The Other Anzacs (54 page)
The war news continued to improve. Bulgaria asked for peace, and the Allies launched a major advance at Cambrai. It and St Quentin were soon in their hands, clearing the way for yet more towns and villages to be wrested from the Germans. The British took Lille, and Belgian troops with their King and Queen, entered Ostend just two hours after the Germans had retreated. Bruges followed, as the Allies advanced rapidly. Syd wrote to say that his battalion had taken more prisoners than it had men. As Germany, Austria and Turkey sought peace talks in October, Syd was sent to England for military training.
The workload at the Senlis hospital wound down, and at the end of October, twenty lorries came at daybreak to move the hospital to Laon, an old fortress city thirty-six kilometres southeast of St Quentin. With time on their hands, Elsie and Fraser Thompson travelled to Paris, exultation building as the end of the war loomed. They had their hair done, lunched at Au Printemps, had clothes made, and visited Montmartre. They returned to the hospital at Laon via Soissons, 100 kilometres northeast of Paris.
Here the town was literally levelled to the ground, the houses just one heap of stones, streets neatly cleaned up and debris thrown back from the roadside. The lovely cathedral was just a shell—a great gaping hole torn in the roof, nearly all its walls blown out, just a tall graceful column left standing here and there, and a piece of a beautiful braced Gothic window frame. We sat in the ruins of the Cathedral to have lunch. Then set off to get on the road to Laon.
5
They passed the Chemin des Dames battlefield, where the French Army had been broken in April 1917 in the Second Battle of the Aisne, which cost 187, 000 casualties and sparked mutiny among the troops. Fighting on the historic battlefield had erupted again between August and October 1918.
It was indescribable, just one mass of heaving tortured earth, shell holes and mine craters of enormous size, old trenches and dugouts, blown up roadways. One could only recognise where a village had once stood by the white coloured dust and brick dust and small pieces of ironwork. For miles this expanse of awful ruin and shell torn earth stretched, thickly interspersed by graves—German and French, a helmet to mark the nationality from afar. The road we travelled over was very bad, still broken up at frequent intervals by shell holes and craters, some mines were still going up that day.
6
She and Fraser were not at the Laon hospital for long. After just two days, they said their final goodbyes and set out for Paris, on their way to London. There Syd met Elsie and took her back to the military town of Aldershot, where he was based. Soon they heard the news that had taken four years to come.
The war was over.
It was time to celebrate. Some found it hard to do so. Not so Elsie Cook. She recorded the sheer joy and excitement of 11 November 1918:
Armistice Day!!
About 11.15 am bells began to ring, and sirens blow—the news that the Germans had accepted and signed our armistice terms— great excitement. Syd and I sallied forth, people began to hang out flags and bunting, the aeroplanes from the aerodrome opposite arose and circled and dived and made merry in air. We went to the mess where Syd learnt that he had four days leave, so we decided to rush off to London—packed hastily and caught the midday train to Charing Cross. Found London in a state of great rejoicing and merry making. Processions, in which Australians seemed to be taking a leading part, were in full swing along the Strand—we couldn’t move, only by inches, finally arrived at the Savoy, where the gaiety was in high form—found the Pater [Sir Joseph, who had been appointed High Commissioner] out, couldn’t get any lunch, sat in his sitting room awhile—went over to the Strand Palace, where Syd had managed to reserve a table in the grillroom. Had a very nice dinner, celebrated the great occasion by a bottle of fizz. Couldn’t get a room in town anywhere, so went out to Golders Green and stayed with [friends].
After dinner we went over to the Savoy where a fearful din was going on—dancing in full swing—lots of crockery smashed, officers playing tug’o’war with the tablecloths—others raided the kitchen and returned wearing the cook’s caps and aprons, cake baskets on their heads a la helmets. We had quite a good dance in the ballroom in spite of the fact that the orchestra would only play one steps and fox trots.
7
The couple continued their celebrations over the next few weeks, often accompanied by Sir Joseph, with dinner at the Strand Palace, lunch at the Savoy Hotel, where he was staying, and visits to the theatre. Elsie bought some long evening gloves ‘at a ridiculous price’, and with Syd attended a dance at the Grafton Galleries. Fraser and her husband, Nubby, were there, too. That night they ‘slept the sleep of the just’.
At Harefield Park, Anne Donnell heard the guns go off at midday to mark the Armistice. ‘Sister, the Kaiser has chucked his job and the war’s over, ’ one of her patients told her, waving a copy of the
Daily Mail
.
8
For Anne, the news that the war was over seemed almost too much for words.
There is a certain amount of quiet excitement with most of us. Some are overjoyed and I wish I could feel as they do, but I am terribly depressed. When I went over to the home for morning tea the Sisters seemed very happy and excited and anticipating pleasure and freedom once more. It’s wonderful, really but I can’t take in all that it means. I think of the gladness, then follows the sadness, and in the gladness I am saddest because I think of those who have lost, the mothers at home whose sunny boys are not going back to make them glad.
9
The signing of the Armistice buoyed human spirits that had hung on grimly, trying merely to survive until victory was achieved. Now it was here, and few could hold back their exhilaration. In London, Anne saw people doing ‘the maddest things . . . Two or three of our Sisters stood up on a table in one of the crowded restaurants and coo-eed, and the coo-ees that followed from the Aussies around just deafened everything else for awhile. They repeated it again in the centre of Piccadilly Circus, and had great fun.’
10
Two other sisters saw a ‘big tall Aussie without any teeth who said, “Here I am, the war’s over and not any of the girls kissing me.”’
In Paris, crowds massed on the Champs-Elysées and the Place de la Concorde, climbing over captured German guns and cheering, dancing and singing as the
Marseillaise
and
God Save the King
rang out. Flags were everywhere. Men climbed on rooftops, aviators performed stunts, and the city erupted in wild celebrations.
In Boulogne, South Australian Sister Dora Birks watched the patients’ instant joy. ‘I was on duty on the morning of the peace day when a tall American boy, a convalescent patient, managed to get his boots, which were usually hidden, and he danced down the ward in his big heavy boots, ’ Dora recalled.
11
That afternoon she walked into Boulogne, where the streets were crammed with people singing and dancing and holding hands. At night the hospital staff celebrated with ‘a joyful evening meal, everybody talking hard’. For Elsie Tranter, the celebrations were muted.
Church bells pealed, bugles were blown, guns boomed and France went mad with joy. Pourquoi? The joy of the people was beyond bounds. Little children and adults dance in the streets. Flags were flying from all the windows; adults kissing everyone, first one cheek, then the other.
Sunny Jim [a patient] finished his battle towards evening. He was barely eighteen years of age [when he died]. We were so fond of him, we did not feel able to enter fully into the Armistice.
12
Several unnamed New Zealand sisters wrote to
Kai Tiaki
describing exultant scenes. One wrote:
London was crazy with joy. Some New Zealand company Engineers were seen with Union Jacks down each side of their trousers, cowboy fashion, and the French flag round their waists. They wended their way happily, but slightly unsteadily, down the centre of the streets, not hurrying or moving for any one, and the traffic was held up for them several times.
13
There were bonfires in Trafalgar Square, which, like the Strand, was a seething mass of people. ‘Folks dancing on the footpaths, singing, shouting, waving flags; loaded lorries and motor cars going up and down the crowded thoroughfares laden with excited creatures, half mad . . . The officers were as bad as the men.’
14
Fanny Speedy had been about to go to France, but an accident had prevented her. The Wellington matron was recovering at the sisters’ convalescent hospital at Brighton when the war ended. ‘The bells rang at 11 a.m. and soon we knew that the Armistice had been signed. The streets are thronged here and flags and bunting in all directions with shouting and singing . . . The whole thing seems too big to realise and too sad to understand.’
15
At the New Zealand Stationary Hospital at Wisques, near Calais, the end of the war brought a heartfelt letter to Matron Eva Brooke from two French officers on behalf of the French patients.
Dear Matron,
Will you please accept on behalf of yourself and the Nursing Staff, our very respectful thanks for the excellent reception shown to us, and for the perfect care which we have received in your fine hospital. We have met with every kindness and attention from all with whom we have come in contact; you have all seemed to know just exactly what we required, and your sympathy is appreciated very much.
We all carry away with us to our various homes many happy remembrances of our stay with you at a time when the great day of victory arrived to the cause of the Allies.
We trust that you may soon return to your far distant New Zealand, which, through your kindness, has become very dear to us, and we wish to carry to your dominion our kind thoughts and well wishes.
16
At No. 1 Australian General Hospital, Rouen, the announcement of the Armistice etched itself into Annie Shadforth’s memory. ‘It was delightful to see the dear old boys who had not taken any interest in anything in weeks, buck up and become enthusiastic once again, ’ she recalled.
17
Alice Ross King was also at No. 1. She had come to believe that the war was not going to end, and had been depressed and frightened. But Armistice Day restored her spirits. It was ‘a wonderful day’, she wrote.
People were dancing in the street. Just a skeleton staff in the wards. John Prior and Blue came out for me to see the town. One very drunk Australian soldier came up to me leading a white draught horse he had pinched from a Frenchie’s cart. It had a red collar on it. He said, ‘Here you are Sister, I won’t want this horse again. I’m going back to Australia.’ I said, ‘Is it your horse?’ He said, ‘No! But you can have it.’ And I was left with a horse!
18
In Salonika, Ada Willis captured the scene for her family back home in Crookwell. ‘Tonight there is more noise than usual, people cheering here and there, a bagpipe skirling over the back somewhere, some of the girls having some music and singing and unofficial dancing over in the sitting room and every now and then roars from the orderlies quarters where there is a whist drive in progress.’
19
Syd Cook returned to camp at Aldershot after the celebrations and, farewelling him at Charing Cross Station, Elsie was struck by the difference. Now that the war was over she could acknowledge something to herself that she had been loath to admit before. ‘Not so bad seeing him off now, not the feeling that I mightn’t be seeing him any more, which makes all the difference.’
20
Elsie and Fraser wanted to return to France. They arrived in Paris on New Year’s Eve. That night, Elsie wrote her last diary entry for the war. ‘And so endeth another year, but now it is really the last year of the war—the fifth New Year’s Eve, in which I have kept my diary, and in which I have wondered if it were really the last year of war.’ She and Syd had made it through.
War forever changed the lives of the nurses and troops who were part of it. Youthful exuberance at the chance of a Great Adventure was sobered by the experience. In 1919, General Sir Douglas Haig wrote of the nurses’ contribution in the First World War, noting particularly the part played by those who served with the British armies in France. He thanked sisters from Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa and the United States for ‘cheerfully enduring fatigue in times of stress and gallantly facing danger and death’.
1
Few thanked Haig: his military leadership had seen too many unnecessary deaths, and too many men hospitalised and maimed.