She seemed to regard this one as a positive slur on their record. I
thought: "Only one--among all that crowd!"
Mrs. Stobart came after us in some alarm as we ran down the garden.
"What are you doing with Miss ----? You're not going to carry her off?"
"No," I said, "we're not. She won't come."
But we have got off with Dr. ----.
Mrs. Stobart has refused the Commandant's offer of one of our best
surgeons in exchange. He is a man. And this hospital is a Feminist Show.
We dined in a great hurry in a big restaurant in one of the main
streets. The restaurant was nearly empty and funereal black cloths were
hung over the windows to obscure the lights.
Mr. Davidson (this cheerful presence was with us in our dream-like
career through Antwerp)--Mr. Davidson and I amused ourselves by planning
how we will behave when we are taken prisoner by the Germans. He is
safe, because he is an American citizen. The unfortunate thing about me
is my passport, otherwise, by means of a well-simulated nasal twang I
might get through as an American novelist. I've been mistaken for one
often enough in my own country. But, as I don't mean to be taken
prisoner, and perhaps murdered or have my hands chopped off, without a
struggle, my plan is to deliver a speech in German, as follows: "_Ich
bin eine beruehmte Schriftstellerin_" (on these occasions you stick at
nothing), "_beruehmt in England, aber viel beruehmter in den Vereinigten
Staaten, und mein Schicksal will den Presidenten Wilson nicht
gleichgueltig sein_." I added by way of rhetorical flourish as the
language went to my head: "_Er will mein Tod zu vertheidigen gut
wissen_;" but I was aware that this was overdoing it.
Mr. Davidson thought it would be better on the whole if he were to pass
me off as his wife. Perhaps it would, but it seems a pity that so much
good German should be wasted.
We got up from that dinner with even more haste than we had sat down.
All lights in the town were put out at eight-thirty, and we didn't want
to go crawling and blundering about in the dark with our ambulance car.
There was a general feeling that the faster we ran back to Ghent the
better.
We left Mr. Davidson and Dr. Wilson in Antwerp. They were staying
over-night for the fun of the thing.
Another awful struggle on the downward slope from the quay to the bridge
of boats. A bad jam at the turn. A sudden loosening and letting go of
the traffic, and we were over.
We ran back to Ghent so fast that at Saint Nicolas (where we stopped to
pick up our poor little Belgian professor) we took the wrong turn at the
fork of the road and dashed with considerable _elan_ over the Dutch
frontier. We only realized it when a sentry in an unfamiliar uniform
raised his rifle and prepared to fire, not with the cheerful,
perfunctory vigilance of our Belgians, but in a determined,
business-like manner, and the word "Achille," imparted in a burst of
confidence, produced no sympathy whatever. On the contrary, this absurd
sentry (who had come out of a straw sentry-box that was like an enormous
beehive) went on pointing his rifle at us with most unnecessary
persistence. I was so interested in seeing what he would do next that I
missed the very pleasing behaviour of the little Belgian professor, who
sat next to me, wrapped in his brown shawl. He still imagined himself
to be on the road to Ghent, and when he saw that sentry continuing to
prepare to fire in spite of our password, he concluded that we and the
road to Ghent were in the hands of the Germans. So he instantly ducked
behind me for cover and collapsed on the floor of the ambulance in his
shawl.
Then somebody said "We're in Holland!" and there were shouts of laughter
from everybody in the car except the little Belgian. Then shouts of
laughter from the Dutch sentries and Customs officers, who enjoyed this
excellent joke as much as we did.
We were now out of our course by I don't know how many miles and short
of petrol. But one of the Customs officers gave us all we wanted.
It's heart-breaking the way these dear Belgians take the British. They
have waited so long for our army, believing that it would come, till
they could believe no more. In Ghent, in Antwerp, you wouldn't know that
Belgium had any allies; you never see the British flag, or the French
either, hanging from the windows. The black, yellow and red standard
flies everywhere alone. Now that we _have_ come, their belief in us is
almost unbearable. They really think we are going to save Antwerp.
Somewhere between Antwerp and Saint Nicolas the population of a whole
village turned out to meet us with cries of "_Les Anglais! Les
Anglaises!_" and laughed for joy. Terrible for us, who had heard
Belgians say reproachfully: "We thought that the British would come to
our help. But they never came!" They said it more in sorrow than in
anger; but you couldn't persuade them that the British fought for
Belgium at Mons.
We got into Ghent about midnight.
Dr. ---- is to stay at the Hotel de la Poste to-night.
[_Monday, 5th._]
The mosquitoes from the canal have come up and bitten me. I was ill all
night with something that felt like malarial fever, if it isn't
influenza. Couldn't get up--too drowsy.
Mr. L. came in to see me first thing in the morning. He also came to
hear at first hand the story of our run into Antwerp. He was extremely
kind. He sat and looked at me sorrowfully, as if he had been the family
doctor, and gave me some of his very own China tea (in Belgium in
war-time this is one of the most devoted things that man can do for his
brother). He was so gentle and so sympathetic that my heart went out to
him, and I forgot all about poor Mr. Davidson, and gave up to him the
whole splendid "scoop" of the British troops at Saint Nicolas.
I couldn't tell him much about the run into Antwerp. No doubt it was a
thrilling performance--through all the languor of malaria it thrills me
now when I think of it--but it wasn't much to offer a War Correspondent,
since it took us nowhere near the bombardment. It had nothing for the
psychologist or for the amateur of strange sensations, and nothing for
the pure and ardent Spirit of Adventure, and nothing for that insatiable
and implacable Self, that drives you to the abhorred experiment,
determined to know how you will come out of it. For there was no more
danger in the excursion than in a run down to Brighton and back; and I
know no more of fear or courage than I did before I started.
But now that I realize what the insatiable and implacable Self is after,
how it worked in me against all decency and all pity, how it actually
made me feel as if I wanted to see Antwerp under siege, and how the
spirit of adventure backed it up, I can forgive the Commandant. I still
think that he sinned when he took Ursula Dearmer to Termonde and to
Alost. But the temptation that assailed him at Alost and Termonde was
not to be measured by anybody who was not there.
It must have been irresistible.
Besides, it is not certain that he did take Ursula Dearmer into danger;
it is every bit as likely that she took him; more likely still that they
were both victims of _force majeure_, fascinated by the lure of the
greatest possible danger. And, oh, how I did pitch into him!
I am ashamed of the things I said in that access of insulting and
indignant virtue.
Can it be that I was jealous of Ursula Dearmer, that innocent girl,
because she saw a shell burst and I didn't? I know this is what was the
matter with Mrs. Torrence the other day. She even seemed to imply that
there was some feminine perfidy in Ursula Dearmer's power of drawing
shells to her. (She, poor dear, can't attract even a bullet within a
mile of her.)[15]
Lying there, in that mosquito-haunted room, I dissolved into a blessed
state, a beautiful, drowsy tenderness to everybody, a drowsy, beautiful
forgiveness of the Commandant. I forgot that he intimated, sternly, that
no ambulance would be at my disposal in the flight from Ghent--I
remember only that he took me into Antwerp yesterday, and that he
couldn't help it if the outer forts _were_ thirty kilometres away, and
I forgive him, beautifully and drowsily.
But when he came running up in great haste to see me, and rushed down
into the kitchens of the Hotel to order soup for me, and into the
chemist's shop in the Place d'Armes to get my medicine, and ran back
again to give it me, before I knew where I was (such is the debilitating
influence of malaria), instead of forgiving him, I found myself, in
abject contrition, actually asking him to forgive _me_.
It was all wrong, of course; but the mosquitoes had bitten me rather
badly.
* * * * *
Mrs. Torrence and Janet McNeil have got to work at last. All afternoon
and all night yesterday they were busy between the Station and the
hospitals removing the wounded from the Antwerp trains.
And Car 1 had no sooner got into the yard of the "Flandria" to rest
after its trip to Antwerp and back than it was ordered out again with
the Commandant and Ursula Dearmer and Mrs. Torrence to meet the last
ambulance train. The chauffeur Tom was nowhere to be seen when the order
came. He was, however, found after much search, in the Park, in the
company of the Cricklewood bus and a whole regiment of Tommies.
One of these ambulance trains had been shelled by the Germans (they
couldn't have been very far from us in our run from Antwerp--it was
their nearness, in fact, that accounted for our prodigious haste!), and
many of the men came in worse wounded than they went out.
We are all tremendously excited over the arrival of the Tommies and the
Cricklewood bus. We can think of nothing else but the relief of Antwerp.
Ursula Dearmer came to see me. She understands that I have forgiven her
that shell--and why. She wore the clothes--the rather heart-rending
school-girl clothes--she wore when she came to see the Committee. But
oh, how the youngest but one has grown up since then!
Mrs. Torrence came to see me also, and Janet McNeil. Mrs. Torrence,
though that shell still rankles, is greatly appeased by the labours of
last night. So is Janet.
They told rather a nice story.
A train full of British troops from Ostend came into the station
yesterday at the same time as the ambulance train from Antwerp. The two
were drawn up one on each side of the same platform. When the wounded
Belgians saw the British they struggled to their feet. At every window
of the ambulance train bandaged heads were thrust out and bandaged hands
waved. And the Belgians shouted.
But the British stood dumb, stolid and impassive before their
enthusiasm.
Mrs. Torrence called out, "Give them a cheer, boys. They're the bravest
little soldiers in the world."
Then the Tommies let themselves go, and the Station roof nearly flew off
with the explosion.
The Corps worked till four in the morning clearing out those ambulance
trains. The wards are nearly full. And this is only the beginning.
[_Tuesday, 6th._]
Malaria gone.
The Commandant called to give his report of the ambulance work. He, Mrs.
Torrence, Janet McNeil, Ursula Dearmer and the men were working all
yesterday afternoon and evening till long past dark at Termonde. It's
the finest thing they've done yet. The men and the women crawled on
their hands and knees in the trenches [? under the river bank] under
fire. Ursula Dearmer (that girl's luck is simply staggering!)--Ursula
Dearmer, wandering adventurously apart, after dark, on the battle-field,
found a young Belgian officer, badly wounded, lying out under a tree.
She couldn't carry him, but she went for two stretchers and three men;
and they put the young officer on one stretcher, and she trotted off
with his sword, his cap and the rest of his accoutrements on the other.
He owes his life to this manifestation of her luck.
Dr. Wilson has come back from Antwerp.
It looks as if Dr. Haynes and Dr. Bird would go. At any rate, I think
they will give up working on the Field Ambulance. There aren't enough
cars for four surgeons _and_ four field-women, and they have seen hardly
any service. This is rather hard luck on them, as they gave up their
practice to come out with us. Naturally, they don't want to waste any
more time.
I managed to get some work done to-day. Wrote a paragraph about the
Ambulance for Mr. L., who will publish it in the _Westminster_ under his
name, to raise funds for us. He is more than ever certain that it (the
Ambulance) is the real thing.
Also wrote an article ("L'Hopital Militaire, No. 2") for the _Daily
Chronicle_; the first bit of journalism I've had time or material for.
Shopped. Very _triste_ affair.
Went to mass in the Cathedral. Sat far back among the refugees.
If you want to know what Religion really is, go into a Catholic church
in a Catholic country under invasion. You only feel the tenderness, the
naivete of Catholicism in peace-time. In war-time you realize its power.
[_Evening._]
Saw Mr. P., who has been at Termonde. He spoke with great praise of the
gallantry of our Corps.
It's odd--either I'm getting used to it, or it's the effect of that run
into Antwerp--but I'm no longer torn by fear and anxiety for their
safety.
[?] Dined with Mr. L. in a restaurant in the town. It proved to be more
expensive than either of us cared for. Our fried sole left us hungry and
yet conscience-stricken, as if after an orgy, suffering in a dreadful
communion of guilt.
[_Wednesday, 7th._]