Part 6 (1/2)
CHAPTER III
AT FURNES RAILWAY-STATION
_21 November._--I am up to my eyes in soup! I have started my soup-kitchen at the station, and it gives me a lot to do. Bad luck to it, my cold and cough are pretty bad!
It is odd to wake in the morning in a frozen room, with every pane of gla.s.s green and thick with frost, and one does not dare to think of Mary and morning tea! When I can summon enough moral courage to put a foot out of bed I jump into my clothes at once; half dressed, I go to a little tap of cold water to wash, and then, and for ever, I forgive entirely those sections of society who do not tub. We brush our own boots here, and put on all the clothes we possess, and then descend to a breakfast of Quaker oat porridge with bread and margarine. I wouldn't have it different, really, till our men are out of the trenches; but I am hoping most fervently that I shan't break down, as I am so ”full with soup.”
[Page Heading: WORK IN THE SOUP-KITCHEN]
Our kitchen at the railway-station is a little bit of a pa.s.sage, which measures eight feet by eight feet. In it are two small stoves. One is a little round iron thing which burns, and the other is a sort of little ”kitchener” which doesn't! With this equipment, and various huge ”marmites,” we make coffee and soup for hundreds of men every day. The first convoy gets into the station about 9.30 a.m., all the men frozen, the black troops nearly dead with cold. As soon as the train arrives I carry out one of my boiling ”marmites” to the middle of the stone entrance and ladle out the soup, while a Belgian Sister takes round coffee and bread.
These Belgians (three of them) deserve much of the credit for the soup-kitchen, if any credit is going about, as they started with coffee before I came, and did wonders on nothing. Now that I have bought my pots and pans and stoves we are able to do soup, and much more. The Sisters do the coffee on one side of eight feet by eight, while I and my vegetables and the stove which goes out are on the other. We can't ask people to help because there is no room in the kitchen; besides, alas!
there are so many people who like raising a man's head and giving him soup, but who do not like cutting up vegetables.
After the first convoy of wounded has been served, other wounded men come in from time to time, then about 4 o'clock there is another train-load. At ten p.m. the largest convoy arrives. The men seem too stiff to move, and many are carried in on soldiers' backs. The stretchers are laid on the floor, those who can ”s'a.s.seoir” sit on benches, and every man produces a ”quart” or tin cup. One and all they come out of the darkness and never look about them, but rouse themselves to get fed, and stretch out poor grimy hands for bread and steaming drinks. There is very little light--only one oil-lamp, which hangs from the roof, and burns dimly. Under this we place the ”marmites,” and all that I can see is one brown or black or wounded hand stretched out into the dim ring of light under the lamp, with a little tin mug held out for soup. Wet and ragged, and covered with sticky mud, the wounded lie in the salle of the station, and, except under the lamp, it is all quite dark. There are dim forms and frosty breaths, and a door which bangs continually, and then the train loads up, the wounded depart, and a heavy smell and an empty pot are all that remain. We clean up the kitchen, and go home about 1 a.m. I do the night work alone.
_24 November._--We are beginning to get into our stride, and the small kitchen turns out its gallons and buckets of liquid. Mrs. ---- has been helping me with my work. It is good to see anyone so beautiful in the tiny kitchen, and it is quaint to see anyone so absolutely ignorant of how a pot is washed or a vegetable peeled.
I have a little electric lamp, which is a great comfort to me, as I have to walk home alone at midnight. When I get up in the morning I have to remember all I shall want during the day, as the villa is a mile from the station, so I take my lantern out at 9.30 a.m.!
I saw a Belgian regiment march back to the trenches to-day. They had a poor little band and some foggy instruments, and a bugler flourished a trumpet. I stood by the roadside and cried till I couldn't see.
[Page Heading: A LETTER HOME]
_To Miss Mary King._
FURNES, BELGIUM, _27 November._
DEAR MARY,
You will like to know that I have a soup-kitchen at the station here, and I am up to my neck in soup. I make it all day and a good bit of the night too, for the wounded are coming in all the time, and they are half frozen--especially the black troops. People are being so kind about the work I am doing, and they are all saying what a comfort the soup is to the men. Sometimes I feed several hundreds in a day.
I am sure everyone will grieve to hear of the death of Lord Roberts, but I think he died just as he would wish to have died--amongst his old troops, who loved him, and in the service of the King. He was a fine soldier and a Christian gentleman, and you can't say better of a man than that.
I feel as if I had been out here for years, and it seems quite odd to think that one used to wear evening dress and have a fire in one's room.
I am promising myself, if all goes well, to get home about Christmas-time. I wish I could think that the war would be over by then, but it doesn't look very like it.
Remember me to Gwennie, and to all your people. Take care of your old self.
Yours truly, S. MACNAUGHTAN.
_1 December._--Mrs. Knocker and Miss Chisholm and Lady Dorothy went out to Pervyse a few days ago to make soup, etc., for Belgians in the trenches. They live in the cellar of a house which has been blown inside out by guns, and take out buckets of soup to men on outpost duty. Not a glimpse of fire is allowed on the outposts. Fortunately the weather has been milder lately, but soaking wet. Our three ladies walk about the trenches at night, and I come home at 1 a.m. from the station. The men of our party meanwhile do some house-work. They sit over the fire a good deal, clear away the tea-things, and when we come home at night we find they have put hot-water bottles in our beds and trimmed some lamps. I feel like Alice in Wonderland or some other upside-down world. We live in much discomfort, which is a little unnecessary; but no one seems to want to undertake housekeeping.
I make soup all day, and there is not much else to write about. All along the Yser the Allies and the Germans confront each other, but things have been quieter lately. The piteous list of casualties is not so long as it has been. A wounded German was brought in to-day. Both his legs were broken and his feet frost-bitten. He had been for four days in water with nothing to eat, and his legs unset. He is doing well.
[Page Heading: PERVYSE]