The Cellar House of Pervyse - Chapter 14 - The Steenkerke Hut

'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 XIV - The Steenkerke Hut

As there were no other houses that could be inhabited in Pervyse, and, furthermore, as, even if there had been, there was no manner of use exposing wounded men to the dangers of that much shelled place, it was decided that a hut must be put up some way back from Pervyse for the sole purpose of the poste. As the Two had now a banking account, and were in consequence feeling free to do what they thought best, they talked it over with Mr. Costa, Harrod's representative, who was then doing some hospital-building at La Panne. He entered into their plans warmly, and brushing aside obstacles set to work at once. For the week during which the little hut was being constructed the Two lodged in La Panne. The hut was put together in the manner of the prairie huts of Canada, and, when ready, was carted up on huge army lorries and put in position in a field just off the road away back from Pervyse toward Furnes. 

It will be seen from the map that Avecappelle and Steenkerke lie just off this road about halfway between Furnes and Pervyse. The hut was not far from Avecappelle. In the nature of the case there could be no cellar, but as it was supposed to be out of the fire-zone that did not matter. 

The Two finally took possession on Wednesday, April 11, when two sick men were sent to them. They revelled in the cleanliness and the newness of the hut after the constant smell of mortar and dust which they had breathed in the thickened air so long. Gipsy writes: "I wish I could show you our funny little wooden house. It is like a Canadian log-hut, and contains two fair-sized rooms, one for ourselves and one for the sick and wounded; and two wee cubicles, one for the orderly and one for our stores, dressings, etc. We have the motor-kitchen drawn up tight against our door, and we step out sideways into it. There we make soup for the soldiers and do our sick-room cookery. The work here is more tiring than it was at Pervyse, because we take both sick and wounded, and that makes more cooking; but I love it all, and only long to be able to keep it going." But, alas! they were not destined to be free from trouble. 

About six o'clock on Sunday, 14th, only three days after they had finally got straight, Mairi was writing out accounts in one room and Gipsy was massaging a patient in the other, the whole of the five available beds being occupied by wounded men. Suddenly a sound they never thought of hearing there shrieked into their ears, and "out of the nowhere" arrived a huge shell, which came down somewhere quite near with a thunderous crash. The noise and force of it, shaking the ground like an earthquake, told their experienced ears that it must be a twenty-one centimetre shell, commonly called a vingt-et-un; and this was dropping near a little wooden shed with a match-boarding roof which would not have stopped for the fraction of a second a 7.5 centimetre shell! Gipsy's face expressed all she felt; she was white with horror at the thought of the blessés lying there in her charge. She flew to help them on with their clothes, and bundled them out of the house into a little stone house; then, dashing out on to the road, she hailed a passing motor-bike, seated herself on the carrier, and went thus to Steenkerke to fetch the Wolseley ambulance, which was on duty there. 

Mairi, who had not for one instant lost her steadiness, waited until the last man cleared the door, and then locked up. François, a new orderly who had been lent to them by the army, stayed with her, and when they came round the corner of the house the others had vanished. The first shell had been quickly followed by many similar ones, and they were now simply raining round. It was not safe to go upon the road, which is usually more shelled than anywhere else; besides, if a shell does drop on the hard pavé, the resulting explosion from the impact is so terrific that there would be nothing left of anyone within a wide radius. Knowing this, Mairi cut across the fields, with François at her heels, but they had the most awful time of their lives, and it took them half an hour to traverse one small field! When they heard the murderous shriek they went flat on their faces in the mud, and waited for the final explosion, and then got up and ran a few feet and dropped again. Sometimes, even as they ran, the force of an explosion threw them down. The air was literally humming with shells. But even in her bewilderment Mairi noticed the curious clean scoop they make in the soft mud of a field, like an inverted funnel or a wine-glass, with the sides as smooth as paste—so different from the jagged, broken craters of the smashed roads. Once, as she lay there, expecting every instant she would be wiped out of material existence, she put out her hand mechanically to touch the fragment of a shell which had fallen beside her, and started to feel it burning hot. Another most odd fact was that the larks were singing all the time. They almost seemed to like the noise, and in every tiny scrap of silence their notes rose high and clear. The whole effect was awesome, like some weird dream. 

When they finally got on to the Steenkerke Road they were out of range, but where was Gipsy? Hardly had the question arisen when she appeared with the Wolseley ambulance. She had come back to look for them, and was thankful beyond words that they were safe. Her fine sense of responsibility had made her put in safety first of all the wounded who were in her charge, but the instant they were disposed of she had sought for her friend. 

All thoughts of remaining in a hut in that position was at an end. When the shelling quieted down a little later on they returned and collected some of their belongings, and, after talking the matter over together, asked Mr. Costa to put up the hut for them again nearer Steenkerke. 

Three times they had been shelled out of their refuges and escaped unhurt. What would the end be? 

The building of the hut had made a big hole in the funds collected for the upkeep of the poste, and its removal was a disaster, because it necessitated further inroads on their small capital. However, they were not to be daunted, and with the hut once more set up the work began again. 

They were certainly much better off in many ways than they had ever been before. Here, besides the five beds for soldiers, there was one in a separate room for an officer. They were well provided with cars. Mairi, who has a head for detail, gives an exact list of them: "A 16-20 h.p. Wolseley ambulance (St. John Ambulance car), a 75 h.p. Mercedes, and a 40-60 Fiat with a kitchen body." Besides these, the British Red Cross had given them a lorry for fetching goods from Dunkirk, but it was "such a beast" that they exchanged it for a "dear little 10-12 h.p. Mors," which did excellent work. 

The first officer to occupy the small room was the son of General Jacquez, and his being entrusted to their care was felt to be a mark of great confidence. Rumour at once rolled around. "It was the son of a General they had in charge. What General? Oh, General French, of course. No, it was a royalty. Then it must be Prince Alexander of Teck." And so on. All these surmises and conjectures reached their ears from time to time, and caused them much amusement. 

From this time the poste took on a more established character. Mrs. Knocker appealed for cards, puzzles, French books, chocolate, and cigarettes for her beloved wounded. "It is such a splendid little country!" she said. "I have lived amongst the soldiers so long, and know how plucky and cheerful they are. I see them patched up, returning to their regiments unmurmuring. I wonder if even our British Tommy would fight so cheerfully as he does if he were established on twenty miles of Kent, knowing that all the rest of his country was in the hands of the Germans, not knowing where his mother, wife, or sisters were, or if he would ever see them again. What awful odds against them! I am asking for funds to enable me to keep up my little hospital, and not give up the work I am so keen about." 

Rations were supplied by the army for each wounded soldier, but they needed more than that to feed them up. Also there was no allowance of food for the ladies themselves, or the orderly and chauffeurs, and coal and other necessaries had to be provided. Even with the utmost economy the cost of running the poste was not less than three pounds a week. 

 One of the most untiring of their friends was Major A. A. Gordon, M.V.O., Courrier de sa Majesté le Roi des Belges, who had known them through all their vicissitudes in the Pervyse days, and now continued his visits, never without bringing priceless treasures of condensed milk, preserved café au lait and other necessaries. 

They had arranged to have stores sent out from Harrods' to Dunkirk once a week, and one of them had to motor in and fetch them. By this time Mairi was quite a good hand at a car, not only at driving it, but in knowing "how to poke her nose inside the bonnet" to make it go when it was sulky. 

Now that they were not living right up at the trenches, and had their own ambulance, they used to go to collect the wounded. On those open roads they were clearly visible from far away, and the Germans used to make a target of them whenever they saw them. Gipsy draws an amusing little diagram showing the shells marking their course, but always breaking just behind them, so that they look as if the car had dropped them out as it ran. 

The Wolseley car, already mentioned as having been presented by Sutton Coldfield and district, did wonderful work. Mairi says of it, "It is a car in a million." Since March, 1915, up to the time of writing, it has carried 1,500 sick and wounded men, and that without any break- down—a record any car might be proud of. The car has always been driven by one of the Two themselves, and that has helped to keep it in order, for careful driving goes a long way towards the preserving the life of cars, and the way some chauffeurs knock them about is appalling. The experiences of the Two with their various chauffeurs have been painful and amusing together, and the amount of energy expended in the futile hope of keeping some of the men in order is enough to move one to tears. 

Gipsy says, "Our cars and our chauffeurs have made us feel older and thinner than any hard work we have ever done." Of course, the first requisite for a driver at the front is pluck, and not only the sort of pluck coming of sound nerves, which almost every chauffeur, even in ordinary home traffic on good roads, must possess, but a kind of dare-devil recklessness in addition. The trouble out there was that if they got a man with this kind of courage, he was as a rule utterly undisciplined, and refused to obey orders, and generally made himself a nuisance. It seemed sometimes as if it were a choice between a polite man who agreed to everything he was told, but simply dropped off the car and sat in a ditch if he approached a tight place, and a reckless, careless, rude fellow who went when he liked and where he liked without the least consideration for what was expected of him. As an instance of the first type, one day when Mairi was driving up to Pervyse, and reached the long, straight stretch before the village, she found that shells were bursting ahead, but felt she must go on. She continued therefore steadily, but when she reached the village and turned to give an order to the chauffeur Joseph, who should have been seated behind, she found that he had vanished. He had thought it simpler and easier to roll out of the car and lie in the ditch until the danger was over 

In contrast to Joseph there was Paul, who met an order with a dark scowl, and if told to get ready to drive, sometimes replied promptly, "I'm not going to drive this morning," not happening to be in the mood for it. Supposing he were severely reprimanded, he would disappear until he thought his employers had been sufficiently punished. Yet of his pluck there could be no question. He not only went headlong into danger if the mood took him, he really seemed to enjoy it; and if the car broke down he knew every screw and nut in her, and not only could put her right again, but would do it even under fire. Yet at last he got so unbearable that Gipsy asked the General to give him a word of reprimand, thinking innocently that, coming from the General, it must make some impression. When she told her recreant that the General had sent for him at three o'clock, all the reply she got was, "What for?” 

She did not give anything away, merely repeating that the General wished to see him, and that he must present himself at Headquarters at three. He answered quite calmly, "Then you can go down and tell the General I'm busy," and departed, hands in pockets, with an expression on his face showing there was no work of any kind to be got out of him for twelve hours; someone had to suffer for their rash interference with his liberty! This was unbearable, and he had to go, and was replaced by Joseph, whose exploits have been detailed. 

Good driving of an ambulance car is not only necessary for preserving the life of the car itself, but the lives of those who are in it. The man who goes fifty miles an hour at and over and into anything, as the Belgian chauffeurs love to do, will probably kill many of those he is carrying, and even if they are not actually murdered, he will cause them unnecessary agony. In driving ambulances holes should be avoided wherever possible, and, even if there is shelling going on, a really good driver will consider his charges and his ear rather than his own instinct to get out of it as quickly as possible. Both Gipsy and Mairi thoroughly understand cars, and it is pain and grief to them to hear the gears grate and the nuts wrench and jar by foolish or reckless carelessness. Sometimes Gipsy has been advised, "Madame, if you would leave your chauffeurs alone and trust them, they would never give you any trouble." At last, in desperation, thinking the trouble could not be greater than it was, she did leave them to themselves for one day, with the result that the big 75 h.p. Mercedes was rushed out to Calais for a joy-ride, and had to be towed back on a lorry because the back axle was smashed! Leaving the chauffeurs alone for a day usually meant a big bill for repairs. 

One day the Two were at Oestkerke when the shelling was very hot. Every movement must have been visible to the enemy. They were in the Wolseley ambulance, and turned to the right at some cross- roads and drew up beside a farm-house. A Captain came out from the house and told them there was a wounded man in the village needing them, so they turned and raced back to fetch him under a killing fire. They managed to find him and dashed back, though one shell burst right behind the car. Gipsy, who was in the front seat beside the chauffeur, looked sharply back, expecting to see that the rear part of the car had been sliced off. But for the splendid qualities of the Wolseley car they would never have got out alive, and the Sutton Coldfield donors may feel satisfied that their contributions have achieved notable work. It was for this feat they were mentioned in despatches. The orders of the day ran : 

"J'exprime tous mes remerciements à Madame Knocker et à Mademoiselle Chisholm pour le nouvel acte de dévouement qu'elles ont posé le 25 courant en allant relever un de nos blessés dans une endroit battu par l'artillerie ennemie." 

The General himself came to congratulate them and stayed to have tea. 

Money soon began to fail them again, and Gipsy contemplated another run over to England to fill the coffers. It seemed hard that when she was there and able to tell people in person about the work, she should get what she wanted, but the moment she went back to take up the work again subscriptions ceased. "It seems easy enough to get money," she says pathetically, "when people see you, and hear you talk, and realize what you are doing, but the moment you get back and begin to do it again, and cease talking, they forget all about you." 

Even though they were now outside the worst danger-zone, they soon realized that it would be the prudent course to bank up the little poste with sandbags to deaden any splinters or shrapnel that might come that way, and Gipsy wrote home praying for bags of any kind, only not too big, because they couldn't lift them themselves. She especially asks that her little son might make one, and have his name painted in large letters across it, so that it might be recognized and could be stuck up in a prominent position. Besides this they had a dugout made beneath the hut into which they could hurry their wounded charges at the first alarm. 

 The weather had now become very hot. At first this was a welcome change after the long dreary winter, but presently the heat became almost more trying than the cold had been. The glare and dust were awful. But the Two had occasional changes; once one of the naval men took them for a run along the coast in a motor-boat, and the breath of the sea air came like a vivifying blast to both. On another never-to-be-forgotten occasion they went down by invitation to the aviation ground, and there quite suddenly Gipsy found herself being introduced to Baron Harold de T'Serclaes de Rattendael, a representative of one of the oldest Belgian families, and recognized with a quick movement of surprise that this was the officer who had brought messages from his Colonel, and whom she had often thought of since. They had hardly had two words together until then, but the acquaintance formally made seemed as if it were going to blossom. From the very first Mairi, with instinctive tact, always found someone else to talk to at the right moment. 

Both the girls were dreadfully tried by that summer. Not for anything would they have given up the work, but yet, "I feel I should love to be quietly at home in a wee cottage with the sound of guns miles away. One gets tired of the same old grind, the same old food, and never a change. I dare not say how sick one gets of it for fear of being disheartened," tells its own tale. 

About the end of July, Gipsy visited Pervyse again one day, and discovered how terribly the little poste was missed there, so she began to wonder if it would be possible to reopen it. The hut was all very well, but it was not right at the front where the men could get at it any time in coming from the trenches, and the atmosphere of hope and brightness which the mere presence of women had been able to create in the village, was sadly lacking while they were some miles out. There was an empty house opposite the brasserie where the officers lived, which, though badly shattered, might perhaps do. She considered the matter, talked it over with the officers, and after a good deal of trouble with Headquarters, gained permission to return there if she wished. 

The four outside walls of this "possible" house were still standing, but the roof and inside walls had quite gone, except for two rooms, one of which was the cellar. Mr. Costa put up a wooden partition inside to replace the broken wall, and the Engineers were willing to do all they could, and helped to fix iron rafters across the roof by working at night. They had only just accomplished this when they got orders to move elsewhere. But the two girls, with indomitable pluck and perseverance, themselves dragged up sandbags and piled them on the rafters; and this they did after a heavy day's work at the poste, coming up from Steenkerke at nights in order to put it through. A friend, named Mr. Colby, found them at it one night, and was horrified that they should be using their strength in this rough work. He was most kind, and sent men and materials to the rescue, and it was time someone did, for the heavy work and long strain had had their effect, and Gipsy, who had been showing signs of nerve strain for some time, broke down completely. So both she and Mairi obtained leave, and went over to England. It can hardly be said that this was a holiday any more than the former trip, but at any rate it was change of work; and after lecturing and interviewing, and running about a good deal, they both came back quite well on September 9, 1915. 

It was at this time they met again Miss Eva Moore, whom they had worked for when attached to the Women's Emergency Corps. Miss Moore was immensely interested in all they had done since then, and set herself to work untiringly to help them, sending them out funds and contributions in kind which were the greatest help; in fact, had it not been for her, the poste might have had to cease altogether.