the departure platform of a great station (for such as have eyes to see) is always a sad place, but now-a-days it is a place of tragedy.
he was tall and thin—a boyish figure—and his khaki-clad arm was close about her slender form. the hour was early and their corner bleak and deserted, thus few were by to heed his stiff-lipped, agonised smile and the passionate clasp of her hands, or to hear her heartbreaking sobs and his brave words of comfort; and i, shivering in the early morning wind, hasted on, awed by a grief that made the grey world greyer.
very soon london was behind us, and we were whirling through a country-side wreathed in mist wherein i seemed to see a girl's tear-wet cheeks and a boy's lips that smiled so valiantly for all their pitiful quiver; thus i answered my companion somewhat at random and the waiter's proffer of breakfast was an insult. and, as i stared out at misty trees and hedgerow i began as it were to sense a grimness in the very air—the million-sided tragedy of war; behind me the weeping girl, before[pg 42] me and looming nearer with every mile, the somme battle-front.
at a table hard by a group of clear-eyed subalterns were chatting and laughing over breakfast, and in their merriment i, too, rejoiced. yet the grimness was with me still as we rocked and swayed through the wreathing mist.
but trains, even on a foggy morning, have a way of getting there at last, so, in due season, were docks and more docks, with the funnels of ships, and beyond these, misty shapes upon a misty sea, the gaunt outlines of destroyers that were to convoy us francewards. hereupon my companion, k., a hardened traveller, inured to customs, passports and the like noxious things, led me through a jostling throng, his long legs striding rapidly when they found occasion, past rank upon rank of soldiers returning to duty, very neat and orderly, and looking, i thought, a little grim.
presently the warps were cast off and very soon we were in the lift and roll of the channel; the white cliffs slowly faded, the wind freshened, and i, observing that everyone had donned life-belts, forthwith girded on one of the clumsy contrivances also.
in mid-channel it blew hard and the destroyers seemed to be making heavy weather of it, now lost in spray, now showing a glistening height of free-board, and, as i watched, remembering why they were there, my cumbrous life-belt grew suddenly very comfortable.
came a growing density on the horizon, a blue[pg 43] streak that slowly and little by little grew into roofs, chimneys, docks and shipping, and france was before us, and it was with almost reverent hands that i laid aside my clumsy cork jacket and was presently on french soil. and yet, except for a few chattering porters, the air rang with good english voices hailing each other in cheery greetings, and khaki was everywhere. but now, as i followed my companion's long legs past these serried, dun-coloured ranks, it seemed to me that they held themselves straighter and looked a little more grim even than they had done in england.
i stood, lost in the busy scene before me, when, hearing k.'s voice, i turned to be introduced to captain r., tall, bright-eyed, immaculate, and very much master of himself and circumstances it seemed, for, despite crowded customs-office, he whisked us through and thence before sundry officials, who glared at me and my passport, signed, stamped, returned it and permitted me to go.
after luncheon we drove to a great base hospital where i was introduced to the colonel-surgeon in charge, a quiet man, who took us readily under his able guidance. and indeed a huge place was this, a place for me of awe and wonder, the more so as i learned that the greater part of it had come into being within one short year.
it lies beside the sea, this hospital, where clean winds blow, its neat roadways are bordered by green lawns and flanked by long, low buildings that reach away in far perspective, buildings of corrugated[pg 44] iron, of wood and asbestos, a very city, but one where there is no riot and rush of traffic, truly a city of peace and brooding quietude.
and as i looked upon this silent city, my awe grew, for the colonel, in his gentle voice, spoke of death and wounds, of shell-shock, nerve-wrack and insanity; but he told also of wonderful cures, of miracles performed on those that should have died, and of reason and sanity won back.
"and you?" i questioned, "have you done many such wonders?"
"few!" he answered, and sighed. "you see, my duties now are chiefly administrative," and he seemed gently grieved that it should be so.
he brought us into wards, long, airy and many-windowed, places of exquisite neatness and order, where calm-faced sisters were busied and smart, soft-treading orderlies came and went. here in white cots lay many bandaged forms, some who, propped on pillows, watched us bright-eyed and nodded in cheery greeting; others who lay so ominously still.
but as i passed between the long rows of cots, i was struck with the look of utter peace and content on so many of the faces and wondered, until, remembering the hell whence they had so lately come, i thought i understood. thus, bethinking me of how these dire hurts had been come by, i took off my hat, and trod between these beds of silent suffering as softly as i could, for these men had surely come "out of great tribulation."
[pg 45]
in another ward i saw numbers of german wounded, most of them bearded; many there were who seemed weakly and undersized, and among them were many grey heads, a very motley company. these, the colonel informed us, received precisely the same treatment as our own wounded, even to tobacco and cigarettes.
we followed our soft-voiced conductor through many other wards where he showed us strange and wondrous devices in splints; he halted us by hanging beds of weird shape and cots that swung on pulleys; he descanted on wounds to flesh and bone and brain, of lives snatched from the grip of death by the marvels of up-to-date surgery, and as i listened to his pleasant voice i sensed much of the grim wonders he left untold. we visited x-ray rooms and operating theatre against whose walls were glass cases filled with a multitudinous array of instruments for the saving of life, and here it was i learned that in certain cases, a chisel, properly handled, was a far more delicate tool than the finest saw.
"a wonderful place," said i for the hundredth time as we stepped out upon a trim, green lawn. the colonel-surgeon smiled.
"it took some planning," he admitted, "a little while ago it was a sandy wilderness."
"but these lawns?" i demurred.
"came to me of their own accord," he answered. "at least, the seed did, washed ashore from a wreck, so i had it planted and it has done rather well. now, what else can i show you? it would[pg 46] take all the afternoon to visit every ward, and they are all much alike—but there is the mad ward if you'd care to see that? this way."
a strange place, this, divided into compartments or cubicles where were many patients in the familiar blue overalls, most of whom rose and stood at attention as we entered. tall, soldierly figures they seemed, and yet with an indefinable something in their looks—a vagueness of gaze, a loose-lipped, too-ready smile, a vacancy of expression. some there were who scowled sullenly enough, others who sat crouched apart, solitary souls, who, i learned, felt themselves outcast; others again crouched in corners haunted by the dread of a pursuing vengeance always at hand.
one such the colonel accosted, asking what was wrong. the man looked up, looked down and muttered unintelligibly, whereupon the sister spoke.
"he believes that everyone thinks him a spy," she explained, and touched the man's bowed head with a hand as gentle as her voice.
"shell-shock is a strange thing," said the colonel-surgeon, "and affects men in many extraordinary ways, but seldom permanently."
"you mean that those poor fellows will recover?" i asked.
"quite ninety per cent," he answered in his quiet, assured voice.
i was shown over laundries complete in every detail; i walked through clothing stores where, in a single day, six hundred men had been equipped from head to foot; i beheld large machines for the[pg 47] sterilisation of garments foul with the grime of battle and other things.
truly, here, within the hospital that had grown, mushroom-like, within the wild, was everything for the alleviation of hurts and suffering more awful than our fighting ancestors ever had to endure. presently i left this place, but now, although a clean, fresh wind blew and the setting sun peeped out, the world somehow seemed a grimmer place than ever.
in the dark ages, humanity endured much of sin and shame and suffering, but never such as in this age of reason and culture. this same earth has known evils of every kind, has heard the screams of outraged innocence, the groan of tortured flesh, and has reddened beneath the heel of tyranny; this same sun has seen the smoke and ravishment of cities and been darkened by the hateful mists of war—but never such a war as this of cultured barbarity with all its new devilishness. shell-shock and insanity, poison-gas and slow strangulation, liquid fire and poison shells. rape, murder, robbery, piracy, slavery—each and every crime is here—never has humanity endured all these horrors together until now.
but remembering by whose will these evils have been loosed upon the world, remembering the innocent blood, the bitter tears, the agony of soul and heartbreak, i am persuaded that retribution must follow as sure as to-morrow's dawn. the evil that men do lives after them and lives on for ever.
[pg 48]
should they, who have worked for and planned this misery, escape the ephemeral justice of man, there is yet the inexorable tribunal of the hereafter, which no transgressor, small or great, humble or mighty, may in any wise escape.
