February, 1915
_February 2nd._ This morning, in company with our chief, Mr. H----,
I went over to prospect in the new sphere of action. The lower part
of the hotel that the Association has taken is devoted to a canteen,
whilst on the first floor there is a library and writing-room, and
above, seven spacious rooms lie empty until such a time as the hostel
is started. The hostel is a grand scheme for billeting gratis the
relatives of badly wounded men, who could otherwise not afford the
journey.
My heart sank at sight of the minute kitchen, the range of which seemed
literally hidden by pots and pans; but no doubt one day we shall get it
in order.
The secretary--a Scottish padre--is full of enthusiasm for football,
with which he hopes to keep the men at the base well amused.
In the afternoon, on exploring for myself, I discovered that the most
interesting feature of the place is the isolation compound that
lies alongside the enteric hospital. Here all infectious illnesses
are treated in bathing-boxes rigged out as wards; here are patients
indulging in every conceivable disease, from mumps and measles to
diphtheria, typhoid and the dreaded spinal meningitis.
Farther along, attached to the Casino, whose spacious gaming rooms make
wonderfully cheerful wards, is a smaller hotel, where the men suffering
from skin diseases are treated. One's heart goes out to these men,
especially the wounded ones, who through no fault of their own are
afflicted with the foul diseases that follow in the train of war.
The main road is lined with hospitals--the "British," the
"Anglo-American," the "Rawal Pindi" (so called because the unit was
mobilised in that far-away Indian station), and others.
The great objection to the converted hotels is the smallness of
the well-appointed rooms, which gives one the desire to knock down
intervening walls and form them into one spacious room to save the
sisters' feet and the patients' voices!
One is lost in admiration now at the organisation of things, just as
two months ago one was appalled by the state of unreadiness. Nothing
that can be done for our men is omitted.
_February 3rd._ For the last time I watch the moon wane, the sun rise
over the mist-bathed harbour. Will the picture I have learned to love
so well ever fade? The countless masts rising to the sky, the water
dashing over the distant breakwater, the clock at the Gare Maritime,
now visible, now obscured by smoke from the packet-boat's funnel.
The incoming destroyers, the sister hospital ships lying abreast,
the distant windmill on the hill, round which many corrugated iron
buildings are springing up (bakeries, they say), the weather-beaten
tars, the women, their backs bent with the weight of their sacks of
mussels and cockles, tramping along barefooted or in sabots, the
ceaseless stream of ambulances.
_February 8th._ Laden with parting gifts and consoled by parting
regrets (strangest among them those of our padre, who will miss having
someone to darn his socks!), we found ourselves at our new domain--the
American girl and I.
Certainly the circumstances of our arrival were far from favourable,
for my colleague fell very ill the day we arrived, and after a night
spent on the floor of her ten-by-eight-feet-long room (oh, those
boards!--my bones still ache, my head swims in memory of them), we
installed her in a military hospital, and set to work to "carry on."
Two other workers have arrived from England; neither of them having
done hard manual labour before, they are apt to find this somewhat
strenuous, though to our more veteran hands it is child's play.
Footsoreness, too, that bane of all amateur workers, is their portion.
There are times when one wonders if all new things are horrid!
This morning, at Mattins in the little tin church, for instance, when
the convalescent soldier organist, with the angelic face and absolute
lack of any musical instinct, crashed out his last discordant notes,
when the congregation, consisting of three nurses, the old, old man who
took round the plate, and two maiden ladies who acted as choir, trooped
into the sunshine, I could not but cast a longing thought at St.
John's, with its dim religious glow and mellow organ and congregation
of muddy soldiers.
_February 12th._ Besides getting the place in order, we are busily
employed in thinking out new dishes for the men. To the ordinary store
of cakes and drinks we have already added custard, stewed fruits, and
bread puddings.
In spare moments I catalogue the library, and have evolved a good
system by which the men fill in the register themselves on taking out a
book, thus dispensing with a librarian. The library book is like this:
Rank Name Number Regt. No. of Name of Date
Book Book taken
Pte. J. Smith 30496 R.F. 4 "She" Feb. 1
Cpl. J. Philips 5328 R.A.M.C. 299 "Last Days Feb. 10
of Pompeii"
_February 16th._ Yesterday, a train being derailed close by here on
its way up to the front, and the men left stranded, we took them up a
supply of cigarettes and chocolates that good friends at home had sent
out.
The canteen is growing like wildfire, and we are heart and soul in
our work, which we estimate by the material return in the till each
evening. We have trebled the receipts in two weeks, which shows how the
men are flocking to it.
_February 18th._ _The day_--the great day of the German blockade. We
are wondering how far the enemy will really carry out his scheme.
Certainly no mail boat has come in to-day, and we are without letters
or newspapers. The suspension of communication with England is nothing
new, but we are speculating if this time it will be a matter of weeks
instead of days.
Being _hors de combat_ with a sore throat--the toll exacted apparently
by this germ-filled place from every worker who comes to stay--I have
leisure to note our surroundings. The walls of the large, airy room,
which though devoid of all save the necessities of life is luxury
embodied by reason of its cleanliness, are bare except for a few unpaid
bills held together by a file, a few hastily scrawled quotations from
favourite authors to remind us that we once had time to indulge in
beautiful pictures, to roam into the realms of beautiful books.
By the window, acting as a couch, are two large wooden cases in which
gramophones for the men had been sent out, and which prove a great
attraction to the friendly little mice who come out and hold long
confabulations, not only under cover of night, but frequently, when
things are quiet, by day. They are welcome enough to the wooden boxes,
but when they take to running over our beds, our clothing as it lies
on the chairs, and finally even over our _faces_, they can hardly
expect to be well received!
The view from the window is superb. Before us, in front of the
little grey church, the river runs down to the sea, now gently, now
turbulently. To the right a peep of the ocean. To the left the bridge,
through the arches of which is a glimpse of landscape as peaceful as
any Tuscan village, and over which the trains pass intermittently up to
the front by day and by night. They rush past with a whistle that is
more of a shriek and a groan, as if they themselves realised the value
of their burden--the guns, the ammunition wagons, the trainloads of men
in khaki or in blue clustered along the edge of the overcrowded trucks
designed to carry "eighteen horses or thirty-six men."
In contrast with the rushing up-trains the loaded ambulances crawl
creakingly down at a snail's pace.
God! That such things should be! If the heart of the world were big
enough, surely it would break at so much misery, so much destruction.
For what have all previous generations laboured, legislating, studying
to salve human ills? For this! Wanton destruction, rapine, murder.
_February 21st._ These are exciting times. Last night there was the
sound of guns at sea. An engagement off Dover is recounted, but papers
no longer get through to us. A sudden explosion about five o'clock
the same day, and the subsequent report of a sunken hospital ship,
afterwards said to have been a neutral (Dutch?) liner, leaves us with
but the vaguest idea of what really happened.
Just as the doctor, a kindly little man, who was invalided down some
weeks ago from his field ambulance at B----, had appeared, stethoscope
in hand, all attention was riveted on a funeral that passed by--that
of a nursing sister who has just died of the fatal spotted fever. The
flower-bedecked coffin, the whole available hospital unit marching
slowly with arms reversed, made an impressive sight. One wondered if
she had ever received so much attention in her lifetime as at her
death. The doctor told me that in India, where the intense heat is
sometimes conducive to suicide, the fear of _not_ having a military
funeral often acts as a deterrent.
[Illustration: "THE BRIDGE, THROUGH THE ARCHES OF WHICH IS A GLIMPSE OF
LANDSCAPE AS PEACEFUL AS ANY TUSCAN VILLAGE"]
No sooner was the cortège past than a broken aeroplane rolled by on a
heavy trolley, and left us wondering if that was the crash we heard
yesterday.
An air raid on Calais, packet-boat nearly sunk, torpedoes off
Boulogne--it almost seems as if we are going to see the real thing.
Martial law here has become very strict. The roads are guarded so that
one cannot move an inch without showing passports. Lights have to be
out by 9 P.M., and even my diary has to be penned behind a screen of
bedclothes with the aid of a candle stump. Seeing that we only finish
work at 9 P.M., have to get home, eat our supper, and go to bed in
the dark, it is rather tiresome, and we are now engaged in rigging up
light-proof curtains.
On returning to work after my first committee meeting--the very
existence of which proves the method that is creeping into the
erstwhile chaos--I was greeted by the news of our Dardanelles
Expedition which is now occupying all our attention.