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[Page Heading: MISSIONARIES AND RELIGION]
I am struck by one thing, which is so naively expressed out here that it is very humorous, and that is the firm and formidable front which the best sort of men show towards religion. To all of them it means missionaries and pious talk, and to hear them speak one would imagine it was something between a dangerous disease and a disgrace. The best they can say of any clergyman (whom they loathe) or missionary, is, "He never tried the Gospel on with me." A religious young man means a sneak, and one who swears freely is generally rather a good fellow. When one lives in the wilds I am afraid that one often finds that this view is the right one, although it isn't very orthodox; but the pi-jaw which passes for religion seems deliberately calculated to disgust the natural man, who shows his contempt for the thing wholesomely as becomes him. He means to smoke, he means to have a whisky-peg when he can get it, and a game of cards when that is possible. His smoke is harmless, he seldom drinks too much, and he plays fair at all games, but when he finds that these harmless amusements preclude him from a place in the Kingdom of Heaven he naturally—if he has the spirit of a mouse—says, "All right. Leave me out. I am not on in this show."
27 February.—On Sunday one always thinks of home. I am rather inclined to wonder what my family imagine I am actually doing on the Persian front. No doubt some of my dear contemporaries saddle me with noble deeds, but I still seem unable to strike the "noble" tack. Even my work in hospital has been stopped by a telegram from the Red Cross, saying, "Don't let Miss Macnaughtan work yet." A typhus scare, I fancy. Such rot. But I am used now to hearing all the British out here murmur, "What can be the good of this long delay?"
[Page Heading: HOW NEWS TRAVELS IN PERSIA]
I am still staying at the British Consulate. The Consul, Mr. Cowan, is a good fellow, and Mr. Lightfoot, his chum, is a real backwoodsman, full of histories of adventures, fights, "natives," and wars in many lands. He seems to me one of those headstrong, straight, fine fellows whom one only meets in the wilds. England doesn't agree with them; they haven't always a suit of evening clothes; but in a tight place one knows how cool he would be, and for yarns there is no one better. He tells one a lot about this country, and he knows the Arabs like brothers. Their system of communicating with each other is as puzzling to him as it is to everyone else. News travels faster among them than any messenger or post can take it. At Bagdad they heard from these strange people of the fall of Basra, which is 230 miles away, within 25 hours of its having been taken. Mr. Lightfoot says that even if he travels by car Arab news is always ahead of him, and where he arrives with news it is known already. Telegraphy is unknown in the places he speaks of, except in Bagdad, of course, and Persia owns exactly one line of railway, eight miles long, which leads to a tomb!
More important than any man here are the dogs—Smudge, Jimmy, and the puppy. Most of the conversation is addressed to them. All of it is about them.
28 February. A day on the Persian front.—I wake early because it is always so cold at 4 a.m., and I generally boil up water for my hot-water bottle and go to sleep again. Then at 8 comes the usual Resident Sahib's servant, whom I have known in many countries and in many climes. He is always exactly alike, and the Empire depends upon him! He is thin, he is mysterious. He is faithful, and allows no one to rob his master but himself. He believes in the British. He worships British rule, and he speaks no language but his own, though he probably knows English perfectly, and listens to it at every meal without even the cock of an ear! He is never hurried, never surprised. What he thinks his private idol may know—no one else does. His master's boots—especially the brown sort—are part of his religion. He understands an Englishman, and is unmoved by his behaviour, whatever it may be. I have met him in India, in Kashmir, at Embassies, in Consulates, on steamers, and I have never known his conduct alter by a hair's breadth. He is piped in red, and let that explain him, as it explains much else that is British. Just a thin red line down the length of a trouser or round a coat, and the man thus adorned is part of the Empire.
The man piped in red lights my fire every morning in Persia, and arranges my tub, and we breakfast very late because there is nothing to do on three days of the week—i.e., Friday, the Persian Sabbath, Saturday, the Jewish Sabbath, and Sunday, the Armenian Sunday. On these three days neither bazaars nor offices are open. Business is at a standstill. The Consulate smokes pipes, develops photographs, and reads old novels. On the four busy days we breakfast at 10 o'clock, and during the meal we learn what the dogs have done during the night—whether Jimmy has barked, or Smudge has lain on someone's bed, or the puppy "coolly put his head on my pillow."
About 11 o'clock I, who am acting as wardrobe-mender to some very untidy clothes and socks, get to work, and the young men go to the town and appear at lunch-time. We hear what the local news is, and what Mr. MacMurray has said and Mr. McLean thought, and sometimes one of the people from the Russian hospital comes in. About 3 we put on goloshes and take exercise single-file on the pathways cut in the snow. At 5 the samovar appears and tea and cake, and we talk to the dogs and to each other. We dress for dinner, because that is our creed; and we burn a good deal of wood, and go to bed early.
Travel really means movement. Otherwise, it is far better to stay at home. I am beginning to sympathise with the Americans who insist upon doing two cities a day. We got some papers to-day dated October 26th, and also a few letters of the same date.
* * * * *
[Page Heading: UNFINISHED ARTICLE ON PERSIA]
Unfinished Article on Persia found among Miss Macnaughtan's papers.
Persia is a difficult country to write about, for unless one colours the picture too highly to be recognisable, it is apt to be uninteresting even under the haze of the summer sun, while in wintertime the country disappears under a blanket of white snow. Of course, most of us thought that Persia was somewhere in the tropics, and it gives us a little shock when we find ourselves living in a temperature of 8 degrees below zero. The rays of the sun are popularly supposed to minimise the effect of this cold, and a fortnight's fog on the Persian highlands has still left one a believer in this phenomenon, for when the sun does shine, it does it handsomely, and, according to the inhabitants, it is only when strangers are here that it turns sulky. Be that as it may, the most loyal lover of Persia will have to admit that Persian mud is the deepest and blackest in the world, and that snow and mud in equal proportions to a depth of 8 inches make anything but agreeable travelling. Snow is indiscriminately shovelled down off the roofs of houses on to the heads of passers-by, and great holes in the road are accepted as the inevitable accompaniment to winter traffic.
In the bazaars—narrow, and filled with small booths, where Manchester cotton is stacked upon shelves—the merchants sit huddled up on their counters, each with a cotton lahaf (quilt) over him, under which is a small brazier of ougol (charcoal). In this way he manages to remain in a thawed condition, while a pipe consoles him for his little trade and the horrible weather. Before him, in the narrow alleys of the bazaar, Persians walk with their umbrellas unfurled, and Russians have put the convenient bashluk (a sort of woollen hood) over their heads and ears. The Arab, in his long camel-skin coat, looks impervious to the weather, and women with veiled faces and long black cloaks pick their way through the mire. Throngs of donkeys, melancholy and overladen, their small feet sinking in the slush, may be with the foot-passengers. Some pariah dogs make a dirty patch in the snow, and a troop of Cossacks, their long cloaks spotted with huge snow-flakes, trot heavily through the narrow lanes.
But it is not only, nor principally, of climate that one speaks in Persia at the present time.
Persia has been stirring, if not with great events, at least with important ones, and at the risk of telling stale news, one must take a glance at the recent history of the country and its people. It is proverbial to say that Persia has been misgoverned for years. It is a country and the Persians are people who seem fated by circumstances and by temperament to endure ill-government. A ruler is either a despot or a knave, and frequently both. Any system of policy is liable to change at any moment. Property is held in the uneasy tenure of those who have stolen it, and a long string of names of rulers and politicians reveals the fact that most of them have made what they could for themselves by any means, and that perhaps, on the whole, violence has been less detrimental to the country than weakness.
[Page Heading: THE YOUNG PERSIAN MOVEMENT]
The worst of it is that no one seems particularly to want the Deliverer—the great and single-minded leader who might free and uplift the country. Persia does not crave the ideal ruler; he might make it very unpleasant for those who are content and rich in their own way. It is this thing, amongst many others, which helps to make the situation in Persia not only difficult but almost impossible to follow or describe, and it is, above all, the temperament of the Persians themselves which is the baffling thing in the way of Persian reform. Yet reform has been spoken of loudly, and again and again in the last few years, and the reformation is generally known as the Nationalist or Young Persian Movement. To follow this Movement through its various ramifications would require a clue as plain and as clear as a golden thread, and the best we can do in our present obscurity is to give a few of the leading features.
The important and critical situation evident in Persia to-day owes its beginning to the disturbances in 1909, when the Constitutional Party came into power, forcibly, and with guns ready to train on Tehran, and when, almost without an effort, they obtained their rights, and lost them again with even less effort....
* * * * *
29 February.—The last day of a long month. The snow falls without ceasing, blotting out everything that there may be to be seen. To-day, for the first time, I realised that there are hills near. Mr. Lightfoot and I walked to the old stone lion which marks the gateway of Ekmadan—i.e., ancient Hamadan. I think the snow was rather thicker than usual to-day. Mr. Lightfoot and I went to Hamadan, plodding our way through little tramped-down paths, with snow three feet deep on either side. By way of being cheerful we went to see two tombs. One was an old, old place, where slept "the first great physician" who ever lived. In it a dervish kept watch in the bitter cold, and some slabs of dung kept a smouldering fire not burning but smoking. These dervishes have been carrying messages for Germans. Mysterious, like all religious men, they travel through the country and distribute their whispers and messages. The other tomb is called Queen Esther's, though why they should bury her at Ekmadan when she lived down at Shushan I don't know.
We went to see Miss Montgomerie the other day. She is an American missionary, who has lived at Hamadan for thirty-three years. She has schools, etc., and she lives in the Armenian quarter, and devotes her life to her neighbours. Her language is entirely Biblical, and it sounds almost racy as she says it.
There is nothing to record. Yesterday I cleaned out my room for something to do, and in the evening a smoky lamp laid it an inch thick in blacks. The pass here is quite blocked, and no one can come or go. The snow falls steadily in fine small flakes. My car has disappeared, with the chauffeur, at Kasvin. I hear of it being sent to Enzeli; but the whole thing is a mystery, and is making me very anxious. There are no answers to any of my telegrams, and I am completely in the dark.
3 March.—I think that to be on a frozen hill-top, with fever, some boils, three dogs, and a blizzard, is about as near wearing down one's spirits as anything I know.
5 March, Sunday.—In bed all day, with the ancient Persian in attendance.
* * * * *
[Page Heading: THE RETURN OF THE PILGRIM]
The Return of the Pilgrim.
This is not a story for Sunday afternoon. It is true for one thing, and Sunday afternoon stories are not, as a rule, true. They nearly all tell of the return of the Prodigals, but they leave out the return of the Pilgrims, and that is why this parable is not for Sunday afternoon. I write it because I never knew a true thing yet that was not of use to someone.
Most of us leave home when we are grown up. The people who never grow up stop at home. The journey and the outward-bound vision are the signs of an active mind stirring wholesomely or unwholesomely as the case may be. The Prodigal is generally accounted one of those whose sane mind demands an outlet; but he lands in trouble, and gets hungry, and comes back penitent, as we have heard a thousand million times. The Far Country is always barren, the husks of swine are the only food to be had, and bankruptcy is inevitable.
The story has been accepted by many generations of men as a picture of the world, with its temptations, its sins, its moral bankruptcy, and its illusionary and unsatisfying pleasures. Preachers have always been fond of allusions to the husks and swine, and the desperate hunger which there is nothing to satisfy in the Far Country. The story is true, God wot; it gives many a man a wholesome fright, and keeps him at home, and its note of forgiveness for a wasted life has proved the salvation of many Prodigals.
But there is another journey, far more often undertaken by the young and by all those who needs must seek—the brave, the energetic, the good. It is towards a country distant yet ever near, and it lies much removed from the Far Country where swine feed. Its minarets stand up against a clear and cloudless sky, its radiancy shines from afar off. It is set on a hill, and the road thither is very steep and very long, but the Pilgrims start out bravely. They know the way! They carry torches! They have the Light within and without, and "watchwords" for every night, and songs for the morning. Some walk painfully, with bleeding feet, on the path that leads to the beautiful country, and some run joyously with eager feet. Whatever anyone likes to say, it is a much more crowded path than the old trail towards the pigsty. At the first step of the journey stand Faith and Hope and Charity, and beyond are more wondrous things by far—Glory, Praise, Vision, Sacrifice, Heroism, sublime Trust, the Need-to-Give, and the Love that runs to help. And some of the Pilgrims—most of them—get there.
[Page Heading: DISAPPOINTMENT]
But there is a little stream of Pilgrims sometimes to be met with going the other way. They are returning, like the Prodigal, but there is no one to welcome them. Some are very tragic figures, and for them the sun is for ever obscured. But there are others—quite plain, sober men and women, some humorists, and some sages. They have honestly sought the Country, and they, too, have unfurled banners and marched on; but they have met with many things on the road which do not match the watchwords, and they have heard many wonderful things which, truthfully considered, do not always appear to them to be facts. They have called Poverty beautiful, and they have found it very ugly; and they have called Money naught, and they have found it to be Power. They have found Sacrifice accepted, and then claimed by the selfish and mean, and even Love has not been all that was expected. The Pilgrims return. Their poor tummies, too, are empty, but no calf is killed for them, there is no feasting and no joy. They stay at home, but neither Elder Son nor Prodigal has any use for them. In the end they turn out the light and go to sleep, regretting—if they have any humour—their many virtues, which for so long prevented them enjoying the pleasant things of life.
* * * * *
March.—I lie in bed all day up here amongst these horrible snows. The engineer comes in sometimes and makes me a cup of Benger's Food. For the rest, I lean up on my elbow when I can, and cook some little thing—Bovril or hot milk—on my Etna stove. Then I am too tired to eat it, and the sickness begins all over again. Oh, if I could leave this place! If only someone would send back my car, which has been taken away, or if I could hear where Mrs. Wynne and Mr. Bevan are! But no, the door of this odious place is locked, and the key is thrown away.
I have lost count of time. I just wait from day to day, hoping someone will come and take me away, though I am now getting so weak I don't suppose I can travel.
One wonders whether there can be a Providence in all this disappointment. I think not. I just made a great mistake coming out here, and I have suffered for it. Ye gods, what a winter it has been—disillusioning, dull, hideously and achingly disappointing!
[Page Heading: MEMORIES OF HOME]
It is too odd to think that until the war came I was the happiest woman in the world. It is too funny to think of my house in London, which people say is the only "salon"—a small "salon," indeed! But I can hardly believe now in my crowds of friends, my devoted servants, my pleasant work, the daily budget of letters and invitations, and the press notices in their pink slips. Then the big lectures and the applause—the shouts when I come in. The joy, almost the intoxication of life, has been mine.
Of course, I ought to have turned back at Petrograd! But I thought all my work was before me, and in Russia one can't go about alone without knowing the way and the language of the people. Permits are difficult, nothing is possible unless one is attached to a body. And now I have reached the end—Persia! And there is no earthly use for us, and there are no roads.
CHAPTER V
THE LAST JOURNEY
My car turned up at Hamadan on March 9th, and on the 13th I said good-bye to my friends at the Consulate, and left the place with a Tartar prince, who cleared his throat from the bottom of his soul, and spat luxuriously all the time. The mud was beyond anything that one could imagine. There was a sea of it everywhere, and men waded knee-deep in slush. My poor car floundered bravely and bumped heavily, till at last it could move no more. Two wheels were sunk far past the hubs, and the step of the car was under mud.
The Tartar prince hailed a horse from some men and flung himself across it, and then rode off through the thick sea of mud to find help to move the car. His methods were simple. He came up behind men, and clouted them over the head, or beat them with a stick, and drove them in front of him. Sometimes he took out a revolver and fired over the men's heads, making them jump; but nothing makes them really work. We pushed on for a mile or two, and then stuck again. This time there were no men near, and the prince walked on to collect some soldiers at the next station. It was a wicked, blowy day, and I crept into a wrecked "camion" and sheltered there, and ate some lunch and slept a little. I wasn't feeling a bit well.
That night we only made twenty miles, and then we put up at a little rest-house, where the woman had ten children. They all had colds, and coughed all the time. She promised supper at 8 o'clock, but kept us waiting till 10 p.m., and then a terrible repast of batter appeared in a big tin dish, and everyone except me ate it, and everyone drank my wine. Then six children and their parents lay in one tiny room, and I and a nurse occupied the hot supper-room, and thus we lay until the cold morning came, and I felt very ill.
So the day began, and it did not improve. I was sick all the time until I could neither think nor see. The poor prince could do nothing, of course.
[Page Heading: ILLNESS AT KASVIN]
At last we came to a rest-house, and I felt I could go no further. I was quite unconscious for a time. Then they told me it was only two hours to Kasvin, and somehow they got me on board the motor-car, and the horrible journey began again. Every time the car bumped I was sick. Of course we punctured a tyre, which delayed us, and when we got into Kasvin it was 9 o'clock. The Tartar lifted me out of the car, and I had been told that I might put up at a room belonging to Dr. Smitkin, but where it was I had no idea, and I knew there would be no one there. So I plucked up courage to go to the only English people in the place—the Goodwins, with whom I had stayed on my way up—and ask for a bed. This I did, and they let me spread my camp-bed in his little sitting-room. I was ill indeed, and aching in every bone.
The next day I had to go to Smitkin's room. It was an absolutely bare apartment, but someone spread my bed for me, and there were some Red Cross nurses who all offered to do things. The one thing I wanted was food, and this they could only get at the soldiers' mess two miles away. So all I had was one tin of sweet Swiss milk. The day after this I decided I must quit, whatever happened, and get to Tehran, where there are hotels. After one night there I was taken to a hospital. I was alone in Persia, in a Russian hospital, where few people even spoke French!
On March 19th an English doctor rescued me. He heard I was ill, and came to see me, and took me off to be with his wife at his own home at the Legation. I shall never forget it as long as I live—the blessed change from dirty glasses and tin basins and a rocky bed! What does illness matter with a pretty room, and kindness showered on one, and everything clean and fragrant? I have a little sitting-room, where my meals are served, and I have a fire, a bath, and a garden to sit in.
God bless these good people!
* * * * *
[Page Heading: A LETTER FROM TEHRAN]
To Lady Clementine Waring.
BRITISH LEGATION, TEHRAN, 22 March.
DARLING CLEMMIE,
I am coming home, having fallen sick. Do you know, I was thinking about you so much the other night, for you told me that if ever I was really "down and out" you would know. So I wondered if, about a week ago, you saw a poor small person (who has shrunk to about half her size!) in an empty room, feeling worth nothing at all, and getting nothing to eat and no attention! Persia isn't the country to be ill in. I was taken to the Russian hospital—which is an experience I don't want to repeat!—but now I am in the hands of the Legation doctor, and he is going to nurse me till I am well enough to go home.
There are no railways in this country, except one of eight miles to a tomb! Hence we all have to flounder about on awful roads in motor-cars, which break down and have to be dug out, and always collapse at the wrong moment, so we have to stay out all night.
You thought Persia was in the tropics? So did I! I have been in deep snow all the time till I came here.
I think the campaign here is nearly over. It might have been a lot bigger, for the Germans were bribing like mad, but you can't make a Persian wake up.
Ever, dear Clemmie, Your loving S. MACNAUGHTAN.
So nice to know you think of me, as I know you do.
* * * * *
26 March.—I am getting stronger, and the days are bright. As a great treat I have been allowed to go to church this morning, the first I have been to since Petrograd.
* * * * *
To Miss Julia Keays-Young.
BRITISH LEGATION, TEHRAN. 1 April.
DARLING JENNY,
In case you want to make plans about leave, etc., will you come and stop with me when first I get home, say about the 5th or 6th May, I can't say to a day? It will be nice to see you all and have a holiday, and then I hope to come out to Russia again. Did I tell you I have been ill, but am now being nursed by a delightful English doctor and his wife, and getting the most ideal attention, and medicines changed at every change in the health of the patient.
I've missed everything here. I was to be presented to the Shah, etc., etc., and to have gone to the reception on his birthday. All the time I've lain in bed or in the garden, but as I haven't felt up to anything else I haven't fashed, and the Shah must do wanting me for the present.
The flowers here are just like England, primroses and violets and Lent lilies, but I'm sure the trees are further out at home.
Your most loving AUNT SALLY.
* * * * *
To Mrs. Keays-Young.
BRITISH LEGATION, TEHRAN, 8 April.
DEAREST BABY,
I don't think I'll get home till quite the end of April, as I am not supposed to be strong enough to travel yet. My journey begins with a motor drive of 300 miles over fearful roads and a chain of mountains always under snow. Then I have to cross the lumpy Caspian Sea, and I shall rest at Baku two nights before beginning the four days journey to Petrograd. After that the fun really begins, as one always loses all one's luggage in Finland, and one finishes up with the North Sea. What do you think of that, my cat?
[Page Heading: CONVALESCENCE]
Dr. Neligan is still looking after me quite splendidly, and I never drank so much medicine in my life. No fees or money can repay the dear man.
Tehran is the most primitive place! You can't, for instance, get one scrap of flannel, and if a bit of bacon comes into the town there is a stampede for it. People get their wine from England in two-bottle parcels.
Yours as ever, S.
* * * * *
Tehran. April.—The days pass peacefully and even quickly, which is odd, for they are singularly idle. I get up about 11 a.m., and am pretty tired when dressing is finished. Then I sit in the garden and have my lunch there, and after lunch I lie down for an hour. Presently tea comes; I watch the Neligans start for their ride, and already I wonder if I was ever strong and rode!
It is such an odd jump I have taken. At home I drifted on, never feeling older, hardly counting birthdays—always brisk, and getting through a heap of work—beginning my day early and ending it late. And now there is a great gulf dividing me from youth and old times, and it is filled with dead people whom I can't forget.
In the matter of dying one doesn't interfere with Providence, but it seems to me that now would be rather an appropriate time to depart. I wish I could give my life for some boy who would like to live very much, and to whom all things are joyous. But alas! one can't swop lives like this—at least, I don't see the chance of doing so.
I should like to have "left the party"—quitted the feast of life—when all was gay and amusing. I should have been sorry to come away, but it would have been far better than being left till all the lights are out. I could have said truly to the Giver of the feast, "Thanks for an excellent time." But now so many of the guests have left, and the fires are going out, and I am tired.
END OF THE DIARY.
* * * * *
The rest of the story is soon told.
Miss Macnaughtan left Tehran about the middle of April. The Persian hot weather was approaching, and it would have been impossible for her to travel any later in the season. The long journey seemed a sufficiently hazardous undertaking for a person in her weak state of health, but in Dr. Neligan's opinion she would have run an even greater risk by remaining in Persia during the hot weather.
[Page Heading: STARTING FOR HOME]
Dr. Neligan's goodness and kindness to Miss Macnaughtan will always be remembered by her family, and he seems to have taken an enormous amount of trouble to make arrangements for her journey home. He found an escort for her in the shape of an English missionary who was going to Petrograd, and gave her a pass which enabled her to travel as expeditiously as possible. The authorities were not allowed to delay or hinder her. She was much too ill to stop for anything, and drove night and day—even through a cholera village—to the shores of the Caspian Sea.
We know very few details concerning the journey home, and I think my aunt herself did not remember much about it. One can hardly bear to think of the suffering it caused her. A few incidents stood out in her memory from the indeterminate recollection of pain and discomfort in which most of the expedition was mercifully veiled, and we learnt them after she returned.
There was the occasion when she reached the port on the Caspian Sea one hour after the English boat had sailed. She called it the "English" boat, but whether it could have belonged to an English company, or was merely the usual boat run in connection with the train service to England, I do not know. A "Russian" vessel was due to leave in a couple of hours' time, but for some reason Miss Macnaughtan was obliged to walk three-quarters of a mile to get permission to go by it. We can never forget her piteous description of how she staggered and crawled to the office and back, so ill that only her iron strength of will could force her tired body to accomplish the distance. She obtained the necessary sanction, and started forth once more upon her way.
She stayed for a week at the British Embassy in Petrograd, where her escort was obliged to leave her, so the rest of the journey was undertaken alone.
We know nothing of how she got to Helsingfors, but I believe it was at that place that she had to walk some considerable distance over a frozen lake to reach the ship. She was hobbling along, leaning heavily on two sticks, and just as she stumbled and almost fell, a young Englishman came up and offered her his arm.
In an old diary, written years before in the Argentine, during a time when Miss Macnaughtan was faced with what seemed overwhelming difficulties, and when she had in her charge a very sick man, a kind stranger came to the rescue. Her diary entry for that day is one of heartfelt gratitude, and ends with the words: "God always sends someone."
Certainly at Helsingfors some Protecting Power sent help in a big extremity, and this young fellow—Mr. Seymour—devoted himself to her for the rest of the journey in a marvellously unselfish manner. He could not have been kinder to her if she had been his mother, and he actually altered all his plans on arriving in England, and brought her to the very door of her house in Norfolk Street. Without his help I sometimes wonder whether my aunt would have succeeded in reaching home, and her own gratitude to him knew no bounds. She used to say that in her experience if people were in a difficulty and wanted help they ought to go to a young man for it. She said that young men were the kindest members of the human race.
[Page Heading: ARRIVAL IN ENGLAND]
It was on the 8th of May that Miss Macnaughtan reached home, and her travels were over for good and all. One is only thankful that the last weeks of her life were not spent in a foreign land but among her own people, surrounded by all the care and comfort that love could supply. Two of her sisters were with her always, and her house was thronged with visitors, who had to wait their turn of a few minutes by her bedside, which, alas! were all that her strength allowed.
She was nursed night and day by her devoted maid, Mary King, as she did not wish to have a professional nurse; but no skill or care could save her. The seeds of her illness had probably been sown some years before, during a shooting trip in Kashmir, and the hard work and strain of the first year of the war had weakened her powers of resistance. But it was Russia that killed her.
Before she went there many of her friends urged her to give up the expedition. Her maid had a premonition that the enterprise would end in disaster, and had begged her mistress to stay at home.
"I feel sure you will never return alive ma'am," she had urged, and Miss Macnaughtan's first words to her old servant on her return were: "You were right, Mary. Russia has killed me."
Miss Macnaughtan rallied a little in June, and was occasionally carried down to her library for a few hours in the afternoon, but even that amount of exertion was too much for her. For the last weeks of her life she never left her room.
Surely there never was a sweeter or more adorable invalid! I can see her now, propped up on pillows in a room filled with masses of most exquisite flowers. She always had things dainty and fragrant about her, and one had a vision of pale blue ribbons, and soft laces, and lovely flowers, and then one forgot everything else as one looked at the dear face framed in such soft grey hair. She looked so fragile that one fancied she might be wafted away by a summer breeze, and I have never seen anyone so pale. There was not a tinge of colour in face or hands, and one kissed her gently for fear that even a caress might be too much for her waning strength.
Her patience never failed. She never grumbled or made complaint, and even in the smallest things her interest and sympathy were as fresh as ever. A new dress worn by one of her sisters was a pleasure, and she would plan it, and suggest and admire.
It was a supreme joy to Miss Macnaughtan to hear, some time in June, that she had received the honour of being chosen to be a Lady of Grace of the Order of St. John of Jerusalem. Any recognition of her good work was an unfailing source of gratification to her sensitive nature, sensitive alike to praise or blame.
She was so wonderfully strong in her mind and will that it seemed impossible in those long June days to believe that she had such a little time to live. She managed all her own business affairs, personally dictated or wrote answers to her correspondence, and was full of schemes for the redecoration of her house and of plans for the future.
I have only been able to procure three of my aunt's letters written after her return to England. They were addressed to her eldest sister, Mrs. ffolliott. I insert them here:
* * * * *
[Page Heading: MISS MACNAUGHTAN'S LAST LETTERS]
1, NORFOLK STREET, PARK LANE, W. Tuesday.
MY DEAREST OLD POOT,
How good of you to write. I was awfully pleased to see a letter from you. I have been a fearful crock since I got home, and I have to lie in bed for six weeks and live on milk diet for eight weeks. The illness is of a tropical nature, and one of the symptoms is that one can't eat, so one gets fearfully thin. I am something over six stone now, but I was very much less.
We were right up on the Persian front, and I went on to Tehran. One saw some most interesting phases of the war, and met all the distinguished Generals and such-like people.
The notice you sent me of my little book is charming.
Your loving S. B .M.
* * * * *
1, NORFOLK STREET, PARK LANE, W., 9 June.
DARLING POOT,
I must thank you myself for the lovely flowers and your kind letters. I am sure that people's good wishes and prayers do one good. I so nearly died!
Your loving S. M.
* * * * *
17th June
Still getting on pretty well, but it is slow work. Baby and Julia both in town, so they are constantly here. I am to get up for a little bit to-morrow.
Kindest love. It was naughty of you to send more flowers.
As ever fondly, SARAH.
* * * * *
As the hot weather advanced it was hoped to move Miss Macnaughtan to the country. Her friends showered invitations on "dear Sally" to come and convalesce with them, but the plans fell through. It became increasingly clear that the traveller was about to embark on that last journey from which there is no return, and, indeed, towards the end her sufferings were so great that those who loved her best could only pray that she might not have long to wait. She passed away in the afternoon of Monday, July 24th, 1916.
A few days later the body of Sarah Broom Macnaughtan was laid to rest in the plot of ground reserved for her kinsfolk in the churchyard at Chart Sutton, in Kent. It is very quiet there up on the hill, the great Weald stretches away to the south, and fruit-trees surround the Hallowed Acre. But even as they laid earth to earth and dust to dust in this peaceful spot the booming of the guns in Flanders broke the quiet of the sunny afternoon, and reminded the little funeral party that they were indeed burying one whose life had been sacrificed in the Great War.
[Page Heading: THE GRAVE IN CHART SUTTON]
Surely those who pass through the old churchyard will pause by the grave, with its beautiful grey cross, and the children growing up in the parish will come there sometimes, and will read and remember the simple inscription on it:
"In the Great War, by Word and Deed, at Home and Abroad, She served her Country even unto Death."
And if any ghosts hover round the little place, they will be the ghosts of a purity, a kindness, and of a love for humanity which are not often met with in this workaday world.
CONCLUSION
Perhaps a review of her war work by an onlooker, and a slight sketch of Miss Macnaughtan's character, may form an appropriate conclusion to this book.
I stayed with my aunt for one night, on August 7th, 1914. One may be pardoned for saying that during the previous three days one had scarcely begun to realise the war, but I was recalled by telegram from Northamptonshire to the headquarters of my Voluntary Aid Detachment in Kent, and spent a night in town en route, to get uniform, etc. Certainly at my aunt's house my eyes were opened to a little of what lay before us. She was on fire with patriotism and a burning wish to help her country, and I immediately caught some of her enthusiasm.
Every hour we rushed out to buy papers, every minute seemed consecrated to preparation for what we could do. There were uniforms to buy, notes of Red Cross lectures to "rub up," and, in my aunt's case, she was busy offering her services in every direction in which they could be of use.
[Page Heading: VOLUNTARY RATIONING]
Miss Macnaughtan must surely have been one of the first people to begin voluntary rationing. We had the simplest possible meals during my visit, and although she was proud of her housekeeping, and usually gave one rather perfect food, on this occasion she said how impossible it was for her to indulge in anything but necessaries, when our soldiers would so soon have to endure hardships of every kind. She said that we ought to be particularly careful to eat very little meat, because there would certainly be a shortage of it later on.
I recollect that there was some hitch about my departure from Norfolk Street on August 8th. It did not seem clear whether my Voluntary Aid Detachment was going to provide billets for all recalled members, and I remember my aunt's absolute scorn of difficulties at such a time.
"Of course, go straight to Kent and obey orders," she cried. "If you can't get a bed, come back here; but at least go and see what you can do."
That was typical of Miss Macnaughtan. Difficulties did not exist for her. When quite a young girl she made up her mind that no lack of money, time, or strength should ever prevent her doing anything she wanted to do. It certainly never prevented her doing anything she felt she ought to do.
The war provided her with a supreme opportunity for service, and she did not fail to take advantage of it. Of her work in Belgium, especially at the soup-kitchen, I believe it is impossible to say too much. According to The Times, "The lady with the soup was everything to thousands of stricken men, who would otherwise have gone on their way fasting."
Among individual cases, too, there were many men who benefited by some special care bestowed on them by her. There was one wounded Belgian to whom my aunt gave my address before she left for Russia that he might have someone with whom he might correspond. I used to hear from him regularly, and every letter breathed gratitude to "la dame ecossaise." He said she had saved his life.
Miss Macnaughtan's lectures to munition-workers were, perhaps, the best work that she did during the war. She was a charming speaker, and I never heard one who got more quickly into touch with an audience. As I saw it expressed in one of the papers "Stiffness and depression vanished from any company when she took the platform." Her enunciation was extraordinarily distinct, and she had an arresting delivery which compelled attention from the first word to the last.
She never minced the truth about the war, but showed people at home how far removed it was from being a "merry picnic."
"They say recruiting will stop if people know what is going on at the Front," she used to tell them. "I am a woman, but I know what I would do if I were a man when I heard of these things. I would do my durndest."
All through her life the idea of personal service appealed to Miss Macnaughtan. She never sent a message of sympathy or a gift of help unless it was quite impossible to go herself to the sufferer.
She was only a girl when she heard of what proved to be the fatal accident to her eldest brother in the Argentine. She went to him by the next ship, alone, save for the escort of his old yacht's skipper, and a journey to the Argentine in those days was a big undertaking for a delicate young girl. On another occasion she was in Switzerland when she heard of the death, in Northamptonshire, of a little niece. She left for England the same day, to go and offer her sympathy, and try to comfort the child's mother.
"When I hear of trouble I always go at once," she used to say.
I have known her drive in her brougham to the most horrible slum in the East End to see what she could do for a woman who had begged from her in the street—yes, and go there again and again until she had done all that was possible to help the sad case.
[Page Heading: ZEAL TO HELP OTHERS]
It was this burning zeal to help which sent her to Belgium and carried her through the long dark winter there, and it was, perhaps, the same feeling which obscured her judgment when her expedition to Russia was contemplated. She was a delicate woman, and there did not seem to be much scope for her services in Russia. She was not a qualified nurse, and the distance from home, and the handicap of her ignorance of the Russian language, would probably have prevented her organising anything like comforts for the soldiers there as she had done in Belgium. To those of us who loved her the very uselessness of her efforts in Russia adds to the poignancy of the tragedy of the death which resulted from them.
The old question arises: "To what purpose is this waste?" And the old answer comes still to teach us the underlying meaning and beauty of what seems to be unnecessary sacrifice: "She hath done what she could."
Indeed, that epitaph might fitly describe Miss Macnaughtan's war work. She grudged nothing, she gave her strength, her money, her very life. The precious ointment was poured out in the service of her King and Country and for the Master she served so faithfully.
* * * * *
I have been looking through some notices which appeared in the press after Miss Macnaughtan's death. Some of them allude to her wit, her energy and vivacity, the humour which was "without a touch of cynicism"; others, to her inexhaustible spirit, her geniality, and the "powers of sarcasm, which she used with strong reserve." Others, again, see through to the faith and philosophy which lay behind her humour, "Scottish in its penetrating tenderness."
In my opinion my aunt's strongest characteristic was a dazzling purity of soul, mind, and body. She was a person whose very presence lifted the tone of the conversation. It was impossible to think of telling her a nasty story, a "double entendre" fell flat when she was there. She was the least priggish person in the world, but no one who knew her could doubt for an instant her transparent goodness. I have read every word of her diary; there is not in it the record of an ugly thought, or of one action that would not bear the full light of day. About her books she used to say that she had tried never to publish one word which her father would not like her to have written.
She had a tremendous capacity for affection, and when she once loved she loved most faithfully. Her devotion to her father and to her eldest brother influenced her whole life, and it would have been impossible for those she loved to make too heavy claims on her kindness.
[Page Heading: SOCIAL CHARM]
Miss Macnaughtan had great social charm. She was friendly and easy to know, and she had a wonderful power of finding out the interesting side of people and of seeing their good points. Her popularity was extraordinary, although hers was too strong a personality to command universal affection. Among her friends were people of the most varied dispositions and circumstances. Distinction of birth, position, or intellect appealed to her, and she was always glad to meet a celebrity, but distinction was no passport to her favour unless it was accompanied by character. To her poorer and humbler friends she was kindness itself, and she was extraordinarily staunch in her friendships. Nothing would make her "drop" a person with whom she had once been intimate.
In attempting to give a character-sketch of a person whose nature was as complex as Miss Macnaughtan's, one admits defeat from the start. She had so many interests, so many sides to her character, that it seems impossible to present them all fairly. Her love of music, literature, and art was coupled with an enthusiasm for sport, big-game shooting, riding, travel, and adventure of every kind. She was an ambitious woman, and a brilliantly clever one, and her clearness of perception and wonderful intuition gave her a quick grasp of a subject or idea. She had a thirst for knowledge which made learning easy, but hers was the brain of the poet and philosopher, not of the mathematician. Accuracy of thought or information was often lacking. Her imagination led the way, and left her with a picture of a situation or a subject, but she was very vague about facts and statistics. As a woman of business she was shrewd, with all a Scotchwoman's power of looking at both sides of a bawbee before she spent it, but she was also extraordinarily generous in a very simple and unostentatious way, and her hospitality was boundless.
Miss Macnaughtan was almost hypersensitive to criticism. Her intense desire to do right and to serve her fellow-beings animated her whole life, and it seemed to her rather hard to be found fault with. Indeed, she had not many faults, and the defects of her character were mostly temperamental.
As a girl she was unpunctual, and subject to fits of indecision when it seemed impossible for her to make up her mind one way or the other. The inconvenience caused by her frequent changes of times and plans was probably not realised by her. Later in life, when she lived so much alone, she did not always see that difficulties which appeared nothing to her might be almost insuperable to other people, and that in houses where there are several members of a family to be considered, no individual can be quite as free to carry out his own plans as a person who is independent of family ties. But when one remembered how splendidly she always responded to any claim on her own kindness one forgave her for being a little exacting.
Perhaps Miss Macnaughtan's greatest handicap in life was her immense capacity for suffering—suffering poignantly, unbearably, not only for her own sorrows but for the sorrows of others. Only those who appealed to her in trouble knew the depth of her sympathy, and how absolutely she shared the burden of the grief. But perhaps they did not always know how she agonised over their misfortunes, and at what price her sympathy was given.
[Page Heading: RELIGIOUS VIEWS]
My aunt was a passionately religious woman. Her faith was the inspiration of her whole life, and it is safe to say that from the smallest to the greatest things there was never a struggle between conscience and inclination in which conscience was not victorious. As she grew older, I fancy that she became a less orthodox member of the Church of England, to which she belonged, but her love for Christ and for His people never wavered.
As each Sunday came round during her last illness, when she could not go to church, she used to say to a very dear sister, "Now, J., we must have our little service." Then the bedroom door was left ajar, and her sister would go down to the drawing-room and play the simple hymns they had sung together in childhood. And on the last Sunday, the day before her death, when the invalid lay in a stupor and seemed scarcely conscious, that same dear sister played the old hymns once more, and as the sound floated up to the room above those who watched there saw a gleam of pleasure on the dying woman's face.
My aunt had no fear of death. There had been a time, some weeks before the end, when her feet had wandered very close to the waters which divide us from the unknown shore, and she told her sisters afterwards that she had almost seemed to see over to the "other side," and that so many of those she loved were waiting for her, and saying, "Come over to us, Sally. We are all here to welcome you."
Perhaps just at the last, when her body had grown weak, the journey seemed rather far, and she clung to earth more closely, but such weakness was purely physical. The brave spirit was ready to go, and as the music of her favourite hymn pierced her consciousness when she lay dying, so surely the words summed up all that she felt or wished to say, and formed her last prayer in death, as they had been her constant prayer in life:
"In death's dark vale I fear no ill With Thee, dear Lord, beside me; Thy rod and staff my comfort still, Thy Cross before to guide me.
"And so through all the length of days Thy goodness faileth never; Good Shepherd, may I sing Thy praise Within Thy house for ever."
INDEX
Aberdare, 164
Aberystwyth, 164
Adinkerke, 116; soup-kitchen, 82, 86, 157; bombardment, 139
Airships, German, over Antwerp, 5, 9; Dunkirk, 81; Furnes, 80; St. Malo-les-Bains, 55; destroyed, 27, 194
Andrews, John, 171
Antwerp, 1; Hospital, 2; arrival of wounded, 2, 3, 5, 12; siege, 3-21; reinforcements, 12, 16; shelled, 18-21; retreat of the Marines, 28
Arabs, rapid system of communication, 247
Ararat, Mount, 230
Armenians, massacres of, 209, 214, 217, 228; refugees, 227; character, 234
Artvin, 211
Asquith, Raymond, 183
Australians, treatment of the Turks, 177
Bagdad, 247
Bagot, Lady, 100; at St. Malo-les-Bains, 49, 55; hospital, 104, 113, 114; arrival of wounded, 144; entertains them, 147
Bailey, Sister, 22, 24
Baku, 233, 237
Baratoff, General, 240, 241
Bark, M., Russian Finance Minister, 195
Barrow-in-Furness, lectures by Miss Macnaughtan, 162
Bartlett, Ashmead, war correspondent, at Furnes, 35
Batoum, 208, 213
"Beau Garde," farm, 140
Bedford, Adeline, Duchess of, 59
Belgians, King of the, 141
Belgians, Queen of the, visits the Hospital at Furnes, 38
Benjamin, Miss, 2, 20
Bernoff, General, 208, 209
Bessheim, the, 179
Bevan, Mr., at Furnes, 80, 83; Calais, 86; Nieuport, 151; Christiania, 179; Stockholm, 180; Baku, 231, 233
Bible, the, a Universal Human Document, 101
Boulderoff, M., 216
Boulogne, 55; wounded at, 114
Bray, Mrs., 192
British man-of-war, 125
Brockville, Mr., at Dixmude, 35
Brooke, Victor, 178
Buchanan, Sir George, Ambassador at Petrograd, 184
Buchanan, Lady Georgina, at Petrograd, 184; soup-kitchen, 192; work-party, 196
Bute Docks, 171
Cabour hospital, 151
Calais, 83, 86
Cardiff, lecture by Miss Macnaughtan, 164, 167-171
Cardiff Castle, 163
Carlile, Mr., 120
Caspian Sea, 265
Caucasia, 210
Cavell, Miss, execution, 186
Cazalet, Mr., 207
Chart Sutton, churchyard at, 270
Chenies, 160
Children wounded, 116, 118
Chimay, Countess de Caraman, dame d'honneur of the Queen of the Belgians, 139
Chisholm, Miss, 26, 63
Christiania, 179
Churchill, Winston, at Antwerp, 12, 16; Dunkirk, 44
Clarry, Mr. G., President of the Cardiff Chamber of Trade, 170
Clegg, Mr., 105, 143
Clitheroe, Mrs., 86, 93
Close, Miss Etta, barge, 97, 126, 135; work for the refugees, 140
Cocks, W., 171
Constant, Count Stanislas, 213
Cooper, Mr., 115
Courage, definition of, 24
Coventry, Mr., 112
Cowan{12}, Mr., Consul at Hamadan, 241, 246
Coxide, bombardment of, 69; refugees at, 138
Crawley, Eustace, 178
Cunard, Mr., 198
Cunliffe, Miss, 2
Curie, Mme., at Furnes, 68
Cyril, Grand Duchess, 205
Decies, Lady, 55
Decker, Mrs., 26
Denniss, Colonel, 164; speech at the Bute Docks, 171
Derfelden, Mme., 236
Dick, Miss, 2
Dinant, atrocities of the Germans at, 137
Dixmude, 127; bombardment, 35, 39
Donnisthorpe, Miss, 2, 22
Drogheda, Lady, 97
Dunkirk, 25, 43, 57, 73, 86, 87, 94, 123, 151; arrival of wounded, 44; bombs on, 81; condition of the station, 96; shelled by the Germans, 115
Elliot, Lady Eileen, at Boulogne, 58
Elliott, Maxine, 94, 97, 126
Enzeli, 238
Erivan, 225, 227
Etchmiadzin, 229
Ferdinand, King of Bulgaria, 195
ffolliott, Mrs., letters from Miss Macnaughtan, 131, 269, 270
Fielding, Lady Dorothy, 12, 26, 63
Findlay, Mr., 82
Fisher, S., 171
France, armament works, 149
French, Sir John, at Dunkirk, 44
Frere, Sir Bartle, at Furnes, 68
Furley, Sir John, 112
Furnes hospital, 33; arrival of wounded, 37, 68; evacuated, 41, 43; hopeless cases, 46; soup-kitchen, 60; shelled by the Germans, 75, 86, 122; bombs on, 80, 81
Fyfe, Miss, 43
Galicia, fighting in, 223
Galitzin, Prince, 208
Gas, asphyxiating, cases of, 114, 145, 171
Georgia, 211; custom at, 213
German army, siege of Antwerp, 3-21; driven back, 18{13}; two regiments surrounded, 121; atrocities, 126, 132, 137, 138; throw vitriol, 144
Germany, preparations for war, 30; treatment of prisoners, 132
Ghent, 12
Gibbs, Mr., war correspondent, at Furnes, 35
Gienst, Mme. van der, 143
Gilbert, 34
Glade, Mr., 2
Glasgow, munition works, output, 149, 161; lectures by Miss Macnaughtan, 163
Gleeson, Mr., 33, 35
Glover, Bandmaster, K. S., 170
Godfrey, Miss, 2
Goodwin, Mr. and Mrs., 239
Gordon, Dr., American Missionary, 208
Gorlebeff, head of the Russian Red Cross, 208, 221, 222
Graham, Stephen, book on Russia, 208
Groholski, Count, 210, 218
Guest, Mrs., at Adinkerke, 119
Hamadan, 240; climate, 243, 247; tombs, 252
Hambro, Mr. Eric, 182
Hanson, Dr., 2, 23
Hanson, Mr., Vice-Consul at Constantinople, at Dunkirk, 151
Haparanda, 182
Harrison, Mr., 164
Haye, M. de la, 139, 140
Helsingfors, 266
Hermes, the, torpedoed, 43
Herslet, Sir Cecil, Surgeon-General, at Antwerp, 9
Hills, Mr., American missionary, 208, 222
Holland, Mr., 88
Hoogstadt, 87; wounded at, 121
Hope, A., 171
Howard, Lady Isobel, 181
Howse, Mr., 164
Ignatieff, M., 237
Invicta, the, 43, 52
Jecquier, M., 195
Joffre, Marshal, at Dunkirk, 44
Joos, Dr., 77; villa at Furnes, 48, 79
Joos, Mme., 77
Kajura, 236
Kasvin, 239, 259
Keays-Young, Mrs., letters from Miss Macnaughtan, 3, 106, 166, 262
Keays-Young, Miss Julia, letters from Miss Macnaughtan, 217, 262
King, Mary, 267; letters from Miss Macnaughtan, 63, 109
Kirsanoff, Mme., 241
Kitchener, Lord, at Dunkirk, 44
Kluck, General von, at Mons, 133
Knocker, Mrs., 45, 63, 155
La Bassee, British casualties at, 107
Lampernesse, church shelled, 67
La Panne, 87, 93, 97
Lazarienne, Mr., 229
Leigh, Lord, 94
Lennel, 163
Lepnakoff{14}, Mlle., 233
Lightfoot, Mr., at Hamadan, 241, 246, 252
Lindsay, Harry, 183
Lloyd, Sir F., 162
Lloyd, George, 195
Logan, Miss, 87
Logette, Mrs., 72
Lombaertzyde, farm at, 138
Lombard, Mr., 190
Lusitania torpedoed, 123
McDonald, gunner, wounded, 118, 124
MacDonald{15}, Mr. Ramsay, 73
MacDonell, Consul, at Baku, 237
McDowal, Mr., 241
McLaren, Mr. and Mrs., 238
McLean, Mr., 241, 248
MacMurray, Mr., 241, 248
Macnaughtan, Lieut. Colin, 144
Macnaughtan, Sarah, at Antwerp 1; work in the Hospital, 8; incentive to keep up, 17; leaves Antwerp, 21; at Ostend, 22; joins Dr. Munro's convoy, 25; at Dunkirk, 25, 43, 57, 73, 86; St. Malo-les-Bains, 26, 49; Furnes, 34-43, 46, 57; flight to Poperinghe, 43; description of the ruins of Nieuport, 46, 152-155; request for travelling-kitchens, 51, 58; visits her nephew at Boulogne, 55-57; starts a soup-kitchen, 59-61; feeding the wounded, 61, 69; "charette," 69; at the Villa Joos, 72, 77; attends a Church service, 74; return to England, 83, 111, 157, 267; at Rayleigh House, 85; soup-kitchen at Adinkerke, 86, 116, 157; illness, 87, 104, 207, 245, 256, 259-264, 267-270; at La Panne, 93, 111; publication of war book, 111; difficulties in getting her passport, 112; at Boulogne, 114; presented with a car, 120; at Poperinghe, 135; method of relieving cases of poison gas, 145, 171; lectures on the war, 160-174, 274; at Lennel, 163; Cardiff Castle, 163; Chevalier de l'Ordre de Leopold conferred, 167; journey to Russia, 179-183; at Christiania, 179; Stockholm, 180; Petrograd, 183-204, 265; waiting for work, 191-198, 218; studies Russian, 193; works in a hospital, 198; at Moscow, 204; Tiflis, 208-210, 214, 230; delicate appearance, 208; at Caucasia, 210; entertained by the Grand Duke Nicholas, 215; on the administration of war charities, 219-222; lessons in French, 224; buys a motor-car, 224; journey to Erivan, 225-227; car breaks down, 225; festered fingers, 234; at Baku, 237; Resht, 238; Kasvin, 239, 259; Hamadan, 240-257; a day on the Persian front, 247-249; unfinished article on Persia, 249-252; Return of the Pilgrim, 253-256; Tehran, 260-264; journey home, 264-266; at Helsingfors, 266; appearance, 268; appointed Lady of Grace of the Order of St. John of Jerusalem, 268; death, 270, 280; funeral, 270; review of her war work, 272-276; ideal of personal service, 274; sketch of her character, 276-279; religious views, 279
Malcolm, Colonel Ian, at Boulogne, 58; Petrograd, 183; at Moscow, 204
Malokand settlement, 226
Manners, Lady Diana, 183
Marines, British, at Antwerp, 12, 16; retreat from, 28
Marines, French, 105{16}
Maxwell, Lady Heron, 185
Millis, General, 87
Mons, retreat from, 133; vision at, 133
Montgomerie, Miss, American missionary at Hamadan, 252
Moorhouse, Rhodes, heroism, 129
Morgan, Mr., 83, 86
Morris, Dr., 2
Moscow, 204
Motono, M., at Petrograd, 195
Munitions, shortage of, 148
Munro, Dr. Hector, 12; convoy, 25, 90; at Dixmude, 35; knocked over by a shell, 49
Murat, Prince Napoleon, 218, 231, 233
Murray, Mr. John, xii
Musaloff, Princess, 231
Needle, Mr., 164
Neligan, Dr., care of Miss Macnaughtan, 260, 263, 264
Neuve Chapelle, ruins of, 123
Neva, the, 200
Nevinson, Mr., at Furnes, 38
Nicholas, Grand Duke, 215
Nieuport, 71, 151; ruins of, 46, 123, 152-155
Nightingale, song of the, 155-157
Nightingale, Florence, 184
Northcote, Elsie, 182; death, 183
Ochterlony, gunner, wounded, 118
O'Gormon, Mrs., 16
Oostkerke, Belgian "observateur" killed at, 153
Orloff, Prince, 208; appearance, 219
Ostend, 22, 24
Oulieheff, Count, 210
Page, Dr. de, 118
Parsons, Johnny{17}, 192
Passport, difficulties, 112
Percival, Mrs. Charles, letters from Miss Macnaughtan, 65, 242-245
Perrin, Dr., 86, 87
Perry, Miss, 2
Persia, climate, 239, 249; railway, 247; system of administration, 251; unfinished article on, 249-252
Pervyse, 63, 64; bombardment, 81; ruins of, 123
Peter, Grand Duke, 215
Petrograd, 183, 187, 206, 265; climate, 194; number of amputation cases, 198; return of wounded prisoners, 201-203; number of hospitals, 220
Philpotts, Mr., 186
Pilgrim, Return of the, 253-256
"Pinching," habit of, 98
Poincare, M., at Dunkirk, 44
Polish refugees, at Petrograd, 192, 193
Pont, Major du, 138
Poperinghe, 43, 135-137; shelled, 116
Powell, Miss Hilda, xii
Prisoners, German, treatment in England, 132
Queen's Hall, London, lecture by Miss Macnaughtan, 162
Radstock, Lord, anecdote of, 197
Ramsay, Sir William, on the result of the war, 149
Ramsey, Dr., 2, 22
Randell, Miss, 2
Rasputin, malign influence, 209
Rayleigh House, 85
Reading, Mr. "Dick," 42
Rees{18}, T. Vivian, 164, 171
Resht, 238
Rhondda Valley, 164
Richards, Alderman J. T., speech at Cardiff, 167
Roberts, Lord, death, 63, 111
Rocky Mountains, 182
Rotsartz, M., 125; portrait of Miss Macnaughtan, 104
Rushton Hall, Kettering, 160
Russian army, return of wounded prisoners to Petrograd, 201-203
St. Clair, Miss, 12
St. Gilles, convent at, 22
St. Idesbald, 150
St. Malo-les-Bains, 26, 49; wounded at, 50
Samson, Commander, 88
Sarrel, Mr., 151
Sawyer, Mr., 112
Sazonoff, Mme., 200
Scherbatoff, Princess Helene, 197
Scott, Lord Francis, at Boulogne, 58
Scott, Mr., 238
Scott, Miss, 82
Secher, Mr., wounded, 49
Seymour, Mr., kindness to Miss Macnaughtan, 266
Shaw, Bernard, 189
Sheffield, lecture by Miss Macnaughtan, 162
Shoppe, Lieutenant, 132; at Nieuport, 153
"Should the Germans come," lecture on, 171-173
Sim, 178
Sindici, Mme.{19}, 83, 86
Slippers for the wounded, 66, 98
Smith, Captain, 198
Smith, Mr. Lancelot, 182
Smith, Mr. Robinson, 171, 173
Smitkin, Dr., 259
Sommerville, Mr. R., xii
Soup-kitchen at Adinkerke, 82, 97, 157; Furnes, 60
Spies, German, shot, 44, 186
Stanley, Miss, 2
Stanmore, Lord, 183
Stear, Miss, 4
Steen, Mme. van den, 137
Steenkerke, 122, 155
Stenning, Mr., xii
Stobart, Mrs. St. Clair, head of the hospital unit at Antwerp, 2; office, 7, 10; issues orders, 18; leaves Antwerp, 21; return to England, 22
Stockholm, 180
Stoney, Dr. F., 2
"Stories and Pictures of the War," lecture on, 167
Streatfield, Mr., 74
Stretchers, size of, 66, 69
Strickland, Mr., 87
Strutt, Emily, 85
Strutt, Neville, 178
Sutherland, Duchess of, 93; hospital at St. Malo-les-Bains, 44
Sweden, Crown Prince of, 181
Sweden, Crown Princess of, appearance, 181
Taff river, 164
Takmakoff, Mme., 200, 203
Tapp, Mr., 64
Teck, Prince Alexander of, 141; at Furnes, 75, 83
Tehran, 260
Thompson, Mr., 138
Tiflis, 208, 214, 230
Tonepentre, 164
Toney Pandy, 164
Travelling-kitchens, 51
Tree, Viola, 183
Tschelikoff, Prince, 233{20}
Turks, cruelties, 177, 209
Turner, Dr. Rose, 2
Tyrell, Major, 151
Tysczkievez{21}, Count, 222
Urumiyah, evacuated, 223
Vaughan, Miss, at Furnes, 68
Vickers-Maxim works, Erith, lecture by Miss Macnaughtan, 160
Victoria, Grand Duchess, 185
Villiers, Sir Francis, British Minister at Antwerp, 9
Vladikavkas, 207
Wales, 163
Walker, Colonel, 112
Walter, Mr. Hubert, 143
Walton, Colonel, 176
War,{22} charities, administration, 219-222; cost of the, 104; cruelties, 175-178; result, 115; souvenirs, 143
Wardepett, Bishop, 229
Ware, Mr. F., 85
Waring, Lady Clementine, letters from Miss Macnaughtan, 50-52, 58, 260; at Lennel, 163
Warship, British, shelled by the Germans, 105
Watts, Dr., 2
Welwyn, 160
Westminster{23}, Duke of, at Dixmude, 127
Whiting, Captain, 73
William II., Emperor of Germany, supposed conversion to Mahomedanism{24}, 209
William, Capt. Rhys, 239
Williams, Mr. Hume, 223
Wilson, Dr., 69, 225
Wilson, 178
Wood, Mr., 119, 121
Wynne, Mrs., 132, 140; at Christiania, 179; Moscow, 205; Baku, 231
Young, Capt. Alan, at Boulogne, 55; experiences in the war, 56; wounded, 57
Young, Mrs. Charles, letter from Miss Macnaughtan, 214
Younghusband, Sir Frank, 164; speech at Cardiff, 169
Ypres, 114, 137; battle at, 144, 146
Yser, the, 64, 71, 121, 141
Billing and Sons, Ltd., Printers, Guildford, England
* * * * *
Transcriber's corrections and comments:
1. Added period missing in original.
2. Added comma missing in original.
3. Original had "Rotsarzt"; changed to "Rotsartz" to be consistent with later occurrences.
4. Original had "vise"; changed to "vise".
5. Original had "pasport"; changed to "passport".
6. Original had "...road to Calais s blocked..."; changed to "...road to Calais is blocked...".
7. Note inconsistency in spelling: text has "Reece", index has "Rees".
8. Note inconsistency in spelling: text has "Johnnie", index has "Johnny".
9. Changed from comma in original to period.
10. Note inconsistency in spelling: text has "Tysczkievcz", index has "Tysczkievez"; most likely meant to be the Polish name "Tyszkiewicz".
11. Added period missing in original.
12. Original had "Cowen"; changed to "Cowan", which is the spelling used in both instances in the text.
13. Original reference to page 10; changed to page 18, as this contains the actual reference to the German army being driven back.
14. Original had "Lipnakoff"; changed to "Lepnakoff" as the more likely spelling and to be consistent with the text.
15. Original had "Macdonald"; changed to "MacDonald".
16. Original reference to page 165; changed to page 105, as this contains the actual reference to the French Marines.
17. Note inconsistency in spelling: text has "Johnnie", index has "Johnny".
18. Note inconsistency in spelling: text has "Reece", index has "Rees".
19. Added period missing in original.
20. Removed comma that was superfluous in the original.
21. Note inconsistency in spelling: text has "Tysczkievcz", index has "Tysczkievez"; most likely meant to be the Polish name "Tyszkiewicz".
22. Added comma missing in original.
23. Original had "Westminister"; changed to "Westminster".
24. Original had "Mahommedanism"; changed to "Mahomedanism" to be consistent with the text.
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