An English Woman’s Contribution Was Her Fortune and the Daily Risk of
Her Life
Among the decorations worn by Mrs. Hilda Wynne are the French Croix
de Guerre, the Belgian order of Leopold, and the Russian Order of St.
George—certificates of preëminent service in circumstances of danger
that demand the high courage of utter self-devotion. Mrs. Wynne is
a young English woman who gave her fortune to organize an ambulance
unit and risked her life driving an ambulance on the firing line. Her
organization was known as the Bevan-Wynne Unit, and it cared for some
40,000 wounded soldiers in the course of the war. Mrs. Wynne visited
this country in the Autumn of 1917 for the purpose of arousing interest
in the public in the needs of soldiers in France. Happily her mission
was a successful one.
While she was in Denver the _Post_ of that city induced Mrs. Wynne to
tell some of her experiences, which are here reproduced.
“Looking upon the human courage I have witnessed, from this distance
and in the little breathing space I have taken from service I can
recall thousands of heroic acts, but the bravest happened on the
Russian front.
“I saw two aviators go up to certain death. They were a Russian and a
Frenchman. Both were little men. They went up to meet twenty German
aeroplanes. It was suicidal. But they had been ordered to go—and theirs
was the spirit of the gallant six hundred. I stood near them as they
made ready to go. They said nothing. That is one of the lessons you
learn in war—not to waste time nor words.
[Illustration: Women Ambulance-Drivers Served With All the Allied Armies
Many of them received decorations for conspicuous bravery while under
fire.]
“They got their machines ready as a rider tests his saddle-straps
and stirrups before starting for his morning gallop through the park.
A little pothering and fixing of the machinery and they had gone.
They went straight up and began blazing away at the German planes. I
watched and the cords of my heart tightened, for the German planes,
looking like great gray birds with wings widespread, came closer and
closer. They surrounded them. They formed a solid double circle about
them. Then they began to fire. And I turned and covered my eyes with
my hands. A few seconds later what had been aeroplanes were splintered
wood and what had been men a broken mass covered by smoking rags.
“While this was the bravest act I saw in two and a half years on the
firing line, I readily recall the most pathetic. It was the second line
of men in the Russian trenches. They were unarmed soldiers. There were
no guns for them. They took their places there expecting that the man
in front might drop, and the second-line man could pick up his gun and
take his place.
“I have seen many of the Allies die. They all die bravely. At Dixmude
when the fusiliers arrived 8,000 and went out 4,000 there was
magnificent courage in death. The Frenchman dies calling upon his God.
The Englishman says nothing or feebly jests; just turns his face to the
wall and is still. The Russian is mystic and secretive. The Russian
lives behind a veil of reserve. You never fully know him. In the last
moments you know by his rapt look that his soul is in communion with
his God.