205;
Baku, 231
Young, Capt. Alan, at Boulogne, 55;
experiences in the war, 56;
wounded, 57
Young, Mrs. Charles, letter from Miss Macnaughtan, 214
Younghusband, Sir Frank, 164;
speech at Cardiff, 169
Ypres, 114, 137;
battle at, 144, 146
Yser, the, 64, 71, 121, 141
Billing and Sons, Ltd., Printers, Guildford, England
* * * * *
Transcriber's corrections and comments:
1. Added period missing in original.
2. Added comma missing in original.
3. Original had "Rotsarzt"; changed to "Rotsartz" to be consistent
with later occurrences.
4. Original had "vise"; changed to "visé".
5. Original had "pasport"; changed to "passport".
6. Original had "...road to Calais s blocked..."; changed to
"...road to Calais is blocked...".
7. Note inconsistency in spelling: text has "Reece", index has
"Rees".
8. Note inconsistency in spelling: text has "Johnnie", index has
"Johnny".
9. Changed from comma in original to period.
10. Note inconsistency in spelling: text has "Tysczkievcz", index has
"Tysczkievez"; most likely meant to be the Polish name
"Tyszkiewicz".
11. Added period missing in original.
12. Original had "Cowen"; changed to "Cowan", which is the spelling
used in both instances in the text.
13. Original reference to page 10; changed to page 18, as this
contains the actual reference to the German army being driven
back.
14. Original had "Lipnakoff"; changed to "Lepnakoff" as the more
likely spelling and to be consistent with the text.
15. Original had "Macdonald"; changed to "MacDonald".
16. Original reference to page 165; changed to page 105, as this
contains the actual reference to the French Marines.
17. Note inconsistency in spelling: text has "Johnnie", index has
"Johnny".
18. Note inconsistency in spelling: text has "Reece", index has
"Rees".
19. Added period missing in original.
20. Removed comma that was superfluous in the original.
21. Note inconsistency in spelling: text has "Tysczkievcz", index has
"Tysczkievez"; most likely meant to be the Polish name
"Tyszkiewicz".
22. Added comma missing in original.
23. Original had "Westminister"; changed to "Westminster".
24. Original had "Mahommedanism"; changed to "Mahomedanism" to be
consistent with the text.