The Beauty and the Sorrow (5 page)

As she arrives at the hospital one morning she passes one of the night nurses. Florence thinks that she looks “tired and tense” and the woman says in passing that “Vasiliy died early this morning.” Vasiliy is one of the men Florence has helped nurse. He was a soldier but really only an officer’s groom and, ironically enough, his wound was not a “real” war wound. Vasiliy had been kicked in the head by an agitated and frightened horse and when the surgeon operated on him a further irony emerged: he was suffering from an incurable brain tumour. He has lain silent in his bed for the last three weeks, a pale, frail little man whose difficulty in eating has caused him to grow thinner and thinner, though he constantly wants water to drink. And now he has died, without any drama, just as quiet and alone as he lived.

Florence decides to look at the body. She slips into the room that serves as a mortuary and carefully closes the door behind her. Silence. There lies Vasiliy, or what was Vasiliy, on a bier. He was:

So small and thin and wizened that he looked more like a child than a grown man. His set face was grey-white, never had I seen that strange colour on a face before, and his cheeks had sunken into two hollows.

There are sugar lumps on his eyelids to hold them closed. She is troubled, not so much by the lifeless body as by the stillness and silence. “Death is so terribly still, so silent, so remote,” she thinks. She says a short prayer for the dead man and then quickly leaves the room.

FRIDAY
, 11
SEPTEMBER
1914
Laura de Turczynowicz flees from Suwalki

Dawn. The streets that run between the low, square houses in Suwalki are deserted. Could it be a false alarm? Well, almost all of them are clinging to the wild hope—dangerously close to self-delusion—that says “not here” or “it will pass us by” or “we probably won’t be affected.” And it is possible that the endless rumours are just a kind of wishful thinking that has taken on the form of true stories. So, in recent weeks, people have been quite capable of suggesting that Königsberg has been captured, that the Russian army is approaching Berlin, and any number of other things.

As usual, however, no one really knows what is happening at the front.

Long columns of horse-drawn wagons come and go. Reinforcements march through the town. Now and again an aeroplane flies over the town, dropping bombs or propaganda. Sometimes lines of grey-clad German prisoners of war tramp past. The volume of traffic has increased noticeably in the last few days, however, and yesterday came the first signs that things were not going as well as they should. Firstly, there was the arrival of hordes of peasants from the small places near the border with East Prussia: “men, women, children, dogs, cows, pigs, horses, and carts all mixed up in one grand mélange.” Secondly, a new and unpleasant sound could be heard—the sound of gunfire in the distance. Someone suggested it was just Cossacks hunting down a disloyal officer. Well, one can always hope.

The night has been quiet, however, and the refugees from the villages have moved on.

From the windows at the back of the big house there is a good view of the flat plain that surrounds the town and of the main highway leading to East Prussia. At six in the morning Laura sees a great throng of wagons approaching. They are filled with wounded men, and the wounded tell them that the front has been shattered and the Russian army is on the retreat. What should they do? Leave Suwalki or stay there?

It is eleven o’clock. Laura is hesitant and confused, feeling alone and deserted. Her husband, Stanislaw, is in Warsaw on official business. She
consults a number of senior officials. She tries to telegraph out, only to learn that the line is cut. Reluctantly she decides that they should leave the town before evening.

Lunchtime. She sits down to eat with the children and looks round the dining room:

How pretty it looked, the curious old room with steps leading down to its great windows, the soft colours of the rugs, the table with its fine napery and pretty silver and glass.

Then everything happens very quickly. First of all they hear the crack of rifle fire, loud and clear, “as if in the very room.” Next comes the rolling thunder of artillery fire, followed a moment later by the clatter of smashed china. The servant about to serve their soup has dropped the tray and the tureen in terror. For a moment they are all silent, then the little girl begins to cry.

Chaos. Laura issues orders to right and to left—they must all be out of the house within fifteen minutes. The governess takes charge of the children. Laura herself packs the valuables—gold coins, rouble notes, her jewellery box. The sounds of battle outside are growing. Everyone is rushing about more or less aimlessly, grabbing, tearing, screaming. Laura finds herself running around waving a bunch of coloured silk stockings as if they were a flag.

They load everything into two farm carts. There is chaos on the streets. She sees military transport wagons. She sees Russian soldiers, weapons at the ready. She sees people screaming, jostling, arguing. She sees an old woman balancing a small bed on her head and dragging a samovar behind her so that it bounces on the cobbles. “One solid mass of disorder—primeval man and woman put to flight by inexorable force—all conventions dropped as if they never existed.”

So they set off, out into “that vortex of humanity—people running—laden like horses—getting tired of the weight—dropping it—but going on.” Laura and the children and most of the servants ride in the first wagon, most of the luggage in the second. She casts a glance back at the house. A priest she knows urges them to get moving and blesses them with the sign of the cross.

They head for the railway station. Halfway there Laura sees a
man—an old acquaintance of the family—climb up onto the second wagon and start beating the driver. Then the man turns the wagon round and makes off with it and all their luggage. The children’s dog, Dash, a white spets, is standing on top of the load barking. Wagon and dog disappear into the stream of panic-stricken people.

It is a beautiful autumn day.

SUNDAY
, 20
SEPTEMBER
1914
Sarah Macnaughtan is travelling to Antwerp

So much has changed already. The traffic, for a start. Ever since the outbreak of war the streets have been strangely empty, in the way she usually associates with Sundays. And then there is language. Military terms like “rashions,” “revellies,”
ⁱ
“fall in” and “mobilisation” have crept into everyday language. (There are many people who pronounce the phrase “at the front” as if it was a single word, “atthefront.”) Or the business of fashion: suddenly women are to be seen dressed in military or half-military or quarter-military dress, imaginative imitations of uniforms, perhaps a big, ill-fitting greatcoat, “thrown open, with a large belt at the back.” Or if not that, at least some sort of badge or armband to show that One Is Doing One’s Duty, or One Is Behind You, or One Is Doing Something—even if it is only knitting socks for soldiers.
^j

Sarah Macnaughtan is one of these women, but for her a symbolic or half-hearted contribution is not enough. She really wants to be involved, including being THERE. So Macnaughtan has done what other women of her class and in her position have done and found herself a place in one of the innumerable private medical units that have sprung up since the start of August—in Macnaughtan’s case it is Mrs. St. Clair Stobart’s ambulance unit. They have been practising in one of the London parks, on small boys with neatly simulated injuries, which they have then bandaged up equally neatly. Macnaughtan is happy and relieved to be getting out of London, to be taking the step from words to actions.
Which is not the easiest thing to do, since the British army has so far rigidly refused to allow women anywhere near the front.
^k
In spite of the fact that a host of women, like Sarah Macnaughtan, have enthusiastically volunteered, the very army they are trying to support has received them with reluctance or indifference.
^l
Recent months have been characterised by these women’s increasing sense of frustration with all the confusion and bureaucracy, real or imaginary, and with all the people whose resistance shows that they simply do not appreciate the gravity of the situation.

For she is a serious woman. In terms of her age, Sarah Broom Macnaughtan is actually rather too old for this war—she will be fifty in just a month’s time—and she does not really have the physical attributes that are needed: she is small, thin and frail, with a head that seems altogether too big for her doll-like body. But she is in every sense a product of the Victorian age and there are few concepts that weigh heavier with her, that have a finer ring to them, than Duty. And Principles. Earnestness is integral to her lifestyle, her countenance and her attitudes. She is intelligent, religious, humourless, loyal, gruff, demanding, generous, moral and fearless. She lives alone, unmarried and childless, a woman who is economically and emotionally independent.
^m
She has travelled a great deal, frequently in trying conditions, and she writes books. Hardly surprisingly, she is a committed suffragette, and nor is it surprising that she is prepared to throw herself wholeheartedly into this war, even though her initial reaction to its outbreak is one of surprise verging on shock. But now it is a matter of Duty. And Principles.

She is in such an agitated state when she arrives at the station to catch the train that is to take them to the coast that she has forgotten her passport. Fortunately the train is delayed and she has time to send her maid home in a taxi to fetch it. She is ashamed of her little mistake
and manages to hide it from the others, “for they are all rather serious.” Their destination is Antwerp, where they intend to set up a field hospital.

The train takes them to Tilbury, where there are further delays. Their ship does not set sail until the grey of dawn is visible, and the seas are running rough out in the English Channel. Everyone is seasick. “I think I was the worst and alarmed everybody within hearing distance. One more voyage I hope—home—then dry land for me.” She spends the whole crossing being sick.

SATURDAY
, 26
SEPTEMBER
1914
Richard Stumpf helps prepare SMS
Helgoland
for action

Reveille is blown as early as four o’clock this autumn morning. The ship and its crew wake to a morning of frantic activity. The main task is to unload 300 tons of coal as quickly as possible. As usual, the officers do not tell the men anything but rumour says that the British fleet has put to sea and someone says it is on its way to the Baltic. Someone says it has already reached the Great Belt. Stumpf sees that the first and third squadrons have also come into the harbour. “Something big is happening.”

Stumpf concludes that the coal is being unloaded to lighten the ship to allow them to pass through the Kiel Canal as quickly as possible. He writes in his diary:

The whole crew worked hard all morning. At lunchtime, when we had unloaded 120 tons of coal, the squadron flagship signalled: “Cease the preparations.” Yet another dreadful disappointment. The bloody English! We do, however, seem to be very well informed about the movements of their fleet.

After this he adds, “Nothing worth mentioning happened during the following days and weeks.”

MONDAY
, 28
SEPTEMBER
1914
Kresten Andresen learns to dress bullet wounds in Flensburg

It will soon be time. It might be just one day, perhaps two, or possibly three, but it will not be long before they too are on the way. This is more than just the usual barrack-room gossip, though, of course, the air is full of rumours, of guesses that are elevated to probabilities, hopes that change to facts, fears that are disguised as assertions. The nature of war is uncertainty, the unknowable is its medium.

But there are also clear signs, clear evidence. All leave has been stopped, and they have to stay in the barracks. And today there has been less drill and instruction in minor dietary matters and instead they have been instructed in the real necessities of life—how to dress bullet wounds, rules regarding iron rations, how to behave during rail transportation and what will happen if they desert (the death sentence). The four cornerstones of a conscript’s life in summary: battle, rations, transportation and compulsion.

Kresten Andresen is troubled, worried and afraid. The thought of the front does not awaken any desire in him at all. He belongs to one of those national minorities which suddenly and through no fault of their own are finding themselves dragged into a great war in which they have no real interest. Faced with the dark energies released by war they can only look on, dumbfounded and questioning; they stand apart from the nationalistic rhetoric that has created the war and the wild hopes the war has created. These are times when many people are preparing to kill or be killed for countries with which they feel only a superficial connection: Alsatians and Poles, Ruthenians and Kashubians, Slovenes and Finns, South Tyroleans and Siebenbürger, Balts and Bosnians, Czechs and Irish.
ⁿ
Andresen belongs to one such group: he comes from southern
Jutland, ancient Danish territory that has now been inside the borders of the German Empire for more than half a century, and so he is a German citizen even though his language is Danish.
^o

In all of the countries with large national minorities there is an acute awareness of the problems minorities can create in wartime. Dealing with them is primarily seen as a matter for the police, which is the case in the Danish-speaking areas of Germany. The order for mobilisation had hardly been nailed up on the wall before hundreds of Danes considered to be leaders or potential leaders were arrested. One of those arrested—at night, in a closed car—was Andresen’s own father.
^p
The mood in the first weeks of the war was like that: jubilation mixed with hysteria, expectancy mixed with terror, fear becoming aggression. And then, of course, there were rumours, rumours and more rumours.