Part 12 (2/2)

I went to the kitchen; I gave out jam, I distributed socks, I heard the fussy importance of minor officials, but I had something to work on since I had seen the grey lady at work.

In the evening I dined quietly on the barge with Miss Close and Maxine Elliott. We had a game of bridge--a thing I had not seen for a year and more (the last time I played was down in Surrey at the Grange!), and the little gathering on the old timbered barge was pleasant.

Some terrible stories of the war are coming through from the front. An officer told us that when they take a trench, the only thing which describes what the place is like is strawberry jam. Another said that in one trench the sides were falling, and the Germans used corpses to make a wall, and kept them in with piles fixed into the ground. Hundreds of men remain unburied.

[Page Heading: GERMAN PRISONERS]

Some people say that the German gunners are chained to their guns. There were six Germans at the station to-day, two wounded and four prisoners.

Individually I always like them, and it is useless to say I don't. They are all polite and grateful, and I thought to-day, when the prisoners were surrounded by a gaping crowd, that they bore themselves very well.

After all, one can't expect a whole nation of mad dogs. A Scotchman said, ”The ones opposite us (_i.e._, in the trenches) were a very respectable lot of men.”

The German prisoners' letters contain news that battalions of British suffragettes have arrived at the front, and they warn officers not to be captured by these!

_12 May._--To-day, when I got to the station, I was asked to remove an old couple who sat there hand in hand, covered with blood. The old woman had her arm blown off, and the man's hand was badly injured. We took them to de Page's hospital.

The firing has been continuous for the last few days, and men coming in from Ypres and Dixmude and Nieuport say that the losses on both sides have been enormous. There were four Belgian officers who lived opposite my villa, whom one used to see going in and out. Last night all were killed.

At Dixmude the other day the Duke of Westminster went to the French bureau to get his pa.s.sport vise. The clerks were just leaving, but he begged them to remain a minute or two and to do his little business.

They did so, and came to the door to see him off, but a sh.e.l.l came hurtling in and killed them both, and of a woman who stood near there was literally nothing left.

Last night ---- and I were talking about the _gossip_, which would fill ten unpublishable volumes out here.... Why do these people come out to the front? Give me men for war, and no one else except nuns. Things may be all right, but the Belgians are horrified, and I hate them to ”say things” of the English. The grim part of it is that I don't believe I personally hear one half of what goes on and what is being said. They are afraid of shocking me, I believe.

The craze for men baffles me. I see women, _dead tired_, perk up and begin to be sparkling as soon as a man appears; and when they are alone they just seem to sink back into apathy and fatigue. Why won't these mad creatures stop at home? They _are_ the exception, but war seems to bring them out. It really is intolerable, and I hate it for women's sake, and for England's.

The other day I heard some ladies having a rather forced discussion on moral questions, loud and frank.... Shades of my modest ancestresses! Is this war time, and in a room filled with men and smoke and drink, are women in knickerbockers discussing such things? I know I have got to ”let out tucks,” but surely not quite so far!

Beautiful women and fast women should be chained up. Let men meet their G.o.d with their conscience clear. Most of them will be killed before the war is over. Surely the least we can do is not to offer them temptation.

Death and destruction, and horror and wonderful heroism, seem so near and so transcendent, and then, quite close at hand, one finds evil doings.

[Page Heading: A TREASURE]

_14 May._--I heard two little stories to-day, one of a British soldier limping painfully through Poperinghe with a horrid wound in his arm and thigh.

”You seem badly wounded,” a friend of mine said to him.

”Yus,” said the soldier; ”there were a German, and he wounded me in three places, but”--he drew from under his arm a treasure, and his poor dirty face was transformed by a delighted grin--”I got his b.l.o.o.d.y helmet.”

Another story was of an English officer telephoning from a church-tower.

He gave all his directions clearly and distinctly, and never even hinted that the Germans had taken the town and were approaching the church. He just went on talking, till at last, as the tramp of footsteps sounded on the belfry stairs, he said, ”Don't take any notice of any further information. I am going.” He went--all the brave ones seem to go--and those were the last words he spoke.

Rhodes Moorhouse flew low over the German lines the other day, in order to bombard the German station at Courtrai. He planed down to 300 feet, and became the target for a hundred guns. In the murderous fire he was wounded, and might have descended, but he was determined not to let the Germans have his machine. He planed down to 100 feet in order to gather speed. At this elevation he was. .h.i.t again, and mortally wounded, but he flew on alone to the British lines--like a shot bird heading for its own nest. He didn't even stop at the first aerodrome he came to, but sailed on--always alone--to his base, made a good landing, handed over his machine, and died.

In the hospitals what heroism one finds! One splendid fellow of 6 feet 2 inches had both his legs and both his arms amputated. He turned round to the doctor and said, smiling, ”I shan't have to complain of beds being too short now!” And when someone came and sat with him in his deadly pain, he remarked in his gentle way, ”I am afraid I am taking up all your time.” His old father and mother arrived after he was dead.

Ah! if one could hear more, surely one would do more! But this hole-and-corner way of doing warfare damps all enthusiasm and stifles recruiting. Why are we allowed to know nothing until the news is stale?

Yesterday I heard at first hand of the treatment of some civilians by Germans, and I visited a village to hear from the _people themselves_ what had happened.

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