Читать книгу The Flaming Sword in Serbia and Elsewhere - M. A. Stobart - Страница 6

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I had gone to Bulgaria with open mind, prepared to judge for myself whether it was true that war calls forth valuable human qualities which would otherwise lie dormant, and whether it was true that the purifying influence of war is so great, that it compensates the human race for the disadvantages of war. My mind had been open for impressions of so-called glories of war.

But the glories which came under my notice in Bulgaria, were butchered human beings, devastated villages, a general callousness about the value of human life, that was for me a revelation. This time I should go out with no illusions about these martial glories.

But how should I go? To my satisfaction I found that the Bulgarian "first step" had led to an easy staircase, and when I offered the services of a Woman's Unit to the Belgian Red Cross, I was at once invited to establish a hospital in Brussels.

The St. John Ambulance Association, at the instigation of Lady Perrott, and the Women's Imperial Service League (which, with Lady Muir Mackenzie as Vice-Chairman, had been organised with the view of helping to equip women's hospital units), together with many other generous friends, provided money and equipment, and a Woman's Unit was assembled.

I went to Brussels in advance of the unit, to make arrangements, and was given, as hospital premises, the fine buildings of the University.

The day after arrival, I had begun the improvisation of lecture and class-rooms into wards, when, that same day, the work was interrupted by the entry of the Germans, who took possession of the Belgian Capital. During three days and nights the triumphant army, faultlessly equipped, paraded through the streets. For some hours I watched it from the second floor window of a restaurant in the Boulevard des Jardins Botaniques, together with my husband, who was to act as Hon. Treasurer, and the Vicar of the Hampstead Garden Suburb, who was to act as Chaplain to our unit. And my mind at once filled with presage of the tough job which the Allies had undertaken.

The picture upon which we looked was indeed remarkable. Belgium had been "safeguarded" from aggression, by treaties with the most civilised nations of the world. But here now were the legitimate inhabitants of the capital of Belgium standing in their thousands, gazing helplessly, in dumb bewilderment, whilst the army of one of these "most civilised" Governments streamed triumphantly, as conquerors, through their streets. And in all those streets, the only sounds were the clamping feet of the marching infantry, the clattering hoofs of the horses of the proud Uhlans and Hussars, and the rumbling of the wagons carrying murderous guns.

The people stood silent, with frozen hearts, beholding, as fossils might, the scenes in which they could no longer move.

For them, earth, air, sky, the whole world outside that never-ending procession, seemed expunged. No one noticed whether rain fell, or the sun shone, whilst that piteous pageant of triumphant enmity, passed, in ceaseless cinema, before their eyes.

All idea of establishing a hospital for the Allies had to be abandoned. The Croix Rouge was taken over by the Germans, and hospitals would be commandeered for German soldiers. My one desire was to get in touch with my unit; for they might, I thought, in response to the cable sent by the Belgian Red Cross, on the night of our arrival, be already on their way to join me, and might be in difficulties, surrounded by the Germans. Whatever personal risk might be incurred, I must leave Brussels.

The Consuls advised me to remain: they said I should not be able to obtain a passport from the German General. When I remonstrated, they shrugged their shoulders and said, "Well, go and ask him yourself!" I went, and obtained an officially stamped passport for myself and my two companions, who gallantly, and against my wishes, insisted on accompanying me, and sharing the risks of passing through the enemy's lines.

But, notwithstanding our stamped passport, we were, at Hasselt, arrested as spies, and at Tongres we were condemned to be shot within twenty-four hours. The story of our escape and eventual imprisonment, at Aachen, has been told elsewhere, but one remark of the German Devil-Major Commandant at Tongres, is so illuminative of the spirit of militarism that it bears repetition.

The Major said, "You are spies"; he fetched a big book from a shelf, opened it, and pointing on a certain page, he continued, "and the fate of spies is to be shot within twenty-four hours. Now you know your fate." I answered cheerily, as though it were quite a common occurrence to hear little fates like that, "but, mein Herr Major, I am sure you would not wish to do such an injustice. Won't you at least look at our papers, and see that what we have told you is true; we were engaged in hospital work when," etc. He then replied, and his voice rasped and barked like that of a mad dog, "You are English, and, whether you are right or wrong, this is a war of annihilation."

I shall always be grateful for that phrase, for I recognised in it an epitome of the spirit of militarism, carried, as the Prussian arch-representatives of war carry it, to its logical extreme. For, according to modern militarism, war aims at annihilation of the enemy, and the enemy includes not only the combatants—these are the least offensive element—but the non-combatants, the men who represent the rival commerce, the women who represent the rival culture, and the men and women who represent codes of honour and humanity which are the beacons of the rival civilisation—at one and all of these, is aimed the blow which is delivered through the medium of the proxies in the field.

We three non-combatants—namely (a) a minister of the Holy Church, (b) a university man, who had officiated as judge in Burma, and (c) a woman engaged in hospital work, were now condemned to death, not because we represented a military danger, but because we represented, although in humble degree, those qualities of the rival nation, which had brought that nation to the front of civilisation. War aims at the annihilation, not of that which is bad, but of that which is best.

The Devil-Major, as we called him, then made us follow him upstairs, to the top floor, to a room in which we were to spend the night—the last night? He ordered me to be separated from the others, in another room, but I was responsible for the position of my companions, and without my influence—as a woman—death for them was certain, and I resisted the separation successfully. The Major then drove us into a room that was bare, except for verminous straw upon the floor. He refused to give us food, though we had not eaten since the day before, but water in tin cans was brought to us to drink, and we were told to lie down on the dirty straw.

The Devil-Major then warned the guards that if we moved, or talked to each other, they were to shoot us, then he left us for the night.

Sleep was impossible, owing to the ceaseless chiming of half-a-dozen church clocks, which seemed purposely to have clustered within a few hundred yards of us. The bells were all hopelessly out of tune, the tuners being presumably at the front; and every quarter of an hour all the bells of all the clocks, played different tunes, which lasted almost till the next quarter's chime was due. The discord was a nightmare for sensitive ears, but the harsh jangle of these bells, as they tumbled over each other, brutally callous to the jarring sounds, and to the irrelevancy of the melodies they played, seemed in keeping with the discordance—illustrated by our position—between the ideal of life, designed by God the Spirit, and the botching of that design, by murderous man.

Was our position, I wondered, another of the glories of war? These glories, exhibited at that time in Belgium, were, as I noticed, all of one stamp—devastation, murder of women and children, rapine, every form of demoniacal torture. All these glories are visualised, and not exaggerated, in the cartoons of Raemaekers.

But we three escaped by miracles, and returned safely to England.