Part 26 (2/2)

We were right up on the Persian front, and I went on to Tehran. One saw some most interesting phases of the war, and met all the distinguished Generals and such-like people.

The notice you sent me of my little book is charming.

Your loving S. B .M.

1, NORFOLK STREET, PARK LANE, W., _9 June._

DARLING POOT,

I must thank you myself for the lovely flowers and your kind letters. I am sure that people's good wishes and prayers do one good. I so nearly died!

Your loving S. M.

_17th June_

Still getting on pretty well, but it is slow work. Baby and Julia both in town, so they are constantly here. I am to get up for a little bit to-morrow.

Kindest love. It _was_ naughty of you to send more flowers.

As ever fondly, SARAH.

As the hot weather advanced it was hoped to move Miss Macnaughtan to the country. Her friends showered invitations on ”dear Sally” to come and convalesce with them, but the plans fell through. It became increasingly clear that the traveller was about to embark on that last journey from which there is no return, and, indeed, towards the end her sufferings were so great that those who loved her best could only pray that she might not have long to wait. She pa.s.sed away in the afternoon of Monday, July 24th, 1916.

A few days later the body of Sarah Broom Macnaughtan was laid to rest in the plot of ground reserved for her kinsfolk in the churchyard at Chart Sutton, in Kent. It is very quiet there up on the hill, the great Weald stretches away to the south, and fruit-trees surround the Hallowed Acre.

But even as they laid earth to earth and dust to dust in this peaceful spot the booming of the guns in Flanders broke the quiet of the sunny afternoon, and reminded the little funeral party that they were indeed burying one whose life had been sacrificed in the Great War.

[Page Heading: THE GRAVE IN CHART SUTTON]

Surely those who pa.s.s through the old churchyard will pause by the grave, with its beautiful grey cross, and the children growing up in the parish will come there sometimes, and will read and remember the simple inscription on it:

”In the Great War, by Word and Deed, at Home and Abroad, She served her Country even unto Death.”

And if any ghosts hover round the little place, they will be the ghosts of a purity, a kindness, and of a love for humanity which are not often met with in this workaday world.

CONCLUSION

Perhaps a review of her war work by an onlooker, and a slight sketch of Miss Macnaughtan's character, may form an appropriate conclusion to this book.

I stayed with my aunt for one night, on August 7th, 1914. One may be pardoned for saying that during the previous three days one had scarcely begun to realise the war, but I was recalled by telegram from Northamptons.h.i.+re to the headquarters of my Voluntary Aid Detachment in Kent, and spent a night in town en route, to get uniform, etc. Certainly at my aunt's house my eyes were opened to a little of what lay before us. She was on fire with patriotism and a burning wish to help her country, and I immediately caught some of her enthusiasm.

Every hour we rushed out to buy papers, every minute seemed consecrated to preparation for what we could do. There were uniforms to buy, notes of Red Cross lectures to ”rub up,” and, in my aunt's case, she was busy offering her services in every direction in which they could be of use.

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