'The Cellar-House of Pervyse'
A Tale of Uncommon Things from The Journals and Letters of the Baroness
t'Serclaes and Mairi Chisholm
A Story of Two
British Volunteer Nurses on the Yser Front
Chapter V - On The Road
There was no question about the amount of work waiting to be
done at Furnes. Calls from Dixmude, where hot fighting was going on, were
incessant, and the ambulances were kept hard at it. Dixmude is about eight
miles south-east of Furnes as the crow flies, but much more by road; and the
way along the scattered and smashed pavé was rolled out many times in a day by
the coming and going of the motors. Chauffeurs were difficult to get, and there
were many cars requiring drivers now; so early next morning Gipsy had hardly
had time to get on her clothes before there was a shout, and she ran down to
find Gilbert waiting outside with the heavy 40 h.p. Napier. There was no one
else to take it, and he ordered her to do so. Put upon her mettle, she obeyed
at once, but as she climbed into the seat she realized that she did not even
know which were the levers for the various gears, for she had never driven that
sort of car before. A trifle like that was soon rectified by a few little
experiments, and she managed all right. Before she had been in Belgium long she
had driven an extraordinary number of different makes of car, including a
Daimler, Wolseley, Mercedes, Napier, Pipe, Sunbeam, and Fiat, and she had had
to take a great many of them at a moment's notice too.
It was not like driving on an English road, for here the
pavé in the centre is made of cobbles, and just wide enough for two vehicles to
pass each other with care; it slopes down a little at each side, and is
usually, in the winter at all events, greasy with a thin layer of mud, whereas,
if you fail to hold on, you land in unfathomable depths of mud like thick
porridge which borders the sides. Beyond this again there is usually a ditch
filled to the brim with water, and with no sort of guard to protect the sides,
so that a plunge into icy water is not outside the bounds of possibility. With
a top-heavy ambulance the joys of getting off into the mud are enhanced by
knowing that it is quite as likely as not that if your wheel goes deep into
that quagmire the whole thing may turn right over, a particularly cheerful
prospect if it happens to be full of wounded men! At the very best, the feat of
regaining the pavé entails a tearing strain on a woman's hand and arm. There is
a choice of two roads between Furnes and Dixmude. The northern one is more
direct, but it was not considered feasible at this time, so the party went by
the southern one, turning up by Oudecappelle within sight of Dixmude.
It was the last part of the straight, open road, when they
were well within range of the German guns, that strained the nerves most. Mairi
was beside her friend on the front of the ambulance, and they were the last of
the whole cavalcade, so that if anything had happened to them none of the
others would have seen it. Gilbert, who was leading, always went "hell for
leather," with a disregard of adverse conditions little less than
miraculous, and he never went faster than when he was heading straight for
danger. The vile road was broken and pitted with the huge, irregular craters
where the shells had fallen. Far ahead was the little bunch of houses, of which
some were already burning. Shoved to one side of the route by someone who had
had to get off his car to do it was a dead horse on his back, with all his legs
in the air in a grotesque parody of a comfortable back-scratching roll.
Not far
off him was an "awful warning " in the shape of a big car smashed to
pieces by a. shell which must have landed plump into the middle of it and wiped
out of time and space any occupants it contained. Ahead the firing was like a
tropical thunderstorm, with ominous flashes and a deep, menacing growl, and
instead of fleeing from it, as would be man's natural instinct, they were
steering straight into the heart of it. They could not get actually into
Dixmude itself, but reached Caeskerke, where Gilbert, who was in charge of the
party, told them to reverse the cars, facing them homewards, ready to plunge
off any second. They were up against some small cottages, and about them some
of the French soldiers were entrenched, while others lay along the sloping
sides of the road along which they had just come. They were there for half an
hour watching with a kind of fascination the sharp, stabbing flame, followed by
a cloud of white smoke, or a red roar as a shell caught one of the remaining
cottages out in the open and sent it up in a furnace of fire. Nearer and nearer
came the warning hiss and scream, until at last they could actually see the
pieces flying as the shells burst, exactly as sometimes represented in an
illustration, a thing pooh-poohed by those who have never been under
shell-fire. Then with a roar and a deafening noise a farm-house not more than
fifty yards from them received a shell full upon it, and Gilbert waved a
commanding arm ordering them to begone.
It required more than common nerve to get the engine started
in such conditions, but it was achieved at last, and they went back the way
they had come, out into the open, passing by a huge new pit that had been made
in the last half-hour, a pit which yawned across the way and would easily have
swallowed up the whole car.
They drew up near a church about a mile out, and waited here
for further orders; they had not been there ten minutes when an armoured car
came bumping painfully along with a burst back tyre. Some Belgian officers
jumped down, and after standing round for a few minutes in discussion together,
one of them advanced, with the fascinating little tassel swinging from his cap
as he saluted, and asked if the ladies would take back to Furnes some German
prisoners he had in the armoured car, otherwise he did not know what to do with
them. It certainly was a strange request to make to a woman not of his own
nationality, and the trust implied in her skill and courage was unbounded.
Gipsy rose to the occasion at once.
"I think it was the proudest moment of my life,"
she says in her diary.
The five Germans, well set up, fair, hard-eyed striplings,
were transferred to the ambulance without delay, and as they were installed and
the order given to start the two friends saw with a sort of terrified glee that
the Belgian officers did not think it necessary to provide an escort; they had
too much to do elsewhere. They seemed to take the whole abnormal proceeding
very much as a matter of course, and stood in a row and saluted while the two
women drove off with the very strangest carload it had ever been woman's fate
to convoy.
Eight miles lay between them and safety, and at any moment,
if those unemotional, ruthless young brutes inside had taken it into their
heads, they could have got out and knocked the amateur chauffeurs on the head,
and escaped with the car. As they went cautiously along this aspect of it was
naturally very much to the fore in the minds of the Two on the front seat, and
they spoke of it in whispers; but possibly the Germans themselves were glad
enough to get safely out of that hell of shot and shell, for they made no
attempt at an escape.
The job was accomplished safely, the men handed over to
authority, and the car went on to take a load of wounded soldiers to the
station. Then, conscious of having accomplished an excellent day's work, the
Two returned to their quarters and supped off bully beef and soldier's biscuit.
"It was a great day," they said.
In the days that followed they were constantly backwards and
forwards on that long and dangerous road, and recognized without difficulty
each new shell-hole along the way. The road was so broken in parts that men
were sent out with great faggots of wood on their shoulders to throw into the
holes and fill them up, and constant repairing was necessary to keep the route
open for the heavy military transport. All this work in the open air, with hard
physical lifting and driving, took it out of the Two so much that they were
always thankful, when the day's work was done, to get back and drop into bed—a
real bed, too, a great luxury in those times. A few other members of the party
were installed in the same house, but Mairi and Gipsy retained their bedroom to
themselves. They were usually able to obtain food at the hospital, where they
fared very simply. Porridge for breakfast was acceptable, and occasionally
fried potatoes were added, if they had time to cook them and they did not get
spoiled just as they were ready, which is the way of potatoes in the hands of
amateur cooks all the world over.
"These" porridge must have felt
gratified at its appreciation; even in Scotland, where it is ennobled by the
use of the plural number, it can rarely have been referred to as "a joyful
basin of porridge!"
The night work was perhaps the greatest strain, for there
could of course be no lights, and the way was lit up grimly by the sudden flare
of the exploding shells, or the dim light of distant buildings which they had
set on fire. It was a curious sight to see the roof of one of these huge
torches collapse suddenly, apparently in absolute silence, for the ceaseless
cannonade drowned all lesser sounds; then the flames would shoot up like a
great cascade of fireworks, brightening everything for hundreds of yards
around, and illuminating the great holes cut in the road till they appeared
like an irregular procession of monstrous tortoises who had eaten the
"Food of the Gods."
Sometimes so many of these devil's fires were alight at once
that they brought back a reminiscence of bonfires on Coronation night.
"Farmhouses burning, trees burning, everything burning. It was a grand
sight, and one I shall never forget," says Mairi enthusiastically. And in
the midst of that great amphitheatre set for a life and death drama Luck and
Fate stalking alongside, determined that these particular actors should live to
play a great part.
The effect of the shells, even on the presumably tough
chauffeurs, was eloquent of the nerve-racking strain. One man was perfectly ill
with it, and yet he had the right sort of pluck, for he owned up to the cause
of his malady, but set his teeth and went on in grim determination. He stuck to
his wheel one day, when he was driving Mrs. Knocker, until he became fairly
paralyzed, and was manifestly unable to go on, so she changed places with him
and took the driving-wheel herself. They were carrying four wounded men, and she
brought them into safety, and then said she must go back, as she had left Mairi
at Oudecappelle, but that as he was feeling ill he had better stay at Furnes.
He looked at her with a face that was like the face of one of the dead in the
convent wards, and said doggedly through stiff lips: "Can't drive, but I
ain't going to give in to it. I'm coming back right alongside of you this very
minute." She could not but admire this heroic triumph of mind over matter.
"Poor fellow! When we turned the corner of the road and
got within range of those big guns, and each flash could be clearly seen, he
turned suddenly sick, and I had to stop and give him brandy and cover him with
a rug. I begged him not to look. It is a sight which requires a peculiar kind
of nerves." She does not add that it requires a kind of courage so
peculiar that it is rare indeed!
It was getting dusk, and those great bulbs of flame were
horribly vivid, and everywhere the masses of farm-buildings or haystacks showed
their effect. The continuous deafening noise was killing, and always above the
deep bass of the guns the high alto of the screaming shells never ceased for
one instant. It seemed as if it were too frightful to continue for another
second, yet if it stopped suddenly one's skull would fall to pieces!
It was no wonder that some of the chauffeurs, who were
mostly very young and raw, could hardly face it. They did not do badly
considering. It was the custom for the heavy ambulances to be left outside the
worst firing, in what might be called the penumbra of the danger-zone, and then
the light scout cars were run up into the hotter places to retrieve the
wounded. No one was forced to go on this service; volunteers were called for,
and among these volunteers were always the women of the party. Just at first of
course, they, like the men, were quite ignorant of the fearful danger, and went
forward with the excited interest of children into the battle-field; but soon,
very soon, their eyes were opened, and they knew what it meant. It was then,
when the danger was fully recognized, that the pull came! One young Cockney
chauffeur, called Tom, was among the bravest of the brave, and did more than
his share, because, besides going fearlessly and light-heartedly into the very
mouth of the inferno, he exercised a dry turn of humour, which helped the
others through better, possibly, than anything else could have done. It often
just tipped the balance the right way when it was swinging dangerously. After
all, risky as the fire-zone was, it was quite a question among them whether it
was not more risky in another way to stay in the ill-ventilated, over-crowded
hospital, with its primitive lack of sanitary arrangements.
The Furnes folk were still in that happy state of simplicity
when anything out of sight is considered harmless. It was Tom who expressed the
British view when, on coming suddenly one day into the poisonous atmosphere
after the freshness of a rush through the air, he exclaimed: "My, but them
drines is just crude! Give me busting shells all the time-o."
On the evening in question Mairi had been sitting on a wall
in Oudecappelle, waiting for the return of the car, with a few soldiers and one
or two peasants to keep her company. She, as well as Gipsy, always had a
feeling that it was less dangerous to be out of doors under shell-fire, or, at
any rate, that it was preferable to meet death, if it must be met, under the
full sail of the sky, rather than the flat straitness of roof and walls. So
Mairi sat there in charge of some wounded men who lay just inside the door of a
cottage, and she watched the shells getting heavier and heavier. The French and
Belgian batteries were quite near, and were answering the challenge of the foe
madly, and altogether there was no lack of liveliness. Then some of the
soldiers, hurrying up, told her that the Germans were coming—the same old
cry—and that they themselves had been ordered further down the road; but the
girl only smiled sweetly, and went to look at her charges to be sure that
everything was ready for immediate transportation when the ambulance should
arrive. And as she went out again to look for its coming another ambulance
drove up from the opposite direction, and from it stepped out a man of medium
height, with a keen, laughing face and those glinting eyes that carry a signal
of personal fearlessness even to the least observant. No wonder he looked a
little surprised to find this fair-haired girl, so very young and not over big,
in charge by herself in the gathering dusk, at this place, which in a danger competition
would have gained high marks. He had just come from Dixmude himself, which
would certainly in such a competition have been more successful still. So he
began to talk to Mairi with a warm degree of comradeship, and just then Gipsy
drove up, with the exhausted chauffeur beside her, as miserable and ashamed as
a man could be. Dr. Van der Ghinst thereupon introduced himself, bowing
gracefully, and held out to the Two a rose apiece, telling them laughingly that
they were the last roses in Dixmude, where he was working at the hospital of
St. Jean, looking after the wounded. As Dixmude was then about the centre of
the vortex, and most of the houses were either fallen or tottering, he did not
lack exhilaration in his daily routine. Brave spirits all the world over have
something in common, and these three fraternized at once. There was no need of
introductions; they knew each other, for their hearts were set on the same
thing.
The doctor was evacuating his wounded, who had to be taken
over all the long road to Furnes, with the result that many died by the way,
and, looking at them pitifully, an idea which had been germinating for some
time in Gipsy's brain suddenly took form. Why should there not be a
dressing-station close up to the lines at the front? Could not many lives be
saved if the wounded could have immediate rest and care, so as to neutralize
the effects of shock and fortify them for what they had to go through in the way
of weary journeying and knocking about? At present, many a man died from a
comparatively slight wound, because his system was utterly exhausted by shock
and he had no strength left. While they were still discussing the project, from
which extraordinary results were to spring, a French marine came in screaming
with pain; two of his fingers had been severed, and he sobbed and groaned so
heart- rendingly that, though they were getting a little hardened, it almost
unstrung Mrs. Knocker.
It was still raining hard when, tired out, the two friends
returned to their house. It was quite lonely, no other member of the party
being there at the time. They found the back-door open and the glass panels
smashed. As they stood for a second looking at one another in surprise, they
could hear the distant rumble of the guns and the immediate drip and splutter
of the rain running down in spouts from the roof. They slowly penetrated into
the empty house, not knowing what they might not meet. The front-door also
stood wide open, and it looked as if whoever had been there had hastily escaped
that way on hearing their approach. However, they searched everywhere, and,
having found no sign of anyone, at last literally dropped asleep as they
undressed, tumbling into bed dead-beat.
The next morning they were still in bed when they heard a
knock at the door, and when Mairi, huddling on a coat, opened it she was
confronted by a burly French soldier, who looked uncommonly sheepish. He
explained hurriedly and with his eyes anywhere but on her face that he wanted
his revolver. "But I have not got your revolver," said Mairi, too
surprised for words. "Gipsy, here's a man who wants his revolver—at least,
I think that's what he wants, unless there is some other French word which
sounds exactly like it."
But it was his revolver he inquired for steadily, and when
they pressed him to say where it was, and why he thought they had got it, his
eyes roved more wildly than before as he blurted out, "C’est dans votre
lit, mesdemoiselles.'1''
Hastily they turned back to the bed, but the man slipped
past them, and, putting his grimy hand beneath the pillow, drew forth his heavy
revolver. Gipsy snatched it from him. "You shan't have it until you tell
us how it came there," she cried, in mingled amusement and indignation; so
he confessed that he and the other soldiers who were about the place, and had
no regular quarters, used to come and sleep here in the daytime, because they
knew the ladies were always out till late. "Ça ne fait rien, et c'est bien
confortable," he ended, gripping the revolver and grinning as he rushed
out.
French soldiers sleeping in the bed by daytime! Only those
who have been among soldiers will understand what that means. It explained so
many things!
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