This is rather a curious place, and the climate is quite good; no snow, and a good deal of pleasant sun, but the hills all round are very bare and rugged.
I have had a cough, which I think equals your best efforts in that line.
How it does shake one up! I had some queer travelling when it was at its worst: for the first night we were given a shakedown in a little mountain hospital, which was fearfully cold; and the next night I was put into a newly-built little place, made of planks roughly nailed together, and with just a bed and a basin in it.
The cold was wonderful, and since then--as you may imagine--the Macnaughtan cough has been heard in the land!
[Page Heading: GRAND DUKE NICHOLAS]
Yesterday (Christmas Day) we were invited to breakfast with the Grand Duke Nicholas. A Court function in Russia is the most royal that you can imagine--no half measures about it! The Grand Duke is an adorably handsome man, quite extraordinarily and obviously a Grand Duke. He measures 6 feet 5 inches, and is worshipped by every soldier in the Army.
We went first into a huge anteroom, where a lady-in-waiting received us, and presented us to "Son Altesse Imperiale," and then to the Grand Duke and to his brother, the Grand Duke Peter. Some scenes seem to move as in a play. I had a vision of a great polished floor, and many tall men in Cossack dress, with daggers and swords, most of them different grades of Princes and Imperial Highnesses.
A great party of Generals, and ladies, and members of the Household, then went into a big dining-room, where every imaginable hors d"oeuvre was laid out on dishes--dozens of different kinds--and we each ate caviare or something. Afterwards, with a great tramp and clank of spurs and swords, everyone moved on to a larger dining-room, where there were a lot of servants, who waited excellently.
In the middle of the dejeuner the Grand Duke Nicholas got up, and everyone else did the same, and they toasted us! The Grand Duke made a speech about our "gallantry," etc., etc., and everyone raised gla.s.ses and bowed to one. Nothing in a play could have been more of a real fine sort of scene. And certainly S. Macnaughtan in her wildest dreams hadn"t thought of anything so wonderful as being toasted in Russia by the Imperial Staff.
It"s quite a thing to be tiresome about when one grows old!
In the evening we tried to be merry, and failed. The Grand d.u.c.h.ess sent us mistletoe and plum-pudding by the hand of M. Boulderoff. He took us shopping, but the bazaars are not interesting.
Good-bye, and bless you, my dear, Yours as ever, S. MACNAUGHTAN.
_To Miss Julia Keays-Young._
HOTEL D"ORIENT, TIFLIS, CAUCASUS, RUSSIA, _27 December._
DARLING JENNY,
I can"t tell you what a pleasure your letters are. I only wish I could get some more from anybody, but not a line gets through! I want so much to hear about Bet and her marriage, and to know if the nephews and Charles are safe.
There seems to be the usual winter pause over the greater part of the war area, but round about here, there are the most awful ma.s.sacres; 550,000 Armenians have been slaughtered in cold blood by the Turks, and with cruelties that pa.s.s all telling. One is quite impotent.
I expect to be sent into Persia soon, and meanwhile I hope to join some American missionaries who are helping the refugees. Our ambulances are at last out of the ice at Archangel, and will be here in a fortnight; but we are not to go to Persia for a month. "The Front" is always altering, and we never have any idea where our work will be wanted.
[Page Heading: HOMESICK]
We are still asking when the war will end, but, of course, no one knows.
One gets pretty homesick out here at times, and there was a chance I might have to go back to England for equipment, but that seems off at present.
Your always loving A. S.
_29 December._--I have still got a horrid bad cough, and my big, dull room is depressing. We are all depressed, I am afraid. Being accustomed to have plenty to do, this long wait is maddening.
Whatever Russia may have in store for us in the way of useful work, nothing can exceed the boredom of our first seven weeks here. We are just spoiling for work. I believe it is as bad as an illness to feel like this, and we won"t be normal again for some time. Oddly enough, it does affect one"s health, and Hilda Wynne and I are both seedy. We are always trying to wire for things, but not a word gets through.
We were summoned to dine at the palace last night. Everyone very charming.
_31 December._.--Prince Murat came to dine and play bridge. Count Groholski turned up for a few days. My doctor vetted me for my cold.
Business done--none. No sailor ever longed for port as I do for home.
CHAPTER III
SOME IMPRESSIONS OF TIFLIS AND ARMENIA
_Tiflis. 1 January, 1916._--Kind wishes from the Grand Duke and everybody. Not such an aimless day as usual. I got into a new sitting-room and put it straight, and in the evening we went to Prince Orloff"s box for a performance of "Carmen." It was very Russian and wealthy. At the back of the box were two anterooms, where we sat and talked between the acts, and where tea, chocolates, etc., were served.
They say the Prince has 200,000 a year. He is gigantically fat, with a real Cossack face.
Scandal is so rife here that it hardly seems to mean scandal. They don"t appear to be so much immoral as non-moral. Everyone sits up late; then most of them, I am told, get drunk, and then the evening orgies begin.
No one is ostracised, everyone is called upon and "known" whatever they have done. I suppose English respectability would simply make them smile--if, indeed, they believed in it.
_2 January._--I don"t suppose I shall ever write an article on war charities, but I believe I ought to. A good many facts about them have come my way, and I consider that the public at home should be told how the finances are being administered.
I know of one hospital in Russia which has, I believe, cost England 100,000. The staff consists of nurses and doctors, dressers, etc., all fully paid. The expenses of those in charge of it are met out of the funds. They live in good hotels, and have "entertaining allowances" for entertaining their friends, and yet one of them herself volunteered the information that the hospital is not required. The staff arrived weeks ago, but not the stores. Probably the building won"t be opened for some time to come, and when it is opened there will be difficulty in getting patients to fill it.
In many parts of Russia hospitals are _not_ wanted. In Petrograd there are five hundred of them run by Russians alone.
Then there is a fund for relief of the Poles, which is administered by Princess ----. The ambulance-car which the fund possesses is used by the Princess to take her to the theatre every night.
A great deal of money has been subscribed for the benefit of the Armenians. Who knows how much this has cost the givers? yet the distribution of this large sum seems to be conducted on most haphazard lines. An open letter arrived the other day for the Mayor of Tiflis.
There is no Mayor of Tiflis, so the letter was brought to Major ----. It said: "Have you received two cheques already sent? We have had no acknowledgment." There seems to be no check on the expenditure, and there is no local organisation for dispensing the relief. I don"t say that it is cheating: I only say as much as I know.
[Page Heading: ILL-BESTOWED CHARITY]
A number of motor-ambulances were sent to Russia by some generous people in England the other day. They were inspected by Royalty before being despatched, and arrived in the care of Mr. ----. When their engines were examined it was found that they were tied together with bits of copper-wire, and even with string. None of them could be made to go, and they were returned to England.
We are desperately hard up at home just now, and we are denying ourselves in order to send these charitable contributions to the richest country in the world. Gorlebeff himself (head of the Russian Red Cross Society) has 30,000 a year. Armenians are literally rolling in money, and it is common to find Armenian ladies buying hats at 250 Rs. (25) in Tiflis. The Poles are not ruined, nor do they seem to object to German rule, which is doing more for them than Russia ever did. Tiflis people are now sending money for relief to Mesopotamia. Of the 300,000 Rs. sent by England, 70,000 Rs. have stuck to someone"s fingers.
In Flanders there were many people living in comfort such as they had probably never seen before, at the expense of the charitable public, and doing very little indeed all the time: cars to go about in, chauffeurs at their disposal, petrol without stint, and even their clothes (called uniforms for the nonce!) paid for.
And the little half-crowns that come in to run these shows, "how hardly they are earned sometimes! with what sacrifices they are given!" A man in Flanders said to me one day: "We could lie down and roll in tobacco, and we all help ourselves to every blooming thing we want; and here is a note I found in a poor little parcel of things to-night: "We are so sorry not to be able to send more, but money is very scarce this week.""
My own cousin brought four cars over to France, and he told me he was simply an unpaid chauffeur at the command of young officers coming in to shop at Dunkirk.
I am thankful to say that Mrs. Wynne and Mr. Bevan and I have paid our own expenses ever since the war began, and given things too. And I think a good many of our own corps in Flanders used to contribute liberally and pay for all they had. People here tell us that their cars have all been commandeered, and they are used for the wives of Generals, who never had entered one before, and who proudly do their shopping in them.
War must be a military matter, and these things must end, unless money is to find its way into the possession of the vultures who are always at hand when there is any carcase about.
_5 January._--Absolutely nothing to write about. I saw Gorlebeff, Domerchekoff, and Count Tysczkievcz{10} of the Croix Rouge about my plans. They suggest my going to Urumiyah in Persia, where workers seem to be needed. The only other opening seems to be to go to Count Groholski"s new little hospital on the top of the mountains. Mr. Hills, the American missionary, wants me first to go with him to see the Armenian refugees at Erivan, but we can"t get transports for his gifts of clothing for them.
[Page Heading: A PRESENTIMENT]