1
All night long the wind, blowing in across the dunes from the North
Sea, had brought the sound of firing.
At times it was hardly perceptible: a faint reverberation of the ether
that could scarcely be defined as sound; it would resolve itself into a
low, continuous rumble, very much like distant thunder, that died away
and recommenced nearer and more distinct. Then the sashes of the open
window trembled, and Margaret, who had lain awake all night, every
nerve strained to listen, leaned on one elbow to stare from her bed out
into the darkness.
She had tried not to listen. For hours she had lain without moving,
with limbs tense beneath the coverings, the palms of her hands pressed
against her ears. But imagination sped through the dark passages of
her mind, brandishing a torch, compelling her at length to listen again.
She had no very clear idea, of course, what a naval action was like. A
confused recollection of pictures seen in childhood only suggested
stalwart men, stripped to the waist and bare-footed, working round the
smoking guns of ships whose decks blazed up in flame to taunt the quiet
heavens; while the ships' scuppers ran red.
Modern naval warfare could be nothing like that, though.
She had only seen the results of modern warfare. Men tortured till
they came near to forgetting their manhood; burnt, deaf, scalded, torn
by splinters, blinded; she had seen them smiling under circumstances
that thrilled her to feel they shared a common Flag.
On the outbreak of war the training institute on the East Coast, of
which Margaret was the matron, had, on account of its position near the
coast and other advantages, been converted into a Naval Hospital. Miss
Dacre, the principal, Margaret, and a few others who had already
qualified in nursing, were retained as Red Cross sisters, and it was
not long before the classrooms and dormitories were occupied by very
different inmates from those for whom they were intended. Only the
more serious cases reached these wards. The less dangerously hurt
passed by rail or hospital ship to the base hospitals in the South.
All night long the wounded men in the long wards stirred fretfully
under the white counterpanes, each man translating the sounds according
to his own imagination or experience. The night-sisters moved softly
to and fro on the beeswaxed boards, smoothing tumbled pillows,
adjusting a splint or a bandage, calming the bearded children who
fretted because they were hopelessly "out of it."
Towards the dawn the sounds of firing gradually grew fainter, and died
away as the first pale bands of light appeared in the east. The
sparrows under the eaves stirred and commenced a sleepy twittering.
Margaret rose as soon as objects in her room were discernible, bathed
her face and hands in cold water, and stood awhile at the window
watching the day growing over the sea and sombre sky.
The sounds of the battle that passed away to the northward had shaken
her nerves as had nothing else in all her experience. Standing there
by the open window, drinking in the indescribable freshness of the
dawn, she despised herself. She, who had devoted her life to a
Purpose, should be above the petty weakness of her sex. Yet the cold
fear that had been her bedfellow throughout the night, and was
concerned with neither defeat nor victory, haunted her still.
She closed the window, lit a small spirit-lamp on a side table, and,
while the kettle boiled, dressed in riding things. The earliness of
the hour made it improbable that she would meet a soul, and yet she
dressed carefully, coiling her soft hair, with its silver threads, on
the nape of her neck, fastidiously dusting riding boots, and giving a
brisk rub to the single spur before she strapped it on. She was
adjusting her hard-felt hat before the glass when someone knocked at
the door.