Anywhere in France—Paris excepted—seems to be "the Front," and no one who has not been privileged to peep behind the scenes seems to realise the gap that intervenes between the fighting line and the back of the Front, as one might call the Base.
And one is introduced to a strange medley of people, all "going to the Front."
Not only veteran soldiers and raw recruits and nurses, but charming women of leisure who contemplate migrating with their retinue somewhere abroad and earning fame "at a canteen or anything that is wanted—just behind the lines!"
Now, although I can claim to have worked longer at our Base than any other British woman (with one exception), to have withstood the inclemency of its climate and its laws successfully for eight consecutive months, and might therefore pretend to be an authority as to where it really is, not a single friend have I succeeded in convincing that I am not a true heroine—risking my life daily with shells bursting all around and the Huns a few yards away. What they want are descriptions of weeping gas victims and death-bed scenes (that in reality are far better forgotten—if it is possible) and incidents such as a youthful convalescent sapper confided to me recently—of the man who, though his head was blown clean off at midday, was found to be convulsively clawing the earth with fingers that seemed yet alive at sundown!
For such yarns there seems to be a great demand, and if I told them that heroism at the Base consisted of maintaining continual cheerfulness in face of odds like bursting boilers which, for want of men, cannot be repaired; if I hinted at the dullness of buttering endless loaves, of wheedling Primus stoves into working order, of changing French money for English at a varying rate of exchange, of living amongst a strange, heterogeneous crowd of people, far away from one's own friends, and stifling longings for one's lares et penates, of the dreadful monotony and various other details of barmaiding, amateur and otherwise, I should not be believed.
Therefore, with many a wiser, I seek shelter behind a discreet silence, except when the insistence of the "Do-tell-me-all-about-it! Have-you-seen-lots-of-horrors?" girl elicits an ironical reply to the effect that most of our time is spent in champagne lunches and moonlight picnics.
June 12th. I must not omit to note the very interesting meeting with Mr. Henry James—the American author—who has so enthusiastically cast in his lot with the Allies. It was at a tea at the American Embassy. On being introduced, having heard of our work in France, he made no secret of his views.
"You young people are wonderful. You are achieving what no other generation could ever, will ever, achieve! After all, this is a young people's war!"
I went home with a heart throbbing with pride at belonging to a generation that, swept by the great driving spirit (maybe something analogous to Maeterlinck's "Spirit of the Hive") from little ruts in life into the great vortex of war, has already proved its metal.
Over and over again one is struck by the extraordinary altruism that is displayed by those taking part in what, after all, is but a tremendous life-and-death struggle.