England's effort : $b Letters to an American friendWard, Humphry, Mrs.
History
England's effort : $b Letters to an American friend
Ward, Humphry, Mrs.
Great Britain. Army -- Ordnance facilities; World War, 1914-1918 -- Personal narratives, British; World War, 1914-1918 -- Women
it is a hidden joy of conscience which makes them know that they would be
unhappy if they were not doing their bit--and partly (I am convinced of
this, too,) it is a deepening faith in the Founder of their Faith Whom so
many appreciate and value as never before, because they realise that even
He has not shirked that very mill of suffering through which they are now
passing themselves."
A few days ago, I accompanied a woman official distributing some leaflets
on behalf of a Government department, in some visits to families living in
a block of model dwellings somewhere in South London. We called on nine
families. In every single case the man of the family had gone, or was
expecting to go, to the war; except in one case, where a man who, out of
pure patriotism and at great personal difficulty had joined the Volunteer
Reserve at the outbreak of war, had strained his heart in trench-digging
and was now medically unfit, to his own bitter disappointment. There was
some grumbling in the case of one young wife that her husband should be
forced to go before the single men whom she knew; but in the main the
temper that showed itself bore witness both to the feeling and the
intelligence that our people are bringing to bear on the war. One woman
said her husband was a sergeant in a well-known regiment. He thought the
world of his men, and whenever one was killed, he must be at the burying.
"He can't bear, you know"--she added shyly--"they should feel alone." She
had three brothers-in-law "out"--one recently killed. One was an ambulance
driver under the R.A.M.C. He had five small children, but had volunteered.
"He doesn't say much about the war, except that 'Tommies are wonderful.
They never complain.'" She notices a change in his character. He was
always good to his wife and children--"but now he's splendid!" The brother
of another woman had been a jockey in Belgium, had liked the country and
the people. When war broke out he "felt he must fight for them." He came
home at once and enlisted. Another brother had been a stoker on a war-ship
at the Dardanelles, and was in the famous landing of April 25. Bullets
"thick and fast like hailstorm. Terrible times collecting the dead! Her
brother had worked hard forming burial parties. Was now probably going to
the Tigris. Wrote jolly letters!"
Then there was the little woman born and bred in the Army, with all the
pride of the Army--a familiar type. Husband a sergeant in the Guards--was
gymnastic instructor at a northern town--and need not have gone to the
war, but felt "as a professional soldier" he ought to go. Three brothers
in the Army--one a little drummer-boy of sixteen, badly wounded in the
retreat from Mons. Her sailor brother had died--probably from exposure, in
the North Sea. The most cheerful, plucky little creature! "We are Army
people, and must expect to fight."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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