The arrangement of the dots in the cell gives not only all the letters of the alphabet, but signs that stand for words and phrases as well.
I began the study of Braille with Miss Gilles, a New Zealand lady, as my instructor, while I was at St. Mark's Hospital. I was first given a wooden box full of holes. Into these holes my teacher showed me how to put nails with large heads, the nails being placed in cells to correspond with the Braille alphabet. After I had succeeded in grasping the principle of Braille by means of the nails—which, by the way, I frequently jabbed into my fingers instead of into the holes—I was given a card with the alphabet on it. At first the dots seemed without form and void; and when I was asked what numbers I felt, I did wish for my eyes, as I was utterly unable to convey to my brain the letter under my fingers. The hardest part of Braille for the beginner is not in getting it into the head, but in getting the fingers to take the place of eyes. But it is only necessary to persevere to get the proper, illuminating "touch" into the finger tips. The men made sightless in the war were in most cases confronted with grave difficulties. Their hands were hardened by toil, and their fingers calloused by work in the trenches. One of my comrades, when given his Braille card, struggled over it for a time, and then exclaimed: "I wish they'd leave this card out in the rain till the dots swelled to the size of door-knobs; then I might be able to read it."
The Braille Room
Before I left St. Mark's I had mastered the first ten letters of the alphabet; but I was soon to learn that if one does not keep at it, "touch" will be lost. After leaving St. Mark's, I spent three idle weeks at Folkestone. As a result, when I arrived at St. Dunstan's I had to begin my Braille all over again. My teacher at St. Dunstan's, Miss Wineberg, proved herself as patient as was Miss Gilles; but patience is a characteristic virtue of all the women who instructed the sightless boys in the Braille Room, and among them were some of the best-known ladies in England, four having titles. These teachers sit for hours making men "stick it," in many cases against their will, until they have mastered the mystery of correctly judging the number and arrangement of dots under the finger tip. The theory of Braille can be grasped in six weeks by the average student; but it takes from four to six months to so cultivate touch as to make the fingers readily take the place of eyes. After the reading of Braille has been mastered, writing it, an even more difficult operation, is taken up. When I had satisfactorily passed my test in both reading and writing, I entered that holy of holies, the Shorthand Room. The four teachers in this room are all blind. Our teacher was Corporal Charles McIntosh, who had lost both his eyes and his right leg while with the Gallipoli Expeditionary Force. I have stated that there are eighty-two signs in Grade II Braille; but Braille shorthand contains six hundred and eighty word and letter signs that have to be committed to memory. A herculean task was before me, but by dogged effort on my part and patience on the part of my instructor, I succeeded so well that in a few weeks I was able to take shorthand notes as speedily as the average sighted stenographer. Meanwhile, I had been diligently at work at my typewriting, and under the kindly instruction of Miss Dorothy Charles Dickens, a granddaughter of the great novelist, I had soon acquired sufficient speed and accuracy to qualify for work.
CHAPTER V
THE SPIRIT OF ST. DUNSTAN's
To give an adequate account of the work done at St. Dunstan's, and of the spirit of the place, it is necessary to touch upon the personnel of the hostel. I have already dwelt at some length on the patient self-sacrifice of the teachers of Braille: the spirit they display animates the entire staff. The work of the V.A.D.'s is beyond praise. Very few of these noble women actually live on the premises; most of them live in annexes provided for them by the St. Dunstan's management. What they do, what they endure, can best be comprehended by following them through a day's work.
They rise at 6 a.m., and after acting as their own housemaids for their sleeping apartments, wend their way to the various houses to which they are assigned. Breakfast hour is at 7 a.m. After this meal, the real work of the day begins. At the Bungalow, where I was staying, the V.A.D.'s ate at three tables; and after each meal two were told off to clear the tables. At 8 o'clock the men had their breakfast, two of the women being given the task of waiting on each table; and as they had to attend to sixteen men, all healthy specimens of humanity, some of whom had been out on the lake since early morning, getting up a voracious appetite, their work was far from light. There was, I might say just here, no shortage of food at St. Dunstan's, not even while the war was on; and we had a lingering suspicion that Sir Arthur had a "pull" with the Food Minister. At any rate, he secured us all we could eat, and of excellent variety; and there were few in London who could say as much after food was rationed. Breakfast over, the Sisters, as they are called, went to the dormitories. Each dormitory held twenty-five beds; and with these and in other ways, they were kept busy until 11.45. The dinner hour was twelve o'clock. After dinner some of the men always went for a row on the lake; and of course, they needed some one to steer the boat. A Sister was called, and she gladly joined the boys. During my entire stay at the Bungalow, I never heard one grumble or complain at these calls on her time and energy. At 2 p.m., the morning Sisters went off duty, and their time was their own until six in the evening, when they again came on, and devoted themselves to the needs of the men until nine o'clock. They were allowed one afternoon a week, which afternoon began at 6 p.m.; and on this day they were on duty until this hour from six in the morning. In addition, they were granted a week-end every three months. These women did their bit during the war—and are still doing it—as truly as did the men at the front. Their work was hard, nerve-racking, and often of a disagreeable kind; and it must be remembered that many of them had never so much as dusted off their own pianos before taking up their duties at St. Dunstan's.