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KINGS, QUEENS AND PAWNS
KINGS, QUEENS AND PAWNS
March in England is spring. Early in the month masses of snowdrops lined the paths in Hyde Park. The grass was green, the roads hard and dry under the eager feet of Kitchener's great army. For months they had been drilling, struggling with the intricacies of a new career, working and waiting. And now it was spring, and soon they would be off. Some had already gone. "Lucky beggars!" said the ones who remained, and counted the days. And waiting, they drilled. Everywhere there were squads: Scots in
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CHAPTER I
CHAPTER I
I started for the Continent on a bright day early in January. I was searched by a woman from Scotland Yard before being allowed on the platform. The pockets of my fur coat were examined; my one piece of baggage, a suitcase, was inspected; my letters of introduction were opened and read. "Now, Mrs. Rinehart," she said, straightening, "just why are you going?" I told her exactly half of why I was going. I had a shrewd idea that the question in itself meant nothing. But it gave her a good chance to
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CHAPTER II
CHAPTER II
Many people have seen Boulogne and have written of what they have seen: the great hotels that are now English hospitals; the crowding of transport wagons; the French signs, which now have English signs added to them; the mixture of uniforms—English khaki and French blue; the white steamer waiting at the quay, with great Red Crosses on her snowy funnels. Over everything, that first winter of the war, hung the damp chill of the Continental winter, that chill that sinks in and never leaves, that pe
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CHAPTER III
CHAPTER III
From Calais to La Panne is fifty miles. Calais is under military law. It is difficult to enter, almost impossible to leave in the direction in which I wished to go. But here again the Belgian Red Cross achieved the impossible. I was taken before the authorities, sharply questioned, and in the end a pink slip was passed over to the official of the Red Cross who was to take me to the front. I wish I could have secured that pink slip, if only because of its apparent fragility and its astounding wea
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CHAPTER IV
CHAPTER IV
LA PANNE, January 25th, 10 P.M. I am at the Belgian Red Cross hospital to-night. Have had supper and have been given a room on the top floor, facing out over the sea. This is the base hospital for the Belgian lines. The men come here with the most frightful injuries. As I entered the building to-night the long tiled corridor was filled with the patient and quiet figures that are the first fruits of war. They lay on portable cots, waiting their turn in the operating rooms, the white coverings and
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CHAPTER V
CHAPTER V
The letter announcing that I was to have an audience with the King of the Belgians reached me at Dunkirk, France, on the evening of the day before the date set. It was brief and to the effect that the King would receive me the next afternoon at two o'clock at the Belgian Army headquarters. The object of my visit was well known; and, because I wished an authoritative statement to give to America, I had requested that the notes of my conversation with His Majesty should be officially approved. Thi
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CHAPTER VI
CHAPTER VI
The Belgian Red Cross may well be proud of the hospital at La Panne. It is modern, thoroughly organised, completely equipped. Within two weeks of the outbreak of the war it was receiving patients. It was not at the front then. But the German tide has forced itself along until now it is almost on the line. Generally speaking, order had taken the place of the early chaos in the hospital situation when I was at the front. The British hospitals were a satisfaction to visit. The French situation was
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CHAPTER VII
CHAPTER VII
In its way that hospital at La Panne epitomised the whole tragedy of the great war. Here were women and children, innocent victims when the peaceful nearby market town of Furnes was being shelled; here was a telegraph operator who had stuck to his post under furious bombardment until both his legs were crushed. He had been decorated by the king for his bravery. Here were Belgian aristocrats without extra clothing or any money whatever, and women whose whole lives had been shielded from pain or d
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CHAPTER VIII
CHAPTER VIII
I found that a room had been engaged for me at the Hotel des Arcades. It was a very large room looking out over the public square and the statue of Jean Bart. It was really a princely room. No wonder they showed it to me proudly, and charged it to me royally. It was an upholstered room. Even the doors were upholstered. And because it was upholstered and expensive and regal, it enjoyed the isolation of greatness. The other people in the hotel slept above or underneath. There were times when I lon
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CHAPTER IX
CHAPTER IX
I have just had this conversation with the little French chambermaid at my hotel. "You have not gone to mass, Mademoiselle?" "I? No." "But here, so near the lines, I should think—" "I do not go to church. There is no God." She looked up with red-rimmed, defiant eyes. "My husband has been killed," she said. "There is no God. If there was a God, why should my husband be killed? He had done nothing." This afternoon at three-thirty I am to start for the front. I am to see everything. The machine lea
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CHAPTER X
CHAPTER X
It was bitterly cold, and the dead officer's diary weighed on my spirit. The two officers in the machine pored over the map; I sat huddled in my corner. I had come a long distance to do the thing I was doing. But my enthusiasm for it had died. I wished I had not heard the diary. "At dawn I take advantage of a few moments' respite to read over the kind wishes which have come from home. What happiness!" And then he died. The car jolted on. The soldier and the military chauffeur out in front were d
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CHAPTER XI
CHAPTER XI
A narrow path led up to the house. It was flanked on both sides by barbed wire, and progress through it was slow. The wind caught my rain cape and tore it against the barbs. I had to be disentangled. The sentries saluted, and the low door, through which the officers were obliged to stoop to enter, was opened by an orderly from within. We entered The House of the Mill of Saint ——. The House of the Mill of Saint —— was less pretentious than its name. Even at its best it could not have been imposin
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CHAPTER XII
CHAPTER XII
When I had been thawed out they took me into the trenches. Because of the inundation directly in front, they are rather shallow, and at this point were built against the railroad embankment with earth, boards, and here and there a steel rail from the track. Some of them were covered, too, but not with bombproof material. The tops were merely shelters from the rain and biting wind. The men lay or sat in them—it was impossible to stand. Some of them were like tiny houses into which the men crawled
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CHAPTER XIII
CHAPTER XIII
An aëroplane man at the next table starts to-night on a dangerous scouting expedition over the German lines. In case he does not return he has given a letter for his mother to Captain T——. It now appears quite certain that I am to be sent along the French and English lines. I shall be the first correspondent, I am told, to see the British front, as "Eyewitness," who writes for the English papers, is supposed to be a British officer. I have had word also that I am to see Mr. Winston Churchill, th
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CHAPTER XIV
CHAPTER XIV
It was growing dark; the chauffeur was preparing to light the lamps of the car. Shells were fewer. With the approach of night the activity behind the lines increased; more ammunition trains made their way over the débris; regiments prepared for the trenches marched through the square on their way to the front. They were laden, as usual, with extra food and jars of water. Almost every man had an additional loaf of bread strapped to the knapsack at his back. They were laughing and talking among th
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CHAPTER XV
CHAPTER XV
From my journal written during an attack of influenza at the Gare Maritime in Calais: Last night I left England on the first boat to cross the Channel after the blockade. I left London at midnight, with the usual formality of being searched by Scotland Yard detectives. The train was empty and very cold. "At half-past two in the morning we reached Folkestone. I was quite alone, and as I stood shivering on the quay waiting to have my papers examined a cold wind from the harbour and a thin spray of
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CHAPTER XVI
CHAPTER XVI
The sun was high when we reached the little town where General Foch, Commander of the Armies of the North, had his headquarters. It was not difficult to find the building. The French flag furled at the doorway, a gendarme at one side of the door and a sentry at the other, denoted the headquarters of the staff. But General Foch was not there at the moment. He had gone to church. The building was near. Thinking that there might be a service, I decided to go also. Going up a steep street to where a
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CHAPTER XVII
CHAPTER XVII
I was taken to see the battlefield of Ypres by Captain Boisseau, of the French War Academy, and Lieutenant René Puaux, of the staff of General Foch. It was a bright and sunny day, with a cold wind, however, that set the water in the wayside ditches to rippling. All the night before I had wakened at intervals to heavy cannonading and the sharp cracking of mitrailleuse . We were well behind the line, but the wind was coming from the direction of the battlefield. The start was made from in front of
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CHAPTER XVIII
CHAPTER XVIII
The car stopped. We were at the wireless and telephone headquarters for the French Army of the North. It was a low brick building, and outside, just off the roadway, was a high van full of telephone instruments. That it was moved from one place to another was shown when, later in the day, returning by that route, we found the van had disappeared. It was two o'clock. The German wireless from Berlin had just come in. At three the receiving station would hear from the Eiffel Tower in Paris. It was
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CHAPTER XIX
CHAPTER XIX
I went into the trenches. The captain was very proud of them. "They represent the latest fashion in trenches!" he explained, smiling faintly. It seemed to me that I could easily have improved on that latest fashion. The bottom was full of mud and water. Standing in the trench, I could see over the side by making an effort. The walls were wattled—that is, covered with an interlacing of fagots which made the sides dry. But it was not for that reason only that these trenches were called the latest
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CHAPTER XX
CHAPTER XX
I wakened early this morning and went to church—a great empty place, very cold but with the red light of the sanctuary lamp burning before a shrine. There were perhaps a dozen people there when I went in. Before the Mater Dolorosa two women in black were praying with upturned eyes. At the foot of the Cross crouched the tragic figure of the Mother, with her dead Son in her arms. Before her were these other mothers, praying in the light of the thin burning candles. Far away, near the altar, seven
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CHAPTER XXI
CHAPTER XXI
Later: Roland Garros, the French aviator, has just driven off a German Taube . They both circled low over the town for some time. Then the German machine started east with Garros in pursuit. They have gone out of sight. * * * * * War is not all grey and grim and hideous. It has its lighter moments. The more terrible a situation the more keen is human nature to forget it for a time. Men play between shells in the trenches. London, suffering keenly, flocks to a comedy or a farce as a relief from s
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CHAPTER XXII
CHAPTER XXII
It was commencing to rain outside. The rain beat on the windows and made even the reluctant fire seem cosy. Some one had had a box of candy sent from home. It was brought out and presented with a flourish. "It is frightful, this life in the trenches!" said the young officer who passed it about. Shortly afterward the party was increased. An orderly came in and announced that an Englishwoman, whose automobile had broken down, was standing on the bridge over the canal and asked to be admitted. She
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CHAPTER XXIII
CHAPTER XXIII
And now it was seven o'clock, and raining. Dinner was to be at eight. I had before me a drive of nine miles along those slippery roads. It was dark and foggy, with the ground mist of Flanders turning to a fog. The lamps of the car shining into it made us appear to be riding through a milky lake. Progress was necessarily slow. One of the English officers accompanied me. "I shall never forget the last time I dined out here," he said as we jolted along. "There is a Belgian battery just behind the h
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CHAPTER XXIV
CHAPTER XXIV
The first part of the meal over, the hostess picked up a nut and threw it deftly at a door leading into the lean-to-kitchen. "Our table bell," she explained to me. And, true enough, a moment later the orderly appeared and carried out the plates. Then we had dessert, which was fruit and candy, and coffee. And all the time the guns were firing, and every opening of the door into the corridor brought a gale of wind into the room. Suddenly it struck me that hardly a foot of the plaster interior of t
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CHAPTER XXV
CHAPTER XXV
I hold a strong brief for the English: For the English at home, restrained, earnest, determined and unassuming; for the English in the field, equally all of these things. The British Army has borne attacks at La Bassée and Ypres, positions so strategically difficult to hold that the Germans have concentrated their assaults at these points. It has borne the horrors of the retreat from Mons, when what the Kaiser called "General French's contemptible little army" was forced back by oncoming hosts o
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CHAPTER XXVI
CHAPTER XXVI
The same high-crowned roads, with pitfalls of mud at each side; the same lines of trees; the same coating of ooze, over which the car slid dangerously. But a new element—khaki. Khaki everywhere—uniforms, tents, transports, all of the same hue. Skins, too, where one happens on the Indian troops. It is difficult to tell where their faces end and their yellow turbans begin. Except for the slightly rolling landscape and the khaki one might have been behind the Belgian or French Army. There were as u
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CHAPTER XXVII
CHAPTER XXVII
The road to Ham turned off the main highway south of Aire. It was a narrow clay road in unspeakable condition. The car wallowed along. Once we took a wrong turning and were obliged to go back and start again. It was still raining. Indian horsemen beat their way stolidly along the road. We passed through hamlets where cavalry horses in ruined stables were scantily protected, where the familiar omnibuses of London were parked in what appeared to be hundreds. The cocoa and other advertisements had
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CHAPTER XXVIII
CHAPTER XXVIII
The next day I was taken along the English front, between the first and the second line of trenches, from Béthune, the southern extremity of the line, the English right flank, to the northern end of the line just below Ypres. In a direct line the British front at that time extended along some twenty-seven miles. But the line was irregular, and I believe was really well over thirty. I have never been in an English trench. I have been close enough to the advance trenches to be shown where they lay
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CHAPTER XXIX
CHAPTER XXIX
Again and again through these chapters I have felt apologetic for the luxurious manner in which I frequently saw the war. And so now I hesitate to mention the comfort of that trip along the British lines; the substantial and essentially British foresight and kindness that had stocked the car with sandwiches wrapped in white paper; the good roads; the sense of general well-being that spread like a contagion from a well-fed and well-cared-for army. There is something about the British Army that in
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CHAPTER XXX
CHAPTER XXX
The second hill was our destination. At the foot of it the car stopped and we got out. A steep path with here and there a wooden step led to the summit. At the foot of the path was a sentry and behind him one of the multicoloured tents. "Are you a good climber?" asked the officer. I said I was and we set out. The path extended only a part of the way, to a place perhaps two hundred feet beyond the road, where what we would call a cyclone cellar in America had been dug out of the hillside. Like th
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CHAPTER XXXI
CHAPTER XXXI
The great European war affects profoundly all the women of each nation involved. It affects doubly the royal women. The Queen of England, the Czarina of Russia, the Queen of the Belgians, the Empress of Germany, each carries in these momentous days a frightful burden. The young Prince of Wales is at the front; the King of the Belgians has been twice wounded; the Empress of Germany has her sons as well as her husband in the field. In addition to these cares these women of exalted rank have the re
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CHAPTER XXXII
CHAPTER XXXII
On the third of August, 1914, the German Army crossed the frontier into Belgium. And on the following day, the fourth, King Albert made his now famous speech to the joint meeting of the Belgian Chamber and Senate. Come what might, the Belgian people would maintain the freedom that was their birthright. "I have faith in our destinies," King Albert concluded. "A country which defends itself wins respect and cannot perish." With these simple and dignified words Belgium took up the struggle. She was
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CHAPTER XXXIII
CHAPTER XXXIII
Immediately on the declaration of war by the Powers the vast machinery of mercy was put in the field. The mobilisation of the Red Cross army began—that great army which is of no nation, but of all nations, of no creed but of all faiths, of one flag for all the world and that flag the banner of the Crusaders. The Red Cross is the wounded soldier's last defence. Worn as a brassard on the left arm of its volunteers, it conveys a higher message than the Victoria Cross of England, the Iron Cross of G
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CHAPTER XXXIV
CHAPTER XXXIV
One of the first hospitals I saw was in Calais. We entered a muddy courtyard through a gate, and the building loomed before us. It had been a girls' convent school, and was now a military hospital for both the French and British armies, one half the building being used by each. It was the first war hospital I had seen, and I was taken through the building by Major S——, of the Royal Army Medical Corps. It was morning, and the corridors and stairs still bore the mud of the night, when the ambulanc
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CHAPTER XXXV
CHAPTER XXXV
I saw a typhoid hospital in charge of two women doctors. It was undermanned. There were not enough nurses, not enough orderlies. One of the women physicians had served through the Balkan war. "There was typhoid there," she said, "but nothing to compare with this in malignancy. Nearly all the cases have come from one part of Belgium." Some of the men were wounded, in addition to the fever. She told me that it was impossible to keep things in proper order with the help they had. "And food!" she sa
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CHAPTER XXXVI
CHAPTER XXXVI
With the possible exception of Germany, which seems to have anticipated everything, no one of the nations engaged appears to have expected the fearful carnage of this war. The destructive effect of the modern, high-explosive shell has been well known, but it is the trench form of warfare which, by keeping troops in stationary positions, under grilling artillery fire, has given such shells their opportunity. Shrapnel has not been so deadly to the men in the trenches. The result of the vast casual
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CHAPTER XXXVII
CHAPTER XXXVII
It is undeniably true that the humanities are failing us as the war goes on. Not, thank God, the broad humanity of the Red Cross, but that individual compassion of a man for his wounded brother, of which the very fabric of mercy is woven. There is too much death, too much suffering. Men grow calloused. As yet the loss is not irretrievable, but the war is still only a matter of months. What if it is to be of years? France and Belgium were suffering from a wave of atheism before the war. But there
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