horribly disfigured as to be unrecognisable. As I ride through the wind
and rain between the long lines of tin and wooden huts, see the felled
timber, the burned heather, all the ugly features of the military camp,
I chalk up more and more against the makers of war.
I feel sorry for all the people who have built lovely homes and lordly
dwelling places among these matchless hills and downs. They have been
so good about it, never grumbling or standing in the way.
I am talking every day to the boys. Last night I was at Bramshott.
But, oh, my dear, it is not the same; the glow and the glory have
departed. Those who radiated that white heat of splendour are sleeping
in quiet graves in France, or Flanders, or on Eastern sands.
I am not suggesting that the stuff here is not as good--in some
respects, it might even be better.
But youth has gone--these men have the deep eyes of seeing men, and
their mouths are grimly set. They are here because they have no choice.
I think your draft bill is splendid, but oh, I hoped great America would
come in on the volunteer basis. There is something different about it,
something more finely subtle. I am conscious of the mighty difference
every time I stand up to speak to them. They are not less determined
that the fight shall be to a finish, but they question more.
They are asking some explanation at the hands of those who claim the
sacrifice of their homes and lives and all men hold dear. Who is to
answer their righteous questioning?
Sometimes in my dreams I see a great Judgment seat where Kings and
Emperors, and diplomats, and politicians, and wire pullers and
profiteers will have to answer to the blood stained hosts they summoned
to fight and die, for what?
I am due back in the French camps in about ten days' time and I am half
afraid to go. I can't answer all the questions they will put to me. I
don't know enough.
In the early days you could play upon their mobile hearts as on a harp
of ten strings; tears and laughter and smiles we had then, all side by
side, with the most glorious courage the world has ever seen.
In some of the battalions now you find the fathers of the boys who sleep
in Flanders and in France.
Oh, Cornelia, the waste, the wanton waste and cruelty of war. Where is
it tending? Where shall we be brought before it is over? Sometimes my
brain reels at the thought.
Meanwhile the band is slowly tightening.
We have not had any butter at home for over a week.
*XIII*
The awful suspense about Himself I was enduring when I wrote last was
broken at last by a cable from France. It came from Effie at Camiers
and it took me some time to grasp its meaning. "Safe, unhurt; tell your
mother," was every word it said.
Florence and I, poring distractedly over it together, could only arrive
at the conclusion that there had been a disaster at sea, in which our
troopship was involved. We did not even know its name, from what port
it had sailed, or whither bound; in fact we did not know he had sailed
at all from the French base.
It is the black darkness in which one has to live which makes it so hard
to be a soldier's wife in war times. A few more awful days had to be
lived through--whole ten of them, then a long, closely written letter
from Himself, arrived from a port in France, whose very name was not
given.
But the story was wonderfully vivid and full; in fact I didn't know how
it had passed the Censor, till I saw his own signature on the envelope,
indicating that he had censored it himself.
I must not enclose the letter, nor yet tell you all it contained,
because I want you to get what I am writing. These are the facts:
They set sail from Marseilles after long, dreary waiting in a
particularly unpleasant camp, and next morning at ten o'clock were
torpedoed off the Italian coast, not far from Genoa. Do you remember
Genoa and its terraces where we met first, so long ago that it seems as
if it must have been in some other existence?
You know how Himself writes, very simply and directly, without any
embroideries, but his narrative was far more impressive than if he had
tried to make it effective. It simply just makes you see it all,
realise the horror of it.
The first torpedo disabled the ship, but if the enemy had left it at
that, she could have been taken into port under her own steam.
There was, of course, a good deal of excitement and the boats were
difficult to handle, apparently they had never been inspected or tested
for any emergency. Can you conceive it, Cornelia, we have been three
years at war and yet such elementary precautions are left to chance?
Priceless time was lost grappling with them, and before they could be
lowered, priceless lives were lost. Himself waiting calmly, ready for
the emergency,--or for the end, for which he needed no preparation, saw
the second shell launched from the submarine. Many of the boats had got
clear. One had the sixty nurses who comprised the hospital unit;
sitting up to their middles in water, they sang hymns to cheer those
drifting helpless in the sea.
The second torpedo found its mark amidships and the gallant boat went
down in eight minutes.
The only chance for those still remaining on her decks was to jump into
the sea. But that takes a special kind of courage; only those who had
it were saved; the rest went down in the awful swirl of the sinking
ship. Himself was picked up by a Japanese destroyer, filled with wonder
that he who had done his day's work should have been saved, while so
many of his boys, with all their lives in front, should have gone down.
It is a great mystery.
How often have we asked ourselves that kind of question during these
dreadful years. So many of us would have gone so gladly in their place.
They were landed at the port of Savonna. The Italians were
extraordinarily kind to them, furnishing them with food and wine and
clothing of every kind. He enclosed some snapshots--one actually taken
of the sinking ship. There will be people, I am sure, ready with the
camera on the Judgment Day. One of these snapshots depicts Himself in
his riding breeches and leggings and an Italian military cloak, which
makes him look like a bandit.
He lost everything except that which he happened to have on at the
moment. All the lovely new Eastern kit, to say nothing of his
photographs, letters, and dear intimate possessions, are at the bottom
of the sea.
Nothing matters except that he is safe. He has no idea what will happen
to him now--he supposes they will just have to wait for another ship.
Meanwhile he is getting a little respite from the Spartan rigours of one
of the worst cantonments he has ever struck, by being a voluntary
patient in a hospital.
What he says about that is very amusing. He has been accustomed to boss
a hospital, and now he is being very effectively and vigorously bossed.
I fear he is not chastened yet, but only rebellious.
I can smile at it all because my heart is lightened of its load. God
means him to come back to me, or he would have gone down in the
Mediterranean.
It is odd how in this war, you have convictions about this one and that;
the sort of presentiment who will get safely through, and who will never
come back. But they are not always true. I felt so sure about Dick, of
whom I wrote in my last letter. I felt that his kind, the very highest
type of fearless soldier and a fine Christian gentleman, was so much
needed here, that God would care for him specially. When one thinks of
how many like him lie on the blood-soaked fields, one is staggered, and
uncertain about the future of the race.
But we must leave it, leave it all and just hold blindly on. It has
gotten clear beyond us. It is so big and awful, we can just not grasp
it at all.
I am now a little like a Jack of all trades, master of none. Food is
beginning to be spelled with a very large capital and they tell me I
must talk about food. I went to Scotland for that purpose and to speak
at a great meeting in Glasgow Cathedral to commemorate on the 4th of
August those who had fallen in the war.
It is the first time a woman has ever lifted up her voice in the
Cathedral, and the occasion caused some searching of heart. The noble
edifice was absolutely packed and directly I got up, standing at a
specially selected spot in the Nave, I forgot everything but the faces
in front, the great sorrowing heart of my own country and its bitter
need. She is a very little country, but none have more nobly done their
bit. Do you know, Cornelia, that there are villages in the north and
west of Scotland where the young men are all wiped out--where there is
no link between one generation and another except the babies in arms.
There are no sons left, no husbands for the girls. It was with these
things my heart broke as I tried to speak.
Nowhere is there any grudging or holding back. At the overflow meeting
that had to be held in an adjoining church a woman came up at the close,
a little plain country woman in mourning with a bag on her arm. From it
she took three photographs of soldiers in Highland dress and a war
office telegram which she laid against one of the lads. "That came
yesterday," she said. "It's Jamie--he's the last----"
All gone and she a widow. What is one to say to a woe like that? Where
is compensation to be found? There will have to be something very
satisfying over there beside the river of God to make up for the roll of
the whelming billows here.
I went on from Glasgow to Dundee to speak to two thousand women about
the necessity for saving food. The situation is becoming acute and it
has to be explained to the people. I have come to the conclusion that
food is the supreme test. They'll give almost anything more cheerfully,
go into small houses, wear old clothes, economise anywhere but on what
is vulgarly called their "inwards."
Then you see our industrial population was never better off. In the
shipbuilding districts, the munition areas--the great textile
neighbourhoods, they are simply piling it up. Of course they want all
the things money can buy. I am sure I should, if I had been cheated out
of them for a whole section of my life.
So you can't blame these people for buying salmon at four shillings per
pound, the best beefsteaks and prime cuts from the joints, when they can
get them. But the trouble is they can't now get them, so there is
grumbling and unrest. They have got it into their heads that the
government is hoarding the stuff and that favour is being shown. So
labour has said that it will go short if capital goes short with them.
It is a perfectly reasonable proposition and the sooner the card ration
scheme comes into operation, the better. It will not solve the whole
problem, of course, nor yet increase incredulously or automatically the
available stores. What it will do is to ensure equal distribution.
I, for one, hope Lord Rhondda won't lose any more time. I am afraid my
letters are getting less and less interesting.
What you asked for was a plain, unvarnished record of war conditions
here, which you want to keep, and I am setting them down as simply and
faithfully as I know how. We are getting bit by bit down to the sordid
bedrock where we are face to face with the hideous nakedness of war.
There are things that the glow and glory of our Pentecostal sacrifice
can hardly illumine.
In my deep heart I feel that we are coming to them soon, and that we
shall need more different kinds of courage than at any time during those
searching, aging, interminable years.
I got back to find that the war office has commandeered our "substitute"
for active service. There is no one else to be got, so the door will
have to be shut. It means that our living is all gone except what Cook
calls "the Capting's pay." Cook himself is working at munitions now
after having successfully planted the potato patch. So there is only
Florence and me left, and we don't eat much.
Life truly is shorn for me of much of its dignity, and the amazing thing
is that one doesn't mind--we are not our own any more, but bought with a
price.
A woman condoled with me not long ago over the house being destroyed.
All I could think of was to say as cheerfully as possible, "You can get
another house, but there is only one country." I must just keep on
saying it to myself over and over, but sometimes when there is nobody
looking, I am afraid I don't hold my diminished head so high.
*XIV*
Food is the question of the hour. The people who have read with
uncomprehending eyes the imploring official appeals "Eat less bread,"
"Save the Wheat," "Food will win the War," are now face to face with
real shortage. The psychology of this war, in so far as it operates in
human consciousness, is a very remarkable thing. I had to sit down to
think it over this morning after a very exhausting argument with a food
waster and hoarder. These two words don't sort together, do they, but
they are apt to the hour. He or she who hoards food at this moment of
national stress, wastes it, because he is preserving it for his own
wretched body, which is of no value to his country. A few minutes'
silent contemplation brought me into a clearer light. The absolute
refusal of those people to admit the need for conservation and
self-denial, is a form of national pride. They simply can't admit the
humiliating fact that Great Britain, proud mistress of the seas, is no
longer self-supporting or sufficient to her own needs. They never knew,
of course, that in our most prosperous years we could produce only forty
per cent. of what we consumed. And if they had known it, would it have
made any difference? It is all so very English, so dogged, so unchanged
and unchangeable.
But even this partially comforting reflection, that the grumblers and
obstructionists are really patriots in disguise doesn't ease the
situation or fill the empty store cupboards.
And I am in it now, Cornelia, up to the neck in it. Having filled many
rôles, I have now become a food expert, from whose lips calories and
proteids and other heathen words ought to flow glibly. Only they don't.
I am a plain woman and most people are plain in the same sense. They
hate camouflage; it worries and wearies them. I am trying to tell as
simply as I can, how they may make up with other things, for the things
that are not there.
It does not read very clearly or convincingly, does it? But that is my
job.
It is not easy. Food is not an inspiring theme. You cannot wax
eloquent over it; the only dramatic moments are those when you flame red
with indignation over the breaking down of the voluntary system. It has
failed all along the line, and card rationing is bound to come. There
have been several distressing instances from sources where we had every
reason to look for better things--ay, even for leadership in high
ethics. But alas! the temptation to be secure against more troublous
times was too great for resistance. All this causes a searching of
heart lest there should be very weak points left in my armour. I am
determined that in this particular respect I shall do rather more than
my share. I am kept up to high-water-mark by Florence. She really ought
to have a medal for allegiance to the Government under the most trying
conditions. She has weighed everything, done all the things I might not
have done, stood firm between me and every temptation.
If food doesn't actually win the war, at least its shortage is searching
the hearts and trying the reins of the children of men.
All the time wrestling with those sordid details, trying to interest
people in oatmeal and bones, and the superiority of casserole cooking
over the waste of roast and frying, I have to keep thinking of the glory
and travail which is bound up in it all. If you haven't something to
illumine with, if only a farthing dip, you just can't go on.
Although some people have complimented me on my housekeeping, a lot of
it doesn't really interest me much. It is no credit to me that I
happened to be born determined to do my job well. Even in the great old
dinner-giving days, long before the deluge, when we vied with one
another in frantic endeavours to discover something entirely new, with
which to decorate our menu cards, and fill other women with hopeless
envy, the game never seemed worth the candle. After all, it takes very
little to keep us alive.
The things that interested me most in those great dinner contests was
the eager look in the eyes of the women as they sampled the unknown and
sometimes fearsome looking dish.
The men usually showed their discrimination by leaving the entrées
severely alone.
Where in Heaven's name am I wandering to? We housekeepers have at last
got something really testing to whet our axes upon. We have got to
invent and concoct appetising dishes minus most of the ingredients we
once thought necessary to them.
This is going to be the testing fight. I am learning great new lessons
every day. I only wish I could pass them on. A woman came up to me in
the street the other day and said: "Please, I've tried to do what you
said wi' them substitoots (oh, the scorn in her voice!). But 'Arry, 'e
won't look at 'em. Calls 'em messes, 'e does; wants 'is 'onest
beefsteak, 'e does, an' I don't blime 'im, either."
Neither do I, nevertheless it will be my mournful duty to try and
impress on him and all the other Harrys who are making the lives of
their helpmeets a burden over this food conservation business, that the
true patriot is the man who eats his imitation steak with a smile,
assuring the woman who has laboured over its preparation that it is
quite equal to the real thing.
Nobody would be deceived, but life would be easier.
I never before realised that bread is really the staple food of our
working folks. It is rather humiliating to discover how scanty are the
reserves we are now able to call up. When you speak to the average
cottage woman about soup and explain how nourishing it is for the
children and how cheaply it can be prepared out of bones, if only the
necessary care is bestowed on it, she has a way of putting her hands on
her hips and looking you very haughtily in the face with the air of a
person receiving a personal insult. "Feed me chillen on bones! Good
Lord! 'as it come to that? Not me, thank you, ma'am. I'll get me bit o'
meat and bread and butter as long as I can get 'em and wen they ain't to
be got, will do without."
How are you to combat that sort of argument which is everywhere, like
sorrow--"not in single spies, but in battalions"!
I shall have to think hard. These people have got to be educated. The
whole process of teaching them the alphabet has to be entered on now,
when we are in the thick of the testing fight.
Oh, it is so very, very English, so tremendously, unutterably stupid,
and maddening! I shall have to stop off or I shall be writing down
things that the admirable George, with his exclusive command of strong
language, will not permit you to read.
As usual, when one arrives at the end of one's tether, something
happens, and there, right in front at the end of what looked like a
blind alley, stood the open door.
The Administration, having fully tested the value of the Communal
Kitchen, has sent out advices to the country to establish them wherever
possible. As Chairman of our Kitchen Committee, I went to London with
another member--a delightful, practical, breezy person, to inspect the
working of the big experimental Kitchen on Westminster Bridge Road. It
was thoroughly interesting and for the first time hope of solutions of
many problems dawned on our weary spirits.
We returned home to report and got authority to act. I will explain the
Communal Kitchen to you, though it is incredible to imagine your great,
rich and inexhaustible country ever coming even within long-distance
range of such a contingency.
The Communal or Central Kitchen is established and run by experts for
the cooking of a large number of meals at the lowest possible cost. A
first-class plant is necessary, the most up-to-date ovens, steamers,
utensils of every kind. The cook must not only be an expert, but an
artist, as she has to disguise many inferior ingredients and make them
appetising for her consumers. Stores are purchased, wherever possible,
in large quantities, special permits, of course, being afforded by the
vigilant Food Administrators. Thus considerable saving is effected.
The cook and her immediate assistant or assistants are highly paid
workers, but those who apportion and handle the food, over the counters,
are volunteers, giving about four hours' service every day.
No food is consumed on the premises. The customers bring their own
utensils in which they carry their portions away. There is a very
complete and clever system of tickets issued at a little box office near
the door, so that no money is tendered at the counter.
The menu cards are hung in the windows so that customers may make their
choice before they come inside.
We went early, watched the cooking in process, got stuffed up with
unheard-of knowledge of every kind, and then waited for the customers.
They interested me beyond everything; although it is a very poor
neighbourhood, it was not the very poor who came. Some quite well
dressed people, with baskets nicely covered and lined, appeared and were
more than satisfied. One bank clerk's wife assured me that it was the
greatest Godsend to her, because she was working, too, and they were
both now assured of one good warm, substantial meal every day, and
nothing else mattered.
A mother of seven, "steps and stairs," clinging to her skirts had tears
in her eyes as she spoke of the salvation the Kitchen had brought to her
family.
When I saw the quarts of soup disappearing in jugs and pails through the
swing doors, I took fresh heart and decided to make another onslaught on
the Amazonian mother who would let her offspring "go without" instead of
"demeaning 'erself" to any truck with bones.
Have you ever noticed how a little thing can change the whole outlook;
how you can be transported by a lift of the brows, the glimpse of some
unexpected object, miles from your base?
As I sat there behind the counter of the Communal Kitchen in the
Westminster Bridge Road, I was suddenly transported to South Germany, to
that little Bavarian university town we both know so well. What do you
think transported me? Why, the sight of a student-like person, German,
surely, carrying the little arrangement of dishes in a stand (I've
forgotten its German name and glory in the lapse), which used to bring
my greasy dinner from the hotel Drei Mohren.
Did these days really exist? Do you remember my landlady with the
sweet, deprecating smile, her painful humility, her awe and worship of
the temporal powers that ruled her destiny? How we distrusted it all,
sure that it was a false foundation for life, and that freedom is the
heritage of the human soul!
Even then, we were both conscious of hidden fires--of smouldering hates.
They were deferential to us; yet inwardly loathing, perhaps fearing us.
They have not changed at all, Cornelia, the little river which watered
German sentiment in that horrid mediæval place, has only broadened and
widened into a vast and overwhelming sea. They were getting ready even
then. I could see it in the jealous eyes of the women, their veiled and
laboured politeness at the coffee parties had nothing convincing about
it. It did not warmly enfold you like the gracious hospitality of
kindred peoples. They were bidden to hate, and they knew how to do it,
and could veil their fine accomplishment in the art.
Oh, Cornelia, where am I now?
The Food Expert has got out of bounds. Call her back, discipline her;
make her toe the line.
The outcome of that interesting morning is that we have a Communal
Kitchen and it is going to be a tremendous success.
Some doubts had to be dispelled. People have to be convinced that it is
not a charity, bearing the brand of the soup kitchen, or the Penny
Dinner scheme. We have tried to explain that it is merely co-ordinating
the forces; co-operation on a large scale.
We have gotten the cook, the machinery, the volunteers, and I think we
are going to sleep more soundly "o' nights" because of it.
At least the children will be better fed. Some of them are getting to
look so peaky, for milk has been very scarce all winter, and butter a
thing of the past.