January 8th. If Art be Selection, then surely is that of keeping a War Diary, that shall be true, unbiased and yet not dull, the hardest of all Arts!

For our eyes are so focused on the smaller things out here that we are apt to ignore the larger issues altogether.

Yet—even as, looking back at bygone years, it is the little things that count—the branch that taps against the study window, the sickly scent of lime trees, the odd pattern on the nursery cup, the wind across the fields, the broken doll, so is it by little things alone that we can draw true pictures of our own times.

The days have been too busy collecting "woollies" for those who need them, getting together a library for the "BX" men, writing letters for the wounded, to keep my diary.

There is much humour as well as pathos in the letters that are dictated, and hackneyed phrases, such as "Hoping this finds you as it leaves me" and "I take up the pen to tell you," recur frequently, often with ambiguous meanings.

"Dear Wife,—You will be glad to hear that I have lost an arm, but am still alive and hope to be home with you soon. Hoping this finds you as it leaves me, Yours Truly, A. S.," ran one I took down to-day.

One is reminded of the anecdote of the man who, when asked if he had ever been in love, replied: "In love? Of course, my dear sir, on many occasions, and each time with the same unswerving devotion," when, as is not infrequently the case, one man contrives to keep up an apparently parallel correspondence with that portion of the community whom he designates as his "Lidy friends," and, equally oblivious of amanuensis and censor, dispatches missives, identical in expressions of passionate devotion, to each of the respective recipients. Romance, too, ripens quickly out here, and each of the aforementioned five happy damsels who was "My dear Miss X" a week ago becomes "My darling sweetheart" to-day. One wonders what will happen to the remaining four when, in due course, the returning hero decides upon which of the unsuspecting maidens to bestow his comprehensive heart!

One day I went over to see some friends at Calais, where they are leading the same gendarme-hunted life as the Dunkirk journalist, in order to be near their Belgian fiancÉs. Every three days they have to change their quarters, and though it is only a fortnight ago that I received their invitation, it was only after inquiring at four hotels that I ran them to earth.

Calais is feeling very thrilled at her own importance, for the enemy are bombing her with a vigour that marks her as a foe worthy of attention.

The attitude of the French towards the Belgians, whose headquarters lie here, is less enthusiastic than ours; indeed, one might safely say it is one of mistrust. England opened her arms not to the true Belgians alone, that little gallant army to whose valour we owe so much, but, for their sake, indiscriminately to the hordes of German spies who came over with the first influx of refugees, to the dregs of humanity who were let loose when the cosmopolitan prison doors were thrown open.

France was wiser. Hospitality, she said, is all very well, but first of all we will sift our guests and discover which of them are deserving. And sifting them she is, allotting them freedom in their own sphere, but not freedom to circulate in the zone of other armies. Not that France for a moment belittles or undervalues the achievement of that valiant little country or its heroic King, but she realises—as do most Belgians themselves—the danger attendant upon this promiscuous harbouring of unregistered adults whose political leanings may be entirely alien.

In due course, no doubt, when our paroxysm of Belgian mania dies, we too shall come to see the wisdom of this measure.

January 9th. We are now beginning to receive Christmas packages sent out from home some six weeks back, which, owing to lack of sorters to attend to them, have been held up at Havre. Hitherto, the postal arrangements have been most primitive and as surprising as they were vague. Some letters and packages would arrive by the French post, some via the Red Cross service, and yet others by the military mail from Havre. A missive might take anything from three days to four weeks on its way from home.

But now we are less cut off from civilisation, and not only letters but papers as well arrive regularly; and perhaps the most welcome sound of the day is the newsboys' cry as they run along the quay or dart into hotels and hospitals with lightning-like rapidity, heralding their arrival with shouts of "Dailee Mai-il! Mirreure! Times!"

To-day Major X—— asked me to run a canteen for his men, whose lot, too far from the town to be able to enjoy the shops, is far from enviable. True to the principle of doing anything that is needed, I am off home to get the stores together.

January 14th. The five days' "furlough" have passed as a dream, and it was with a sigh of infinite relief that I stepped once more on to French soil.

The extraordinary "let's-muddle-along-it-can't-last-for-ever" attitude at home is distinctly depressing, and the fact that half of the people are quite content to let others do their job whilst they look on with an amused smile and reap the benefit of the shortage of men makes one long to see them well "strafed."

As I sat in the theatre beside an old friend, now an enthusiastic captain in K.'s Army, and thought how soon the brave fellow would be facing the Reality of what he enjoys now so thoroughly as a Theory, and listened to the cheap patriotism of the show, it seemed the cheaper for the lack of action.

Why, after all, should our beautiful island be left with the unfit, the loafers, the "funks" as fathers for the future generations? In every other country the army is representative, not of the pick of the land, but of the average male population. We, however, seem bent on committing race suicide.

But as the old familiar quay hove in sight my spirits rose. Here, after all, lies work that must be done. It is the Real Thing.

If my leave has been short it has been pregnant with interest. The personal side centred itself on the lost trunk, containing all my worldly possessions in the way of wearing apparel, which was sent out in November and has failed to arrive. Scotland Yard have traced it as far as Boulogne, they say. I drew their attention to the wonderful No Man's Land that reigns where all luggage is dumped on the quay.

Once off the boat the English liability ceases, and so, as the French will take no responsibility, the goods lie there until someone, usually not the rightful owner, helps himself.

Thus when a box addressed: "Captain Y——, Xth Regiment—Fur Coat—to be delivered immediately," that has lain for three weeks in the rain, disappears at last, one may be quite safe in assuming that the same fur coat will be fetching a good price on the Paris market a few days hence.

The second and more important interest is the canteen.

Just as the control of all cars and hospitals has been now taken over definitely by the War Office, surely even so small a thing as canteen work should all be under one organisation. The Y.M.C.A., it appears, have a recreation hut for the men at the convalescent camp and a big hut on the quay.

To the Y.M.C.A., then, let our energies be dedicated! For they are a coming factor in the scheme of things, and individual enterprise, gratifying and profitable though it may be to the individual, is hardly pro bono publico.

January 15th. There are hours when one would love a little solitude—the solitude that is, after all, as necessary for well-being as food and rest; hours when the time to digest and sift the manifold occurrences of the day, the presence of a congenial friend to replace the many acquaintances with whom circumstances have herded us together, and a browse over a favourite poet, would be very welcome. Yet, in truth, poetry no longer matters, art no longer matters, music no longer matters to most of us; nothing really matters save life and death and the end of this carnage. Nor will the old rÉgime, the old art, the old literature ever again satisfy those who have seen red and faced life shorn of its trappings of superficiality and conventions. Yet in spite of the fact that all around us we see butchery and the degrading results of Germany's peculiar kultur, in spite of the fact that the spiritual side of life has been—is still—so utterly dormant as to be almost a thing of another existence, on the whole an attitude of great enthusiasm and gratitude prevails for the privilege of being able to work.

January 18th. My first glimpse at a canteen!

Let me describe the scene as we entered to find a long queue of shivering Tommies waiting. The long "hut," at the end of which, on a platform,[Pg 139]
[Pg 140]
[Pg 141] the piano tinkles incessantly, seemed smaller by reason of the many chairs and forms.

The counter, on the clearing of which our attention was turned first, like the tables, is covered with red-and-white check oilcloth, which facilitates the swabbing up of the ever crowded place.

Behind the counter are tables, on which, in between serving the men, we busy ourselves with the preparation of cocoa, the cutting up of cakes and bread, an occupation which I discover to be as much a science as an art.

In the little kitchen the great struggle is to get water boiling in time, and to keep it boiling, in response to the demand. The difficulty at the counter is to keep tea and coffee hot without letting them stew. At one end we take it in turns to take money and to dole out tickets, which are exchanged for goods at the counter. The advantages of the ticket system are mostly noticeable during a "rush," when it diverts the stream of men and obviates the necessity of serving food with coin-soiled hands.

One must, it seems, keep as little as possible on the counter, for fear of tempting Providence and the impecunious! But a wonderful medley of tobacco, soap, bootlaces, chocolate, etc., is displayed on shelves at the back.

Here the men can write home on paper supplied free by the Y.M.C.A. (A big notice on the wall reminds them to "Write home now.") They can read (a small library, which my fingers are itching to catalogue, lies at the end of the building); they can bank here, and play games, and get advice on all problems, mental and moral.

The value of the work can best be estimated by the men's appreciation of it in their letters home, their continual inquiries after similar institutions "up the line," their sorrow when they hear: "No, we're not up there yet—but shall be soon."

The workers consist of Y.M.C.A. secretaries, mostly Nonconformist ministers, and volunteer ladies who wander on duty when the spirit moves them, which sometimes necessitates one shift going without its meals.

A pleasant little music teacher, who is spending her holiday out here, and is useful for organising concerts, accompanying the men, etc., initiated me into the work. The rest of the "staff" consists of a French girl, to cook the secretaries' meals, and a half-witted man, supposed to tend the fires, help with the washing up, etc., but who is invariably inspired to play hymns just when most needed.

January 25th. A naval battle off the Dogger Bank is reported, which reminds me of the letters I receive from a naval friend, whose life on board the —— is spent patrolling the North Sea and longing for action. How different from the fighting friends one runs into occasionally! The other day I came across one who was down with a touch of tonsilitis, having passed through Mons and every big battle that succeeded it unscathed. "I shouldn't at all mind going home with a smashed arm!" he remarked with an almost involuntary sigh, gazing wistfully at the hospital ship as she sailed majestically out of harbour, her gleaming red cross casting weird lights on the dark water.

January 28th. There are times when one is unkind enough to wish one's co-workers the discipline of three months as junior probationer in a large hospital. Last night I arrived to find myself the only worker, and although I enjoyed the rush right enough, it was impossible to get things done to time, and many of the men had to go away unserved.

The methylated spirit ran out, and so demobilised the services of the Primus stoves. The secretary had a bad headache, and was therefore only able to sit at the till, and the odd man was inspired to make night hideous with his discordant hymns, and, having had a tiff with one of the ladies earlier in the day, refused to do a stroke of work. It was a particularly busy night, never less than a hundred men in the hut, I should say, and ten o'clock found me still washing up cups with the aid of a little chauffeur whose vehicle had gone wrong! Faute de mieux he accompanied me along the roughest part of the quay, where one is apt to be molested by the drunken navvies who reel about at night.

January 30th. Wish hard enough and it shall be given unto you! Yesterday was a day of joy, for in it I found a real girl friend of my own age and kind.

She appeared on the scene one morning like a breath of fresh air, this young American.

"What are you doing over here?" I asked. "Come to see the war?"

"Guess you're about right," she replied, with an accent you could cut with a knife. "Nothing else would have dragged me away from God's own country!"

January 31st. The old order changeth—even in Boulogne! In less than a week the Red Cross will be installed at the C——, where once was the Allied Forces Base Hospital. In less than a week all Red Cross cars come under direct supervision of the A.S.C.

To-day the Red Cross sisters at the Gare Maritime (No. —— Stationary Hospital) have received their congÉ, even those "original six" who built it up, being superseded by Army nurses.

Most of the nurses I know have dispersed, many to St. Omer, where in a big monastery hospital they are stamping out enteric amongst the civilian population in order to safeguard our men. Miss A—— has gone to L——, where, from Dr. Le Page's hospital, she writes of wonderful surgical work.

I too would be glad of a new sphere of action, for I am lost in amazement at the sea of petty jealousies. Where is the unity of purpose that bound us all together in the beginning? Is disunion the outcome of overwrought nerves? Even at the hut discord reigns.

The lady in charge dislikes both the music teacher and the American girl, who in turn live at daggers drawn with the respective people of their respective parties and are envious of each other. And yet they one and all are extremely nice folk. One must attribute it to some especially puissant sprite and to Pandora's carelessness!