October, 1915
_October 3rd._ All the morning we had been hard at work amongst our
_blessés_. It is odd how soon they endear themselves to everyone.
There is the little wizened bit of humanity who gazes all day long
into space with a horror-stricken look, or falls asleep, half on the
floor, half on the bed, until aroused. The unearthly green pallor of
his face is not accounted for by his slum upbringing alone, but by the
German gas and the fact that he has twice been blown heavenwards by
exploding mines. There is the finely built Canadian--one of the first
contingent who have all "seen hell with the lid off," to use their
own terminology--who, when the pain of his rheumatic limbs allows,
is so very precise in his toilet. He changes his shirt frequently,
gloating over the neatly folded bundles in which repose his requisites
with the air of a miser, never forgetting to clean his boots and call
for a glass by which to shave. He is "some" smart, and, judging by
the crested seal and gold watch-chain dangling from his waistcoat
pocket, must be a sahib at home. To us he is most remarkable for his
expression--the grimmest I have ever seen.
Then there is the "buffoon" of the place, who yarns lengthily about the
four times he has been hit (though his record only points to once), and
invariably sets out to sing comic songs when the rest of the community
is preparing to sleep.
The men are full of their glimpses of enemy trenches and methods;
of how they found quite a number of Germans chained to their own
machine-guns, which reminds me of the most dramatic side of warfare.
Very little is told of courts martial, very little is known of courts
martial, except to those whose duties bring them in contact with the
relentlessness of discipline. To realise one must see.
Until quite recently a blue-eyed, fair-haired boy lay in the end bed of
an airy ward in B---- Hospital. In spite of his extreme reticence he
won the affection of both nurses and patients. His wound was healing
quickly, but he only shook his head when they spoke of getting home.
One day as dinner was being taken round he asked for a second helping
of meat and pudding.
"Why, whatever is the matter?" exclaimed the kindly nurse. "Are you
very hungry?"
"Not very, Sister; but it's my last dinner!" came the quiet answer.
Not understanding, the Sister repeated the remark to the Medical
Officer.
It was quite true. The boy's wounds were self-inflicted. It was a case
for court martial. Next day he was gone.
_October 10th._ It was in the midst of serving out the dinners that two
friends turned up on their way home to England.
Hungry and travel-stained though they were, we were too busy to do more
than hurl a frying-pan and eggs into their hands, with injunctions
to help themselves until the rush was over and we could attend to
them. How they admired our ward and its now stained, polished floors,
for which we found a solution of brunswick black and turpentine so
efficacious! The afternoon being slack, we hied into the town to pay
a long promised visit to a naval friend, and were entertained right
royally, enjoying to the full the childish pleasure of having to scale
ungainly ladders from boat to boat, and listening to the conversation
between our host and the ship's captain in a jargon edifying but
utterly incomprehensible to the mere landlubber.
We wandered round the quay, along the roads on which stand
well-guarded, but by no means hidden, 5-inch guns, their attendant
"caterpillars," and, in the trains, loads of ammunition. As we
watched cranes lifting great weapons of destruction off the boats the
significance of this war of cold steel against quivering human flesh
was borne upon us. We sauntered round, marvelling at the wonderful
method by which, in less than a year, the British have created a whole
small city out of nothing.
Gangs of khaki-clad workmen dwell here, utterly oblivious, no doubt, of
the wonderful sunsets and Turneresque light effects as they work amidst
the stores of rations destined daily for the trenches, or the picric
acid, petrol and other explosives that lie by the sea.
My friends' enthusiastic anticipation of home was infectious, and it
needed much will-power to withstand their pleadings to get leave too.
And as the boat that carried them home grew into a faint speck on the
horizon, involuntarily our thoughts went with them, past the brightly
coloured villas, for all the world like the sugar-candy edifices of
fairy-tales, to the land where nothing is changed. Yes! There are hours
when one would gladly relinquish the necessities of life for a few of
its luxuries. Chief and foremost of these, needless to say, would be
an unlimited supply of those hot baths we were wont to accept as our
birthright, and are only just beginning to value at their true worth.
I wonder if anyone who has not spent a bleak winter in the jerry-built
summer residences of a French watering-place, whose eyes have not been
continually offended by the salmon-pink walls and hideous rococo cupids
on low ceilings, can realise the true joy of living once more in a
house, no matter how modest, but a house built to withstand the weather?
_October 13th._ The British advance on the outskirts of Hulluch--the
village of Loos, the progress near Hooge, the French capture of
that ghastly Souchez cemetery, their valiant fighting in Champagne,
are things of the past. It is the Hohenzollern Redoubt that is on
everyone's lips now, and Vermelles. Our own men--the hospital
orderlies, that is to say--who spend all their spare moments at the
hut, are quite worn out by this rush of work, which nevertheless seems
to have put new life into them.
Many grouse at the R.A.M.C. Few people realise the deference due
to those devoted men who, day and night, are working to alleviate
suffering. They number amongst their ranks many well-born men, who
joined that corps at the first call in the hopes of "getting out
soon," and many who gave up excellent posts to enlist are undergoing
undreamt-of hardships with a stoicism that is admirable.
After all, which lot is preferable? That of the man who, after running
risks in the trenches for six days, finds himself in billets the
succeeding week, able to enjoy his liberty with the consciousness of
having earned it--or the man who has had steadily to perform the same
menial jobs for fifteen unrelieved months, running no risk, it is
true, save that of infection, but subject to the obloquy of those he
is serving because he has never been in the trenches? As an R.A.M.C.
orderly, who has made three unsuccessful attempts to transfer into a
combatant unit, remarked to-day, the Base has well been described as
"the place where they keep you until you are so fed up that the Front
is a treat!"
A hundred temptations assail them, and men who had never before felt
the least inclination towards drink find themselves drifting by degrees
into those enticing-looking little French cafés not yet closed by the
authorities.
And it is to detract from the attractions of these dens that we work to
keep the men amused.
Said one onlooker to-day pityingly: "I hear you have such a bad set of
men--drunkards and all sorts of undesirables!"
With truth I could rejoin: "Not nearly bad enough. It's the worst we
want, for they need helping most."
_October 19th._ There is no end to the gamut of emotions one traverses
during the space of an ordinary day. To close one's eyes and look back
over the kaleidoscopic events of the week is almost bewildering.
The picture of Second Lieutenant Jones, lately junior clerk at Messrs.
Morells, steamship owners, being brought face to face with his former
employer, Sir Cuthbert Morell, private, A.S.C., is inexpressibly funny.
Private Morell accords the Tommy's salute to his officer, who seems to
have lost all his customary swagger and starch for the moment.
Lieutenant Jones stops. "I--I hope you're getting on all right--sir,"
he stammers.
The grey-haired private, master of millions, with shooting-boxes,
country seats, town houses that a prince might envy, replies to his
£100 per annum clerk and superior officer that all is well. For a
moment they gaze at each other speechless. Then the topsy-turvydom
of it all grows too much for them, and, to the astonishment of the
onlooker, the adjutant of Jones's regiment, they burst into a roar of
laughter that, contrary to all military etiquette, ends in a hearty
handshake.
_October 20th._ Whilst we were still a hospital, and our work
temporarily paralysed, a new hut was opened. In a state of great
indignation some of the men clustered round to reassure us as to their
patriotism to the old place.
"_You_ needn't fear no rivalry," exclaimed one; "they've got the wrong
class o' person doon there."
"This is _our_ hut, and you make us feel as if we belonged to the
place and it to us," said another.
If their loyalty warmed our hearts, it did not in the least facilitate
the task of explanation that our Association fears no rivalry, that it
is not attempting to run a cheap café, and rather than be thought to
outbid anyone else would pack up its traps and depart.
Such is the spirit of the institution for which we are working. And
perhaps I may whisper it in my diary that in one place, when some
unscrupulous folk were bribing unwary men with free drinks to spread
abroad that the Association tea was of an inferior quality to theirs,
with their truly magnanimous spirit the Y.M.C.A. _did_ walk out of the
camp, and yet continued to supply the said unscrupulous folk with all
the stores they required.
Oh, yes, we're all inordinately proud to be working under the sign of
the Red Triangle!
Many, no doubt, have used the institution for the purpose of gratifying
their curiosity, more as a means of playing their rôle in the Great
Game, and most, maybe, will sever their connection with the Association
to which they owe so much with the cessation of hostilities; but
those who have been vouchsafed an insight into the methods of the
Y.M.C.A., the dominating spirit that has driven it into the position
of responsibility it now holds--in face of the derision with which its
rise was first greeted--will not forget that the Y.M.C.A. has never yet
failed where it was most needed, never shown anything but the greatest
magnanimity of spirit. Entirely undenominational, it throws its doors
open to every sect under the sun, its buildings have been lent to Jews
and Catholics, Mohammedans and others alike; and just _because_ of its
broadness and the largeness of its vision it is having an evangelising
power undreamt of by any religious inquisition of the Middle Ages.
There will be many, after this war, who will be able to say:
"I grew religious because I saw what a wonderful thing active religion
can be"; and though the members of this Association--which has a way of
giving the humbler born leaders of men an opportunity of leading--may
never hear of all this, it will be inscribed to their favour on the Day
of Reckoning! And surely the very silence of its workings is sufficient
testimony of its strength, as its growth is of its utility.
Does the world know, I wonder, how daily improvised centres are
springing up nearer and nearer the Front, to the men's delight, until
the old familiar sign of the Red Triangle--not Bass's Pale Ale, be it
noted--but the Red Triangle, that symbolises "Body, Mind and Spirit,"
is to be found even in dug-outs?
Nor is the institution behindhand in Egypt or the Near East or
Gallipoli.
Only to-day we heard of a secretary (originally here with the Indian
force) who, on landing at Gallipoli, was greeted by the C.O. with a
cheerful:
"And what are you looking for?"
"A place with no shells flying about, sir, to start a Y.M. centre!"
"Why, that's what everyone on the Peninsula is looking for!" exclaimed
the Colonel. "If you can find it, by all means keep it!"
_October 28th._ All things considered, the resignation of the French
Ministry is causing far less comment here than such a move in England
would make, though in Paris we hear there is quite an upheaval.
Internal politics in France are so entirely subservient to the
international issues at stake.
One would not want those at home to know all there is to know of modern
warfare--of the vast pestilential graveyard that is Belgium--yet one
cannot help wishing that some of the vibrations of these strenuous
times could be more clearly felt by them, that they would cease to see
things as they wish to see them, and realise that the worst is yet to
come--that we must brace ourselves to face it.
Not only the spirits of the fallen heroes of our little insignificant
Western Front cry out to be avenged, not only the scarce human
prisoners, dying in hundreds of cold and hunger in disease-ridden
concentration camps; the girl mothers of Belgium, the murdered
innocents, the crucified Canadians; men burned by liquid fire,
suffocated by poison gas, parched men dying of thirst on the arid
plains of the East; but every forbear of our gallant race warns us that
the end is not yet, that to safeguard the future of our children the
nation must turn its whole attention to the work in hand.
How can we blame the slackers who, for want of confidence, refused to
throw in their lot with what seems to them a wild-goose chase--until
fetched? We must blame the slothful system that allows one man to
profit by another's patriotism.
We must not lay the blame of any one failure at the door of any one
particular man, but attribute it to the fault we are most often apt to
exalt as a virtue--as if by so doing we exonerated our mistakes--our
slack unpreparedness.
Surely, until we are animated by one great unity of purpose, one great
desire to sink personal in national interests, even as our dead heroes
have done, there can be no end.
Surely if our Russian Allies could achieve in one day what reformers
had scarce hoped to see effected in a hundred years, and by one fell
swoop convert herself into an abstemious country, animated with but one
desire--to conquer--we should be able to attain a little more unity, a
little less slackness?
_October 29th._ The news of the King's accident whilst reviewing the
troops is the one thing one hears discussed on all sides. Exactly where
he will be taken seems as yet indefinite, but the orderlies from the
Officers' Hospital opposite are fully convinced that _their_ wards are
being prepared for his reception. The French seem almost as upset as
we are, for their love of our Royalty remains as staunch as during the
life of King Edward, whom they worshipped, and the Prince of Wales--of
whom we have caught an occasional glimpse on his way to and from the
Front--vies in popularity with his genial grandfather.