Chapter I: WAS educated abroad. That's how I came to love France and England

almost as well as my own country. I was in my teens when I returned to America. I had always wanted to be a nurse. Even while at school I longed for the days when I should be old enough to begin training. It was my calling, and, when I left school, I answered it.

I trained in France, England and America. I had practised but a short while when I married. My husband was a surgeon, and from him I learned more of nursing than I could ever hoped to have acquired from text-books. We were always together. We played and worked and traveled all over the world. When he died, it was like a great light going out. I did not know where to turn--I did not know what to do. Even to this day I cannot get used to his being away from me. It always seems as though he were on one of his professional trips and would return.

And then in 1914, just six months after his death, war came, and I knew that my place was in France, so I sailed at once and enlisted in the nursing corps.

Those were the days before the great base hospitals were established--the days when the dead and wounded were left in piles awaiting such care as could be given them by the handful of overworked doctors and nurses.

It was there I found my "son." We had come to a group of white-faced boys--the mark of death on their brow. Lying a little apart from the others was a young Frenchman. He had an ugly shrapnel wound on his shoulder. He was unconscious when we found him, but he was so appealing, so young, that my heart went out to him. His clothes were stained with dirt and blood, and the mud was caked on his cheek, where he had fallen.

When we moved in, he opened his eyes. "Maman," he said, and smiled at me. I think that was what won me completely.

Torpedoes cost money--they are often recovered and fired again.]

I watched over his convalescence and learned that his own mother was not living, so when he was well once more and ready to return to duty, I adopted him as my "_fils de guerre_," and to this day I hear from him twice a month--and such letters! Full of his battles and his play at the rest billets--his dreams and his hopes. He is France at her best, with the love of youth and life and country in his heart.

There were sights on that battlefield you never forget--never. It was the bodies of Frenchwomen left dead by the Germans that haunt me--the women they dragged from captured France and took with them to their trenches. We used to thank God when we came upon these girls that we found them dead. At least these few were out of their unfathomable depths of misery at last.

After ten months of nursing in France, the doctors ordered a rest--no--commanded it, so I left the service and went to England to visit an old schoolmate, now married. Her husband was at the front, but her father, a peer, whose name is a great one in England, lived with her.

He had known me since childhood. He was very fond of me. He was a man of great importance to the government, but he had a delightful way of dropping all the cares of State, once he reached home, and of romping with his two tiny grandsons whom he adored.

In their home I found the quiet I craved, and, as I grew stronger, I longed to get back once more to duty. I knew so well the desperate need for trained workers. My friends sensed my growing restlessness and Violet's father spoke of it at dinner one evening.

"Why not join the British army?" he asked me. "I'll try to get you a good post."

There were a number of guests present, and, as Sir Arthur sat quite far from me, I did not catch what he had said. But Violet had. She leaned across and called to me.

"You aren't listening to father--he means you." I turned toward him eagerly. "Why not join the British ranks?" he repeated. "You say you feel fit again and want to get out there. Well, I'll give you a chance to prove it."

I didn't believe he half meant it, for his eyes twinkled; but I caught at it.

"I cannot get to the front soon enough to please me," I cried. "Just try me and see," and no more was said about it.

The days passed and the lovely English summer changed into autumn. I felt splendidly. One day I came in from a long walk. I glowed with health. I just knew that I could not remain idle another instant. I found Violet in the nursery with her babies. I told her I must go. She laughed at me.

"So long as you feel that way, it's fortunate this letter came for you this morning, isn't it?" and she laid in my hands a long, official-looking document, bearing the royal coat-of-arms in one corner. I tore it open. It was a command to appear before the Matron-in-Chief of her Majesty's army. I knew by the time that I had finished reading it that Sir Arthur was responsible in a large measure. He was well aware of the fact that no neutral could serve in the Allied armies unless by royal order. I flew to the office of the Matron-in-Chief. My knees knocked together. Could I qualify in her eyes for a post at the front?

What transpired seemed like a golden dream to me. I was appointed Chief Nurse--or Matron, as they call us Over There--of a hospital ship holding four thousand beds! I did not show my inward tremors. If it could be done, I was going to do it--I, an American--and what was more I was going to make those British nurses on my staff love me in spite of themselves. I dared not think how afraid I was to tackle it. I just kept saying, "I'll do it! I've _got_ to, so I can."

I returned to Violet and dropped in a heap on a couch.

"What's happened?" she demanded--and I told her. She listened, her eyes like stars.

"How splendid! You can do it if anyone in the world can! You've proved your worth in France. Oh, I am so happy that you are to look after our poor boys!"

Sir Arthur came in at this moment. I knew by his smile that he had been listening.

"Well, well, so you are to be a Matron, are you?" he teased. I nodded. I was past speech.

"Perhaps you don't know that you will be gazetted as Major in the British army as well. That will probably be your official rank."

And a major I became on my floating hospital. I felt strangely alone at first. The only American among so many English. For the first time in my life I longed for my compatriots. Then one day as we lay at anchor in the harbor, I saw, some distance away, a battleship flying from her mast the Stars and Stripes. I began to cry, I was so glad to see my own flag again. I asked our wireless operator if he would send her a message.

"Will you ask an American officer aboard the Man-o'-War to come aboard the British Hospital ship and speak with an American woman?" The instrument snapped the message. The battleship caught it, and, a few hours later, I saw an American Naval officer for the first time in over a year.

I had never met him before, but I was so glad to talk with him of our own land that I dreaded the time when he must return to his ship. He went at length, and I followed him with my binoculars. It gave me a warm feeling around my heart to have a Yankee ship so close by.

Once I started to work in earnest, I found that my nurses were eager to coöperate with me in every way. Instead of resenting my authority over them, they were anxious to help me, and the fear I felt of my ability to handle this great task was swallowed up by the mountains of work before me. There was no time to fear or to rejoice. There was no time for self, with four thousand souls aboard who needed caring for each hour of the day and night. For our ship was loaded with the wounded from that desperate fighting in the Dardanelles.

There were a great per cent who came to us with hands and feet cruelly frozen, from the weeks and even months in icy trenches. Then there were shell-shock cases. One which appealed to us all was of a chaplain, adored by his regiment. Through the heaviest fire he had stood by his flock with no thought for his own safety. An exploding shell had brought on that strange state of aphasia. He did what he was told to do docilely and quietly, but he remembered nothing that had gone before.

He was sent back to London, his mind still clouded. I used to think of him often--his quiet, studious face and soldierly bearing and his eyes with their eternal question in them, which none of us could answer for him.

Months later I saw him again. The government was in need of a matron to take charge of a four-hundred-and-fifty-bed ship bound for South Africa. Fierce battles were raging in Mesopotamia. I was selected for the task. I had eight nurses and a hospital corps of fifty.

As I came aboard her, I saw a familiar figure standing by the gang-plank. I caught my breath. It was the chaplain himself. There he stood, smiling quietly, with hands outstretched.

"I am going with you, Matron," he told me, "to care for the boys."

He was well once more and back again in the field.

Malaria was rampant in Africa. Our ship exceeded capacity by over a hundred cases--men with raging fevers. Working at top speed, we could not bathe them all, and cold baths alone could save them.

The convalescent officers helped us. We worked like machines. Some of the nurses caught the tropical fever, too, but they stuck by their post. They did not dare give in. There were too many sick and dying men calling for them. I have known those girls to stand on their feet when their own temperatures ranged between 103 and 104 degrees. They laughed at the idea of giving in. They couldn't. That was all.

You have heard of the brutality of the Turk. Let me tell you he is gentle compared to the ferocity of the Germans. We lay at anchor near Salonika. The Turks were on one side of the Gulf, the British on the other. More than once I have seen the Turks hoist a white flag to us, and, when we have at length replied to it with our flag of truce, they have sent an envoy aboard. Always, he desired to parley with the Matron instead of with the Commander, and I would be summoned to receive his message.

"Mem Sahib," he would say, "we are about to open fire on the British. You will move your ship about fifty yards. You will then be out of danger." He would bow and return to his regiment, giving us ample time to move before the great guns roared once more.

But the Germans! To bomb a field hospital or shell an ambulance, or sink a Red Cross ship is a triumph for them!

It was three o'clock one morning. We lay in the Mediterranean. An accident case needed instant care. I ran to prepare the "theater," as we call the operating room. The patient was treated and had been lifted to a stretcher when the Huns' torpedo struck us.

Then came the crash, the sudden trembling of the ship and the sudden dreadful listing. We carried the man to the deck, scrambling up as best we could. The engine had not been struck, but the stern was shattered. Every man who was able to, reached the deck with life-belt on, and the nurses and doctors flew to the rescue of those below.

We carried them all on deck, and the Commander faced us quietly.

"The boats on the port side are smashed, and those on starboard cannot be lowered."

There was not a sound for a full moment after he spoke, as the awful truth dawned upon us. Then his voice rang out:

"There is only one chance--to jump for your lives."

Jump for your lives! I looked at the men who were too ill to be moved, who lay unconscious, with flushed cheeks and closed eyes. Jump for our lives! What chance had they? Truly the Boches could take toll that night if they counted sick and wounded men and Red Cross nurses as fair prey. . . .

The Commander shouted to us: "Jump feet first. Watch out--jump _feet first_."

We had practised doing it in the tank on the way over. With life-belts on, it is the only way of preserving your balance.

The men were dragging out tables and tearing up planks for rafts. They hurled them into the water, and little groups of them climbed the rail, stood poised an instant above the black depths below them--then leaped down. . . .

The voices of hundreds of struggling men rang in on our ears and we were helpless to aid them.

The Commander called the nurses to him.

"You go next," he told them. "The Matron and I will jump last."

They were the bravest, coolest lot of girls I have ever seen. They climbed the rail, hand in hand. They hesitated a second--with a shudder at what lay before them, then they leaped forward. . . . I could not look. Only the Commander and I remained. He drew me to the rail.

"I can't do it," I cried, drawing back. But he was very firm.

"Come," he said quietly, "it will soon be too late."

He helped me up. My heart was thumping like a trip-hammer in my breast. I could not--I could not--_could not_ jump. He drew me down suddenly. I lost my footing and plunged after him. The water closed over me. It seemed hours before I came to the top. For a long time I could not move. At length I began to swim. I knew enough to get as far away as I could from the suction that would draw me as the ship sank.

Three hours later patrols picked us up.

And yet, I love the water. If I am ashore and cannot sleep, I pretend my room is a cabin and that I am on a quietly rocking sea. That is why I entered the Navy nurse corps of my country when she declared war on Germany.

So I have served under three flags since war was declared, and at last--at last I am under my own!

GUNNER'S MATE M'QUIRE SPEAKS:

"ABANDON SHIP!"

ME father was always talkin' about the old country. Sure and he said there was nothin' in the whole of America to compare with a corner of County Cork! We kids used to poke fun at him, but I'm confessin' it made us kinder hanker to see that land ourselves.

He was after claimin' that the grass was greener there than anywhere else on earth and the sky bluer. As a kid I planned to run away and ship over there just to see if the old man was givin' it to us straight. But it was to Canada I drifted, and, because I have more inches than most men, the Northwest Mounted sent me an engraved invitation askin' me to join them, which I did for six years.

Sure, it's a great way to spend your days, ridin' through snow and ice or mud and mosquitoes--accordin' to the season--after the gang of outlaws runnin' loose up there. But it was always worryin', the wife was, for fear I couldn't shoot quick enough and they'd get the drop on me. She'd tell me that it was the kid she was considerin'--she wasn't wantin' to bring him up without a father. She'd say he was too big a handful for her to manage, then get around me by claimin' he was a chip off the old block all right--all right.

So I give up me post in the Northwest and settled down in Winnipeg. Then the war came and I could see reasons all over the place for me joinin' up at once. First of all, though me country was America, me home was in Canada and I knew that nine-tenths of the Canucks would be friends of mine. Then secondly, wasn't I Irish, which meant gettin' into any scrap that was goin', so help me?

Well, the wife held me back at the start. She kept coaxin' me to bide a bit. She argued the States wasn't in trouble yet, so I listened with one ear, but with the other I was hearin' from all sides about the greatest free-for-all fight in the world's history, and I knew that me, Patrick M'Quire, had no business to be standin' by.

The wife wasn't well and she was always frettin' at the thought of me enlistin', so I told her I'd wait, but I warned her that it was entirely responsible she'd be if Germany tied the Allies in a show-down. I told her I was a sharpshooter with a record in the Northwest to be proud of. I asked her why she was keepin' me back. Sure, I demanded what business she had to be hamperin' the Allies' chances like that!

Well, me humor fell on deaf ears and I stayed until me own country, the United States of America, declared war, and that same afternoon, by the grace of God, I walked meself up, bought tickets for the States, packed me family aboard and two days later joined the navy.

It's compromisin' I was when I joined. I told the wife that the fear of trenches or gas attacks need never enter her heart, but I knew as well as me own name the danger on the seas of Fritz gettin' playful and stickin' a torpedo in your ribs--but why worry her?

Better than me prayers I knew firearms. I could take a rifle apart and put it together again with me eyes closed. I had had as many machine guns jam on me as the next fellow. I was entirely qualified to be a gunner's mate, which, I assure you, I wasted no time becomin'.

They shipped me over on a British auxiliary--a cargo ship. For the two months they held me at the trainin' station. The wife had been knittin' and knittin'! If I'd been bound straight for the North Pole I couldn't be after havin' more helmets or sweaters or socks or wristlets than she sent me. Whist! how these women do slave for us. It was askin' her not to, that I did at first, until I saw it was givin' her the only mite of pleasure she could squeeze out of me goin' away. Women is like that. They wants to be babyin' their men folks until the end of the story.

What I valued most of all was a picture she had taken with the kid. That nearly finished me. I was after winkin' and blinkin' over it like an old fool parted from his senses. But she looked so sweet smilin' at me there and the kid looked so clean it almost broke me up.

I set sail on a warm June day. There was no chance to go home and say good-bye. In a way I was glad of that. She was, too. It's rough weather we had all the way and plenty of work, but I liked the life. I was hard as nails. I was strong from bein' outdoors twenty-nine years of me thirty. Weather didn't worry me--rain or shine was all the same.

We came to the Zone. "Aha!" says I to meself, "so this is the patch Fritz has picked to try his luck with us as a target!" I kept wishin' for a sight of him. Sure, I stayed awake nights worryin' for fear the convoy sent out to meet us would be so good it would scare all the subs away. It was nearin' the point where we expected the sub chasers to meet us that I got me wish.

It was about five in the afternoon with the sun goin' down like a red balloon, when we sighted a raft with a barrel propped up at one end. There were two fellows aboard her, in a bad way from the looks of them, stripped to their waists, wavin' their shirts to us for help.

We had been after hearin' how dangerous it was to stop your engine in the Zone and rescue survivors, but good God! who'd have the heart to pass those poor fellows by! Perhaps they had wives and kids at home same as us. We drew up about five hundred yards from them and started to lower the boat when the raft rose out of the water and turned over and the men dived off. Under it we saw the deck of a submarine, the barrel still on her periscope.

It's trapped we were by her dirty trick! She struck us amidships and then submerged. There wasn't time to fire. We were sinkin' stern first. The boats were swung down and I started to get into me own when I remembered the wife's picture! Sure, I had to have it! There wasn't no two ways about it. I just wouldn't get off the ship without it. Someone called to me to come on. Someone pulled me arm. But I tore it loose.

"It's goin' back I am," I told him.

"You're crazy! She'll be down in four minutes."

"I tell you, it's goin' back I am. . . ."

And he let me go. I guess he thought he'd done his best to save a poor loon. All hands were on deck. I made for the hatchway and found it fillin' with water. The furniture was floatin' around like the little toys the kid puts in the bath tub.

I fought me way to me bunk. Over it I'd nailed the picture. I felt with me hands until I found it. I tore it off the wall and stuffed it in me shirt, then I started out. The water was clean up to me waist and pourin' in. The force of it sent the chairs and tables crashin' against the wall. I dodged them and found the stairs. They were submerged. It's on me hands and knees I crawled, until I reached the top. The water poured in on me.

I found the deck deserted. I looked down. A few boats were bobbin' on the waves. I dived off. When I came up it did me eyes good to see a boat a few yards away. I swam toward it and they pulled me in. A seaman named Doyle and another called Hooper were good strokes. They rowed all eighteen of us away out when the cruiser went down.

About a hundred yards from us was a boat full of our officers. It was decidin' to follow them we were, when the submarine came to surface again. She was after knowin' which boat held officers, too--no doubt about that, because she trained her machine gun on the lot of them without wastin' time, and opened fire. Yes, by God! shootin' on men adrift in a lifeboat!

That's a sample of Hun fightin' I won't forget in a hurry! I'd have given me life and that of all me dear ones just then for a chance to cut the throats of those cool devils on her deck, pumpin' death into that boat load of helpless youngsters. . . .

We expected to get it next and it's ready for them we were. I hoped with all me heart and soul that they'd come close enough to hear the names I was callin' them. But they didn't honor us--not them. They figured that we were all enlisted men, not worth wastin' a shot on, for they submerged.

It was growin' dark, but there was still light enough for us to take stock of our fodder. All lifeboats are well equipped--provided with ten gallon barrels of water, and with tins of bacon and crackers. It's glad to find the food and water we were. The chances were pretty fair of our bein' rescued in a day or two. That was good, seein' we hadn't a compass and most of us was green. We couldn't even pick the stars and none of us knew seamanship.

We could do nothin' but wait until mornin' and pray for the sight of a sail. Mornin' came. We were stiff, 'part from wet clothes and 'part from the hard boards on which we'd been lyin'.

There were four boys aboard--just kids, not more than eighteen or nineteen. It's game they were, all right. They were the life of that gang. It's "Cheer up, they'll find us to-day," they'd tell us.

One of them was bubblin' over with spirits. He was a big, blond kid called Terry. He was one of the gun's crew and I'd liked him from the start. He appointed himself C. P. O. in charge of the chow and dished out the crackers and bacon to us, jokin' about our table de hôte and sayin' he'd try to do better next meal.

Some of the older men aboard shook their heads over the way we was eatin'.

"Better hold back on the rations and water," they warned us. "We ain't rescued yet."

But we laughed them down. We felt sure some ship must have caught our S. O. S. the night before. It stood to reason help was hurryin' toward us.

We took turns scannin' the horizon. It wasn't hard, because the sky was cloudy. We didn't say so, but it's hopin' we were that there wouldn't be a squall. It wasn't long before the water grew choppy and a mist came up. Some of the men were glooms for fair.

"Fog risin'. We couldn't see a ship if she was alongside of us," they growled.

The boys wouldn't be downed.

"We'll shout just to show them we're here," they said, and, at intervals all that long night, their voices rang out, but no answer did we get.

Along toward mornin' it began to rain in earnest. We caught the raindrops in our mouths. We decided to start economizin' in water. It cleared up the third day and the sun came out. It burned our wet faces. Some of the men slept, but most of us kept a lookout. Help must be comin' soon. We didn't know in what direction land lay. Sure, we'd pull toward the north, then hold a council and decide it was the wrong way after all, so we'd start off due east. But we didn't row as hard as we had the first day--not by a long sight. Some of the men were against goin' away too far from the place where our ship went down.

"If we'd stayed around there we'd have been picked up by now."

The men were gettin' sulky, blamin' each other.

"Sure, if you'd listened to me----" we all started off.

Only Terry didn't get sore. He and the other three kids wouldn't give up hopin'.

"Oh, they'll find us by another day," he'd grin. "What's bitin' you all?"

The fourth day dawned and slipped by. No help. The fifth day came, and with it a storm that tossed our boat from the crest of one big wave to another. The water washed over us in torrents. We bailed like madmen to keep afloat at all.

Sure, now, it's queer when you come to think of it, how hard men will work just to keep that little spark of life inside of them. With no hope in view they won't give up while there is strength in them to go on with the fight.

We proved it through those days of black horror, in an open boat on a sea full of salt water. That was the awful fact that stared us in the face as the days slid by--no gettin' away from it--a certain knowledge that the water in those barrels was gettin' lower and lower.

Six days--seven days--eight days. . . . Over a week adrift, drenched to your skin all the time, cold as ice at nights and hot as fire by day. Crackers and bacon . . . bacon and crackers . . . and not enough of either to last much longer--and then what? . . .

We didn't talk much. Even the kids, when they weren't asleep in a sort of stupor, would stare out at sea. Then on one mornin' we made out smoke on the horizon! It was an hour of rejoicin'. We were that wild with joy we stood up and yelled until our voices cracked. We raised our wet shirts on an oar and waved them, but it was no use. The smoke vanished, they had never seen us.

Some of the men sat down and cried like babies. I wanted to, God knows, but it's responsible I felt for those youngsters. Now supposin', I'd keep tellin' meself, that one of them was me own kid. Would I be after lettin' him see that I'd be givin' up all hope? Not much I wouldn't, so I tried to cheer them along.

Half a cup of water a day was each man's portion. Half a cup, when you're burnin' up with thirst and there's water all around you. Just what you're longin' for and it's cool and wet and--salty. We knew it would lead to madness to drink that stuff, but we all wondered in our hearts how long before we would have to.

We found if we sucked on buttons it helped a little to keep our dry throats moist, but our tongues were swollen and our lips were parched.

There was a Norwegian aboard. He had been torpedoed before. He had great ideas as to what we ought to do, but the trouble was he couldn't speak English, and none of us knew Norwegian, so we couldn't get him at all.

Nine days--ten days--eleven days . . . the water in the barrels was down so low that I tried reducin' me drink to a quarter of a cup a day. It was then I got on to the fact that Terry was actin' queer. The Norwegian put me wise. He pointed to the ocean and patted his mouth, then he jerked his thumb at Terry. I called the boy up sharp.

"Drinkin' salt water, eh?" I snapped.

He looked up. "What's that to you?" His eyes looked hot and feverish, his cheeks were flushed.

"You cut it out," I ordered. I almost choked as I said it. What if it had been me own kid?

"All right," he growled.

But he didn't stop. At night he scooped up cupfuls of it--he and the other youngsters, and one mornin' we had four ravin', crazy boys on our hands. They were stronger than we were and when they tried to jump overboard we couldn't stop them. We did our best to save them, but they fought us with the strength of fiends. We couldn't get them back into the boat--we lost all four of them. After that I don't remember much.

For two weeks the water held out, but we were afloat four days longer. We were semi-conscious by that time--nothin' troubled us.

An English fishin' smack picked us up and took us to a lighthouse off the Irish coast. When I came to I found meself bein' fed water a spoonful at a time. Sure, I couldn't take more if I wanted to, me tongue was that thick. I stayed there three weeks, when they sent me to Ireland and I lay in hospital there for a month. From the windows I could see the treetops and a glimpse of the heavens, but do you know it seemed to me that the sky in America was a heap bluer and the leaves a world greener and, oh, how I wished for a sight of the wife and the kid!

So they brought me home and here I am. I'm not after sayin' me father was a prevaricator--no, indeed! But I _am_ sayin' that where your folks is there will your heart be also, and, take it from me, the fellow who wrote, "There's no place like home" knew what he was talkin' about! There ain't--be it County Cork or old New York!

CHIEF PHARMACIST'S MATE HALL SPEAKS:

PRISONERS OF WAR