The Sword of Deborah: First-hand impressions of the British Women's Army in France

by F. Tennyson Jesse

I was often depressed, the wherefore of which you will see, but bored, never. Thrilled, ashamed for oneself that one does so little—admiring, critical, amused, depressed, elated, all this gamut and its gradations were touched, but the string of boredom, never. And the only thing that worries anyone sent on such a quest as mine, and with the inevitable message to deliver at the end of it, is that terrible feeling that no matter how really one feels enthusiasm, how genuine one's conversion, there will always be the murmur of—"Oh, yes.... Of course she has to say all that ... it's all part of the propaganda. She was sent to do it and she has to do it, whether she really believes in it or not...."

What can one say? I can only tell you, O Superior Person, that no matter what I had been sent to do and told to write I not only wouldn't but couldn't have, unless I meant it. I can only tell you so, I can't make you believe it. But let me also assure you that I too am—or shall I say was?—Superior, that I too have laughed the laugh of sophistication at enthusiasm, that I too know enough to consider vehemence amusing and strenuous effort ill-bred, that doubtless I shall do so again. But there is one thing that seems to me more ill-bred, and that is lack of appreciation of those who are doing better than oneself.

Lest you should misunderstand me when I say that I didn't want to go to France this time, and feared boredom, and felt no particular interest in the work of the women over there, let me add that I was careful to sponge my mind free of all preconceived notions, either for or against, when once it was settled that I should go. I went without enthusiasm, it is true, but at least I went with a mind rigorously swept and garnished, so that there might enter into it visitants of either kind, angelic or otherwise.

For this has always seemed to me in common honesty a necessary part of equipment to anyone going on a special mission, charged with finding out things as they are—to be free not only of prejudice against, but predisposition for; and just as a juryman, when he is empanelled, should try and sweep his mind bare of everything he has heard about the case before, so should the Special Missioner—to coin a most horrible phrase—make his mind at once blank and sensitised, like a photographic plate, for events to strike as truly as they may, with as little help or hindrance from former knowledge as possible.

Human nature being what it is, it is probably almost impossible for the original attitude to be completely erased, however conscientious one is, and that is why I am glad that my former attitude was, if not inimical, at least very unenthusiastic, so that I am clear of the charge of seeing things as I or the authorities might have wished me to see them.

And, for the first few days, as always when the mind is plunged headlong into a new world, though I saw facts, listened to them, was impressed, very impressed, by their outward show, it still remained outward show, the soul that informed the whole evaded me, and for many days I saw things that I only understood later in view of subsequent knowledge, when I could look back and see more clearly with the mind's eye what I before had seen with the physical. Yet even the first evening I saw something which, though only dimly, showed me a hint of the spirit of the whole.

I was at the Headquarters of the British Red Cross—which is what the letters H.Q.B.R.C.S. stand for—and I was being shown some very peculiar and wonderful charts. They are secret charts, the figures on which, if a man is shown them, he must never disclose, and those figures, when you read them, bring a contraction at once of pity and of pride to the heart. For, on these great charts, that are mapped out into squares and look exactly like temperature charts at a hospital, are drawn curves, like the curves that show the fever of a patient. Up in jagged mountains, down into merciful valleys, goes the line, and at every point there is a number, and that number is the number of the wounded who were brought down from the trenches on such a day. Here, on these charts, is a complete record, in curves, of the rate of the war. Every peak is an offensive, every valley a comparative lull.

Sheet after sheet, all with those carefully-drawn numbered curves zigzagging across them, all showing the very temperature of War....

With this difference—that on these sheets there is no "normal." War is abnormal, and there is not a point of these charts where, when the line touches it, you can say—"It is well."

As I looked at these records I began to get a different vision of that tract of country called "Lines of Communication" which I had come to see. This, where War's very pulse was noted day by day, was the stronghold of War himself. Here he is nursed, rested, fed with food for the mouths of flesh and blood, and food for the mouths of iron; here, the whole time, night and day, as ceaselessly as in the trenches, the work goes on, the work of strengthening his hands, and so every man and woman working for that end in "L. of C." is fighting on our side most surely. Something of the hugeness and the importance of it began to show itself.