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 XV- Enter Romance
The spirits of the Two rose unaccountably at getting back to Pervyse; Steenkerke had been clean and comfortable, but never could take hold of them as Pervyse had done. Here they had inaugurated the great scheme, here they had worked for months against difficulties. Hungry and cold, and perforce dirty, lacking everything yet doing all things, they had struggled on and been able to perform marvels; their hearts had glowed at the gratitude of the Belgians, their spirits had been cheered by the lively companionship of brave men. They had their ups and downs, and, as was inevitable, all had not been quite smooth sailing between them, but each slight "breeze" had left their deep friendship for each other deeper than before, as they felt how necessary they were to each other. It was more than a year since they had come out, two members of a comparatively large band, ignorant of what would be expected of them, and unable to give effect to what they felt might be done and ought to be done. They had evolved this scheme and carried it through against opposition and difficulty which in these pages have been only faintly indicated; sometimes it had seemed as if they must be overwhelmed and let go, but always doggedly they had held on, and now they had emerged on to what seemed by contrast tolerably firm ground.
From the cramped and stuffy cellar-house they had mounted to the shot-torn génie. Thence they had passed to the clean little newly built, and in some ways convenient, hut, but it had not held for them the homeliness they found in the desolate village of Pervyse.
Mr. Colby had been as good or better than his word; when they came back after their holiday, full of eagerness, they found that the ceiling of the bedroom had been laid a foot thick in concrete and piled up with sand-bags. The other rooms were still unfinished, but they set gaily to work to splash about whitewash with energy, and to make the great red crosses outside to signify their merciful work. The bedroom and living-room in this house looked out over the street, and at the back were the blessé room and the cellar. Mairi ought to have been an engineer or architect, for she adorns her journal all the way through with little ground-plans, showing the arrangement of the rooms in all their abodes, and never seems satisfied until this is done. She was full of enthusiasm about the new house; it was at the same time an "abode of bliss," and "not such a bad little hole considering all things."
The brasserie was exactly opposite, and the men of the regiment gave the Two a rousing welcome; they did not seem in the least surprised that Les Dames Anglaises had been unable to live far from them, and had felt impelled to come back again. There was so much to do to the house that they had not got it exactly as they wished until three months had passed. During this time they had more than one bombardment. One day it was very hot with 15- centimetre shells, which fell all around them and the brasserie, which was pierced in several places, one shell actually going down into the cellar there and wounding three men. A call was made for help, and the Two dashed across the road in the thick of the falling shells to do the bandaging. They had not lost any of their élan through familiarity with danger. They used the little hut near Steenkerke as an evacuation station, and took the wounded out there at once. The kind of incident that came very frequently into their lives at this time is best told in Gipsy's own words :
"I had just come back from taking three badly sick men to Steenkerke Infirmary, and was tidying up, when the sudden distant boom of a German gun was heard, so quickly followed by the hasty shriek and the crash of explosion. I wondered why I had managed to get in just in time, and why Mairi and I had not been outside, as we so often are—our luck is so kind to us. This one shell was followed by the usual succession; I was glad we had a fortified dug- out, and that we were fairly safe.
"Suddenly a little soldier came to our open door and told me, with tears in his eyes, that a comrade had been terribly badly injured, and they were bringing him to me. I hurriedly dragged out the wheels of the running stretcher, and he ran up the road, while I prepared the room and got all possible quick dressings ready. When this was done I went out to meet the stretcher, and I saw at once that the poor brave little soldier was past my aid. I said to them, 'II est mort.' They turned to me with an incredible look, as if I had spoken from inexperience, but I have seen so many—the number runs into thousands—that I could make no mistake. Poor comrades! they looked so sad and heartbroken; he was obviously a favourite. I ordered the stretcher to be taken to the garage—or, rather, what we call the garage—a tumbled-down outhouse, where stands our emergency car. Had this man had the remotest chance of life I should have, within five minutes, placed him in the car en route for La Panne. Poor man! it seemed so sad, and one cannot help asking, 'Why?—why should it be he, and not Mairi or I? Here was a laughing, cheerful, healthy man one short quarter of an hour ago, and now still and silent, and past all pain. His friends kept asking if I was sure he was dead. Was it possible to live with his terrible wound? A bit of shell had taken off half his head. I turned and asked a soldier to see if there was a doctor in the place, just to write out his paper; but, as is so often the case, there was no doctor: it was 'Madame' who had to do all the last little rites, so Mairi and I set to work to search his pockets—such a pathetic work, it brings one so much in touch with Life and its meaning. Just a few scraps of paper, containing a few words of happiness from friends or relatives, a tobacco-box, a pipe, his plaque d’identité, and a gold ring on his finger. His friends tell me his brother is at Avecappelle, and would like to have everything, even the ring, so it must be taken off—it is so tight and so difficult to get off. I put everything together in a little pile—such a little pile—and cross his arms upon his chest, and cover him with a rug. How I hate the look of those silent, humpy stretchers—and the thoughts keep racing through my mind, and I know by Main's face she is thinking the same! 'Why?’ and 'I wonder' and it gives one a longing to be miles away from this war.
"As the batteries are silent and the road is clear and there is a long way to go, I have that stretcher placed in the car, and Mairi and I drive it to the cemetery at Adinkerke. There it is put on the long clean table, and measured for the coffin. We drive away once more for Pervyse, feeling weary of heart and sad. All along we meet the little soldiers who greet us with a cheer, and we have to force a smile in response."
But it was not all depressing, for they had many true and staunch friends who came in to see them, and the brightness of both officers and men was extraordinary. A new joy also had entered into Gipsy's life, for every now and again, when the weather was too bad for any flying to be possible, the young Baron H. de T'Serclaes appeared at Pervyse, and his wonderful smile irradiated the most dismal day. In November, one day when Mairi as usual had discreetly absented herself to fulfil some household jobs, he proposed and was accepted! On talking it over the happy pair agreed (according to the usual custom on such occasions) that they would not be married for a long time. In their case there certainly seemed to be some reason, and they decided to wait until the end of the War. But the self- denying ordinance was about as lasting as it generally is in such cases, and as the days went on and love grew apace, they found the extreme difficulty of being engaged in anything like a satisfactory manner amid such extreme publicity, and began to waver. Of course it was quite possible to argue the matter both ways; the fact that they were in danger of their lives every day seemed to urge upon them the common sense of getting married at once, and making the best of what time might be left to them. This view was especially predominant when, after a long ride over execrable roads in abominable weather, the young Baron found himself discussing such subjects as the gramophone, the cars, and other superficial things during his short time off, and even this had to be carried on in gulps because of the incessant inroads of soldiers, chauffeurs, and every imaginable kind of "other," none of whom possessed the tact of Mairi. Gipsy suggests that it is a test of true love, whether it will stand this most aggravating experience, with the addition of continual bursts of huge shells banging overhead, draughts wreathing round one's feet, and perpetual small worries to improve one's temper.
It was before Christmas that the idea, fostered by such influences, finally won the day, and it was decided they were to be married in January, 1916.
To Mairi, of course, this would make an enormous change; never again would she have her friend entirely to herself, and the good days in which they had grown to know each other in all sorts of circumstances were over.
But though Mairi felt the separation bitterly she was far too loyal to do other than rejoice in her friend's happiness, and even her private diary contains nothing but pleasure at this unexpected change.
Except for the visits of "Harry," that winter was a very quiet one in Pervyse. The place was more desolate than ever. The year before, the houses, though ruined, were mostly standing, now many more were heaps of stones, without a suggestion of life. Previously horses had been quartered in some of the sheds, the Engineer officers had been coming and going, "one saw movement"; even in the village there were usually soldiers marching to or from the trenches, and when the first shells fell after an interval, there had often been a rush for shelter like that of rabbits flying to their holes in a warren on the approach of a "human." But this year there was hardly a living being to be seen; the only inhabited place besides the poste was the brasserie. "If one walks through the village one sees nothing but absolute ruin and desolation. Poor little Pervyse! The Germans certainly have knocked it about. In the Rue de Dixmude the houses which are left are crumbling to pieces, soon there won't be even an upstanding wall left. The Hôtel de Ville is most depressing, it lifts one great chimney to the sky, the other long since having fallen, and on one wall in the interior, which is now laid bare, is the figure of an angel. The weather has been awful, all through these months, rain falling unceasingly. Our shelter is filled with water, and we are obliged to pump it out frequently." As far as the rest went it was all much the same; the great artillery duels raged overhead, shells fell around, and many wounded were brought in. "Our work comprises every kind of thing. Now that the winter months are in full swing the men need much attention if they are to be kept alive. Woollen garments of every sort are in great demand. Often men come to us soaked through from head to foot, having fallen into the inundations while doing patrol work, and then we are able to give them a place to themselves where they can undress and wrap themselves up in blankets, while their clothes are being dried in the oven. We attend to all their wants: cuts, burns, sore feet, boils, all kinds of little ailments which a doctor cannot, or will not, be bothered with."
The Two still carried out hot drinks at night to the sentinels at the avant-poste, and still made soup and cocoa for the hungry, cold men in the trenches. Their faithful friend, Robert de Wilde, who had become like an elder brother, dropped in frequently in the evenings, but there were not many others.
So the time passed on until January. The day for the great event was fixed for the nineteenth, and there was much to arrange first.
"It seemed as if everyone had to give their permission," says Gipsy. "The man sends in his demand to get married, and with it his fiancee's birth certificate, and an account of her parents, stating whether they are of good family or not. Then the round begins. This goes to the Commandant; he considers it and signs it. He sends it on to the Commanding Officer of the Aviation, who does the same. From there it goes to General Headquarters. From there to the Ministry. From there to the War Minister. From there to the King. Then it reverses the route and crawls back again."
The ceremony was to take place in La Panne from the little villa which the Two had occupied in their last week there together, and two days before it, Gipsy was there arranging matters when up came Baron Harold de T'Serclaes laughing, and said the papers had indeed at last returned from their long journey, but there was no birth certificate with them; it had been dropped apparently somewhere on the way, and the Tribunal refused to go through with the marriage unless it turned up!
And this at the eleventh hour, when all the guests were invited!
"What could I do?" says the poor bride-to-be. "I sat down and racked my brains. There seemed no two ways open to me. I could wire to my wonderful shipping agent in Dover, who has so many times pulled me through difficulties, and ask him to send someone to London by passenger train to Somerset House, there to get a duplicate of the certificate, and with it catch the Calais boat the following day, so that he could hand the certificate to the Captain, and I would meet the boat at this end and get it from him. But all this would take a lot of explaining in a wire, and involved a fearful risk, as things might go wrong.
"Secondly, I might go to Havre and myself fetch the missing certificate, which must be there. But Havre is a seven-hour journey by road, and is outside the zone of my pass—that left me only one day to get a laissez-passer—and supposing I allowed for a fifteen- hour journey, I could only just do it without counting any break- downs. What a position! I saw my wedding-day vanishing into dim mists, but as my fiancé was being cheery I was going to be so too, and I did not let him see how dreadfully worrying all this was to me. I crawled back to Pervyse that night, still beating my brains to find a way out. There I found the poste full of sick and wounded, and so much work to do that I had not time to think even about my own wedding.
"But in the middle of the night a thought flashed upon me that I had with me an old tin box full of papers, and in among them all my hospital examination papers, and I had had to have a birth certificate to get into the hospital, so it might be there still."
It was!
So the ceremony had not to be postponed, after all!
It had been suggested that the marriage might take place in the ruined church of Pervyse, open to the sky, where there was still a bit of the altar standing, but, used as she was to continuing her work calmly amid falling shells, Gipsy considered that in such conditions her responses might not be so clear and firm as she would wish, and also that the coming and going of such a party of people might draw the German fire, and so the idea was set aside.
January 18 was a Tuesday, and on the evening of that day Mairi writes: "The day before THE DAY! How strange it seems that the dear kid is going to get married! We have so often talked about it and discussed it laughingly, and now it is going to become fact. How things change! The last day I shall ever have Winkles to myself! (Winkles was another pet name evolved spontaneously.) Pray God she may be happy! She deserves happiness, if anyone does. Dear little Winkles, what a good friend you have been to me! You will never realize what it has meant to me to be with you for these months. I shall miss you horribly. Goodbye, Winkles; good luck to you, and all my very best wishes for your future life."
Captain Robert de Wilde, who was to be best man, turned up early and had breakfast with them. Gipsy says of him: "One of the most charming and bravest of the Belgian officers I have met. We have shared the ups and downs of shelling ever since the first days of Pervyse, when he was observation officer. He is now in command of a battery. He talks English as we do, and is one of those rare men who are always cheerful."
They started in the Wolseley car at eight o'clock, and no sooner had they got clear of the village than Gipsy remembered she had left her shoes behind, and had to go back. Lucky that she wasn't caught by a shell. She was dressed for the wedding in a blue frock and a big black hat, with a white wing across the front—very suitable in view of the bridegroom's position. They arrived at the villa which had been lent to them about 9.30, and there the bridegroom met them for the civil ceremony. Then they went on to the church, a Roman Catholic chapel, which faith the bride had embraced before her marriage.
The organ was beautifully played during the ceremony, and the congregation rivalled that to be found at any West End London church at a society wedding.
There were present Brigadier-General Prince Alexander of Teck, the Russian representative, General Jacquez, Lady Denbigh and her two daughters, one of whom—Lady Dorothie—had played her part in the ambulance work, Baron de Bleaumaerts, Baron de Wahliss, many of the officers of the Belgian Army, and personal friends. Even the photographers were not omitted, and the war-wedding was quite like those usually known in peace.
With this the book might end, as 80 per cent, of the reading public consider a wedding the only satisfactory conclusion, but there is still something to say. Main went over with the happy pair on leave to England. She obtained permission, after exceeding difficulty, for her father to come and share her rough and dangerous life at Pervyse. She was back at her post before the honeymooners, and went down to Boulogne to welcome them on their return on February 8. Then she performed the really amazing feat for a girl of her age (she was by this time close on twenty) of driving them back from Boulogne to La Panne and taking the car on to Pervyse, altogether 160 miles!
The poste was further fortified by endless sandbags and made more secure. But the question of means continued to be an anxious one. When Gipsy resumed her work she and Mairi discussed it often. They realized that they could not continue to draw from the few personal friends, who had already given as much as they could possibly afford, yet how were they to reach a larger public? One day, when the question was to the fore, someone said to them that if only means could be found of letting the general public in England know what they had done and were still doing, he was sure many, many people would gladly subscribe, a view that seemed borne out by the ready way which money flowed in if one of the hard workers themselves told the people of England of their life. It was suggested, therefore, that their cherished diaries, which they had kept entirely for their own interest, should be handed over to someone they knew, who had the requisite knowledge of the conditions, to be written out in book form, and then they should be published. Thus the wider public—that which reads—might be reached, in which case it would be easy to ask everyone who sympathized with the work to send some trifle, even if only a shilling, after reading the book. Many shillings would fill the exchequer. After some persuasion this was agreed to. The Two had always hated publicity, but owing to the unique character of their work and the approval of the King of the Belgians, they had not been altogether able to hide their light under a bushel, as they would have preferred to; so for the sake of that work, which was their very life, they agreed to go further, and with pain and grief handed over the journals to see what could be made of them.
Main is still hard at work, and Gipsy is still as devoted as ever, despite her new responsibilities.
On March 2, 1916, in the early morning a message came to them that King Albert was going to visit the trenches at Pervyse, and would probably look in at the poste on the way. Luckily Gipsy had been staying there for the night, so she was on the spot, and able to help Mairi to tidy up with all speed. The dug-out looked very dusty and sombre when they viewed it to see if it was fit for the King, but they had done all that was possible.
As early as 8.15 the King came down the village street accompanied by two Generals; he was dressed in khaki, with a khaki metal helmet on his head, and looked taller than ever among those gaunt ruins. The Two stood by the door of the poste to see him go by, and when his eye fell on them he came across to them and held out his hand in a friendly way.
"I want to congratulate you on all you are doing for my soldiers," he said. "I think you are very courageous to stay up here."
Glowingly they replied that they loved their work more than ever; it had become a part of them.
"I hope you are sufficiently sheltered?" he asked, glancing at the piled-up sandbags.
Yes, indeed, they assured him. Would he care to look inside? So he lifted his helmet and, stooping, came in.
Now among the most valuable possessions of the poste was a Siamese kitten, which had been given to the Two, and which was never allowed to stray into the street, lest its small life should be abruptly ended. With the usual propensity of its species, its one endeavour was always to get out, and whenever the door of the dug-out was opened from outside, those coming in put down a wary hand and stopped its tumultuous exit. In this case, however, neither of the Two could go in before the King, and they looked at each other as the door opened. The orderly, Henri, who had been with them for a long time, and loved them and all things that were theirs, including the kitten, with deep devotion, seeing the door open and the kitten make a bolt, flew from the innermost recesses, crying out:
"Hélas! Attention là, que le petit chat ne se sauve pas!" Thus he came right up against the King! Poor man, he looked as if he would never get over it!
The King only laughed as the petit chat was frustrated, and looking round the low room with interest, he noted the portraits of himself and the Queen and their family hanging on the walls, doubtless remembering that Gipsy was now legally his own subject.
When he turned to go he thanked them again in a simple, friendly way, and asked how long they had been in Pervyse.
When they told him, he echoed, "Eighteen months! It is a long time," and with a kindly hand-clasp he passed on.
Baroness de T'Serclaes said at her recent public meetings in England: "I found that far too many of the stretchers contained dead bodies when they arrived at the base hospital, and it seemed to me that the reason must be that they had died from shock or from the way they were driven over the badly-shelled roads. I appealed to the Belgian Government, and asked if they would permit Miss Chisholm and myself to go into the trenches and try and see if, by treating the soldiers for shock at once, we could save life.”
"After several refusals we were allowed to go into the trenches for twenty-four hours, and have stayed nearly two years.”
"In March, 1915, when the big war conference was held in Paris, and it was decided that no women were to be permitted in the trenches at all, it was further decided, after examining the work I and Miss Chisholm were doing, that we should be the only two women who were permitted in the firing-line, because our treatment was necessary, I found it was as I thought, and if one could get to a soldier directly he was hit, and treat him for shock, he was able to stand an operation better than one who was bundled into an ambulance and driven quickly over bad roads to the operating-table, where he, perhaps, died under the operation or from the after effects. We are in telephonic communication with every trench in the division, and have many thousand men to look after. The telephone means that when a man wants our care we can get to him right away. We do all we can to save the men's lives, and on many occasions we are able to deal with them so quickly that they are on the operating-table within twenty minutes!"
And even after the war, when Belgium comes into her own again, the work will not cease; there will be crippled men, and helpless men, and men wholly incapable of doing anything for themselves: these will all need care and attention, and in her new country the Baroness will find ample work to fill her life in devoting herself to the "splendid little Belgian soldiers" whom she has learned to love.
