‘Naval character—the close relations between officers and men necessitated by the ship’s life. ‘The men are splendid.’ How good they are to the officers—‘have a cup of coffee, sir, and lie down a bit.’—Splendidly healthy—in spite of the habitually broken sleep. Thursday afternoons (making and mending)—practically the naval half-holiday.
“Talk at tea with Captain and Mrs. Field and Boissier and Commander Goldie. They praise the book, Naval Occasions. No sentiment possible in the Navy—in speech. The life could not be endured often, unless it were jested through. Men meet and part with a laugh—absurdity of sentimental accounts. Life on a destroyer—these young fellows absolute masters—their talk when they come in—‘By Jove, I nearly lost the ship last night—awful sea—I was right on the rocks.’—Their life is always in their hands.”
Writing a week later to “Aunt Fan,” she added one further remark about the Captain of the ship—“so quietly full of care for his men—and so certain, one could see, that Germany would never actually give in without trying something desperate against our fleet.” Little more than three months later, Germany tried her desperate stroke, tried it and lost, but at what a cost to English sailormen! The noble officer who had sat next to Mrs. Ward at luncheon in the Admiral’s flagship, Sir Robert Arbuthnot, went down with his battle-cruiser, while on either side of him occurred the losses which shook, for one terrible day, England’s faith in her fleet. Mrs. Ward wrote on June 6 to Katharine Lyttelton:
“Yes, indeed, Sir Robert Arbuthnot’s cruiser squadron was at Cromarty when I was there, and he sat next me at luncheon on the Flagship. I particularly liked him—one of those modest, efficient naval men whose absolute courage and nerve, no less than their absolute humanity, one would trust in any emergency. I remember Sir Thomas Jerram, on my other side, saying in my ear—‘The man to your right is one of the most rising men in the Navy.’ And the line of cruisers in front of the Dreadnoughts, as I saw them in the February dawn, stretching towards the harbour entrance, will always remain with me.”
Meanwhile the preparations for her journey to France had been pushed forward by “Wellington House,” so that only four days after her return from Invergordon all was ready for her departure for Le Havre. She went (this time with Dorothy) as the guest of the Foreign Office, recommended by them to the good offices of the Army. She was first to be given some idea of the vast organization of the Base at Le Havre, and then sent on by motor to Rouen, Abbeville, Étaples and Boulogne. A programme representing almost every branch of the unending activities of the “Back of the Army” had been worked out for her, but she was warned that she could not be allowed to enter the “War Zone.” Once in France, however, it was not long before this prohibition broke down, though not through any importunity of hers.
The marvellous spectacle unrolled itself before her, quietly and methodically, while her guides expounded to her the meaning of what she saw and the bearing of every movement at the Base upon the lives of the men in the front line. General Asser himself, commanding at Le Havre, devoted a whole afternoon to taking her through the docks and store-sheds of the port, “so that one had a dim idea,” as she wrote to her husband, “of the amazing organization that has sprung up here. It explains a good deal, too, of the five millions a day!” But as a matter of fact, the thing which impressed her most at Le Havre was the ‘make-over department,’ where all the rubbish brought down from the Front, from bully-beef tins to broken boots, was collected together and boiled down (metaphorically speaking) into something useful, so that many thousands a week were thus saved to the taxpayer at home. “All the creation of Colonel Davies, who has saved the Government thousands and thousands of pounds. Such a thing has never been done before!” Similarly, at Rouen (whither she drove on February 26—fifty miles—through blinding snow) she was fascinated by the motor-transport department—“the biggest thing of its kind in France—the creation of one man, Colonel Barnes, who started with ‘two balls of string and a packet of nails,’ and is now dealing with 40,000 vehicles.”
Another snowy and Arctic drive from Rouen to Dieppe, and on to Abbeville, where a wonderful piece of news awaited them.
To T. H. W.
“February 29, 1916.
...“After lunch Colonel Schofield [their guide] went out to find the British Headquarters and report. Dorothy and I went up to the cathedral, and on emerging from it met the Colonel with another officer, who introduced himself as Colonel Dalrymple White, M.P. ‘I have news for you, Mrs. Ward, which I think will change your plans!’ I looked at him rather aghast, wondering if I was to be suddenly sent home! ‘There is an invitation for you from G.H.Q., and we have been telephoning about, trying to find you. Great luck that Colonel Schofield looked in just now.’ Whereupon it appeared that ‘by the wish of the Foreign Office,’ G.H.Q. had invited me for two days, and that an officer would call for me at Boulogne on Wednesday morning, and take me to the place which no one here mentions but with bated breath, and which I will not write! [St. Omer.] I was naturally thrilled, but I confess I am in terror of being in their way, and also of not being able to write anything the least adequate to such an opportunity. However it could not of course be refused.”