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Page 34
But after a third of the journey was over, the snow began to lessen and
the roads to clear. We dropped first into a seaport town which offered
much the same mingled scene of French and English, of English nurses, and
French _poilus_, of unloading ships, and British soldiers, as the bases we
had left, only on a smaller scale. And beyond the town we climbed again on
to the high land, through a beautiful country of interwoven downs, and
more plentiful habitation. Soon, indeed, the roads began to show the signs
of war--a village or small town, its picturesque market-place filled with
a park of artillery wagons; roads lined with motor lorries with the
painted shell upon them that tells ammunition; British artillerymen in
khaki, bringing a band of horses out of a snow-bound farm; closed
motor-cars filled with officers hurrying past; then an open car with
King's Messengers, tall, soldierly figures, looking in some astonishment
at the two ladies, as they hurry by. And who or what is this horseman
looming out of the sleet--like a figure from a piece of Indian or Persian
embroidery, turbaned and swarthy, his cloak swelling out round his
handsome head and shoulders, the buildings of a Norman farm behind him?
"There are a few Indian cavalry about here," says our guide--"they are
billeted in the farms." And presently the road is full of them. Their
Eastern forms, their dark, intent faces pass strangely through the Norman
landscape.
Now we are only some forty miles from the line, and we presently reach
another town containing an important British Headquarters, where we are to
stop for luncheon. The inn at which we put up is like the song in "Twelfth
Night," "old and plain"--and when lunch is done, our Colonel goes to pay
an official call at Headquarters, and my daughter and I make our way to
the historic church of the town. The Colonel joins us here with another
officer, who brings the amazing news that "G.H.Q."--General
Headquarters--that mysterious centre and brain of all things--invites us
for two days! If we accept, an officer will come for us on the morning of
March 1st to our hotel in Boulogne and take us by motor, some forty miles,
to the guest-house where G.H.Q. puts up its visitors. "_Accept!"_ Ah, if
one could only forget for a moment the human facts behind the absorbing
interest and excitement of this journey, one might be content to feel only
the stir of quickened pulses, of gratitude for a further opportunity so
tremendous.
As it was, I saw all the journey henceforward with new eyes, because of
that to which it was bringing us. On we sped, through the French
countryside, past a great forest lying black on the edge of the white
horizon--I open my map and find it marked Bois de Crecy!--past another old
town, with Agincourt a few miles to the east, and so into a region of pine
and sand that borders the sea. Darkness comes down, and we miss our way.
What are these lines of light among the pine woods? Another military and
hospital camp, which we are to see on the morrow--so we discover at last.
But we have overshot our goal, and must grope our way back through the
pine woods to the sea-shore, where a little primitive hotel, built for the
summer, with walls that seem to be made of brown paper, receives us. But
we have motored far that day, and greet it joyfully.
The following morning we woke to a silvery sunlight, with, at last, some
promise of spring over a land cleared of snow. The day was spent in going
through a camp which has been set down in one of the pleasantest and
healthiest spots of France, a favourite haunt of French artists before the
war. Now the sandy slopes, whence the pines, alack, have been cut away,
are occupied by a British reinforcement camp, by long lines of hospitals,
by a convalescent depot, and by the training-grounds, where, as at other
bases, the newly arrived troops are put through their last instruction
before going to the front. As usual, the magnitude of what has been done
in one short year filled one with amazement. Here is the bare catalogue:
Infantry Base Depots, i.e. sleeping and mess quarters, for thousands of
men belonging to the new armies; 16 hospitals with 21,000 beds, 3 rifle
ranges; 2 training-camps; a machine-gun training-school; a vast laundry
worked by Frenchwomen under British organisation, which washes for _all_
the hospitals, 30,000 pieces a day; recreation huts of all types and
kinds, official and voluntary; a Cinema theatre, seating 800 men, with
performances twice a day; nurses' clubs; officers' clubs; a Supply Depot
for food; an Ordnance Depot for everything that is not food; new sidings
to the railway, where 1,000 men can be entrained on the one side, while
1,000 men are detraining on the other; or two full ambulance trains can
come in and go out; a Convalescent Depot of 2,000 patients, and a
Convalescent Horse Depot of 2,000 horses, etcetera. And this is the work
accomplished since last April in one camp.
Yet, as I look back upon it, my chief impression of that long day is an
impression, first, of endless hospital huts and marquees, with their rows
of beds, in which the pale or flushed faces are generally ready--unless
pain or weariness forbid--as a visitor ventures timidly near, to turn and
smile in response to the few halting words of sympathy or inquiry which
are all one can find to say; and, next, of such a wealth of skill, and
pity, and devotion poured out upon this terrible human need, as makes one
thank God for doctors, and nurses, and bright-faced V.A.D.'s. After all,
one tremblingly asks oneself, in spite of the appalling facts of wounds,
and death, and violence in which the human world is now steeped, is it yet
possible, is it yet true, that the ultimate thing, the final power behind
the veil--to which at least this vast linked spectacle of suffering and
tenderness, here in this great camp, testifies--is _not_ Force, but Love?
Is this the mysterious message which seems to breathe from these crowded
wards--to make them _just_ bearable. Let me recollect the open door of an
operating theatre, and a young officer, quite a boy, lying there with a
bullet in his chest, which the surgeons were just about to try and
extract. The fine, pale features of the wounded man, the faces of the
surgeon and the nurses, so intent and cheerfully absorbed, the shining
surfaces and appliances of the white room--stamp themselves on memory. I
recollect, too, one John S----, a very bad case, a private. "Oh, you must
come and see John S----," says one of the Sisters. "We get all the little
distractions we can for John. Will he recover? Well, we thought
so--but"--her face changes gravely--"John himself seems to have made up
his mind lately. He knows--but he never complains." Knows what? We go to
see him, and he turns round philosophically from his tea. "Oh, I'm all
right--a bit tired--that's all." And then a smile passes between him and
his nurse. He has lost a leg, he has a deep wound in his back which won't
heal, which is draining his life away--poor, poor John S----! Close by is
a short, plain man, with a look of fevered and patient endurance that
haunts one now to think of. "It's my eyes. I'm afraid they're getting
worse. I was hit in the head, you see. Yes, the pain's bad--sometimes."
The nurse looks at him anxiously as we pass, and explains what is being
tried to give relief.
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