Nelka Part 8

Kovno 1914.

"We followed the next day with a dog and a cat. Veta, Max and I with all the baggage, a parrot 'Tommy' and two small birds in separate cages. I tried to look out for all three and froze my fingers off holding one cage and another that I wrapped up in my shawl. And so we started off in immediate danger of upsetting every minute. A day or two before the sleigh with Veta and Max and her sister-in-law and the driver upset completely in a ditch, horse on his back and toes in the air."

"Max's examinations were to be in two days so of course we tried to beat him into a cold corner to study in the midst of the confusion."

"Of course I took a sympathetic part in all this and did my share by scolding Max almost unremittantly from morning till night. He is a very bright and attractive boy, but easy going."

(Exactly four years later Nelka married the "easy going boy.")

Kovno 1914.

"I would give anything to spend a few hours with you and see how you are and have a nice talk. You don't know how much I realize what a rock you are of effective support and comprehension."

(Nelka never again saw her aunt who died in 1916 while Nelka was at the front.)

Kovno 1914.

"I ought never to move from Cazenovia if I had any character. I shall have learned a lot of things when I die--and all for what?"

Kovno 1914.

"I suppose I shall die a hopeless procrastinator but if I make small progress I also have no peace. It torments me dreadfully to have things undone. I wish I had pa.s.sed beyond this world, in my soul."

Kovno 1914.

"I realize tremendously how an inst.i.tution of this kind depends on the managing head. So much has to be looked after and such constant questions come up that no system or plan suffices by itself. It is very hard to get things done quickly without being somewhat impetuous and one cannot preserve control over everything without a great deal of calm. I think more than ever that inst.i.tutional life is perfectly anti-human. It cannot be run without a certain amount of injustice--that is the innocent suffering for the guilty, that is if one attempts to have rules. It would be far more just to have no rules and exact of each one according to my own judgment.

I think that regulations are only made in support of idiotic administrations."

Kovno 1914.

"Max wrote me such a nice, vivid letter."

"Politics are certainly very interesting now. I feel dreadfully sorry for Servia and I hope if there is war with Austria that the last Servian will die on the battlefield."

In May, June and early July of 1914, Nelka was writing to her Aunt Susie about her plans of returning to America. Finally she had made arrangements to sail the first week of August. But then the war broke out and she never got off.

Kovno 1914.

"I have written to the Russian Line and got special permission to sail from Copenhagen. If nothing unforeseen happens, I will leave here on the 4th of August for Stockholm. I had hardly finished this when the town was put under martial law. Everything is upside down.

The inhabitants are all ordered to leave. The bank is packing up, people streaming all day there. Everyone ordered off the streets at night. The streets are occupied with soldiers and cannons moving to the front, and the aspect seems serious. No one can tell anything. I have already signed a paper not to leave without the permission of the fort. If we have war I am ready to stay to the end. I have the greatest sympathy for Servia and would like to work in the Red Cross there if not here. I shall try to write you again before being shut up for good, if the town is besieged. We are only a few hours from the frontier."

Kovno 1914.

"Since last night the town is under martial law. Everything is upside down. Cannons hustling to the front. Cavalry going off. All the inhabitants are ordered to leave. We are in the very seat of war. If we have war I am ready to stay to the end if need be. I only hope you won't feel too terribly uneasy. The lack of communications will be the worst. I feel great sympathy for Servia and hope this war will help them. All the big buildings are to be turned into hospitals. The new bank will be splendid--tile floors and water. It can hold at least a thousand, I think. All kinds of specimens are turning up to be enrolled as sisters, but I am relentless and shall take no adventuresses if I can help it."

Kovno 1914.

"I am glad it is for Servia, but O what a horror. I had none of this impression at Adrianople--the panic of a whole town before the war.

Mobilization was begun last night, but the inhabitants were ordered to leave six days ago. I cannot describe it. It is just everything that one has ever read about war and a great deal besides. I am glad I have a good lot of sisters. I hope they will all do their duty.

Communication will be cut off any minute. I shall be so anxious about my family if we are shut up for long. Well, goodbye. I pray for the best. One must be ready for anything."

Kovno 1914.

"Everything is cut off from Europe and I am dreadfully worried and unhappy to have no news from you and all the family. The whole fortress was put in a state of defense in no time, and the whole town has been ordered out from one station. You can't imagine the scenes.

Prince Wasilchikoff has helped me very much in the place of his wife who had to go to Petersburg, and now he is going to join his regiment. I hope he can take this letter to send through Sweden. My consolation is that the war was started in behalf of Servia--it alleviates the horror of all that is going on. Prince Wasilchikoff came in for a moment and said that the political situation was very good and that England has declared war. Everyone is going to the war with enthusiasm. Don't worry too much. This section of the Army will not give in till the last. The Commander Grigorieff is splendid and General Rennenkamph is a real fighting man. I have 56 sisters ready in Kovno. My heart and head are full of anxiety and love for you, for you all. I may be able to get letters to you still, but if not, look out for Tibi's little grave whatever happens."

The absorbing work in Kovno, the excitement and the patriotic fervor were all beneficial to Nelka's state of mind in that it took it off her constant thinking about the death of her little dog.

While Nelka had her own sisters and hospital, the Army decided to consolidate the services under their jurisdiction and turned their own Army sisters over to Nelka and she found herself at the head of some 300 sisters. This was a large complicated administrative job but she handled it with great efficiency. Most of the time the fortress was under fire and it soon became obvious that it would not hold out.

The commanding general did not prove to be as good and efficient as Nelka supposed and he also lost his nerve. Under the increasing pressure of the Germans, he ordered the complete evacuation of the fortress, of the troops and material, while this was still possible.

However, this was accomplished in a very poor manner and the commander himself left the fortress 17 hours before Nelka did. He also lost a great deal of his equipment.

Nelka in turn completed a full evacuation of her whole hospital and saved all of her material. Everything in the hospital building which could not be moved was destroyed and she went even that far to have all bra.s.s k.n.o.bs removed from the doors and thrown into the river so that the Germans would not get the metal.

So Kovno fell, but the war went on and Nelka's hospital was reestablished some 40 or 50 miles to the rear as a rear unit taking care of the evacuated wounded. They were settled in a large agricultural school building in very fine surroundings. I managed to visit Nelka at that hospital for a few days.

Soon, however, the fighting resumed and the Germans resumed their advance. The hospital once again had to be moved. At that moment Nelka came down with a very severe case of scarlet fever. The doctor said that she could not be moved, just as the hospital was getting under way. The head doctor had her arranged in bed in a tent, leaving her one nurse. At the last moment when leaving, he slipped a revolver under her pillow! But Nelka recovered. The Germans did not reach that point and ultimately she was able to rejoin her unit.

Soon after that she was sent to the rear to a town called Novgorod, to organize a new unit. There she spent most of the winter and once again I managed to visit her there, as it was not very far from Petersburg.

All during the war, at different intervals, Nelka came back to Petersburg, mostly for just a few days and because of some business for her hospital or unit. Each time when she came to Petersburg she stayed at my mother's and thus I was able to see her occasionally.

The impression she had made on me when I first saw her as a small boy never changed. The only difference was that growing up I came more and more under her spell and was more and more deeply attached and devoted to her. I was then 17 years old and very much in love with her. But she was fully grown and I was but a boy yet, so that any hopes would seem rather futile for me. Futile because of the difference of age and because I could hardly expect that she could be interested in me. Also because of her great charm and personality she always had great success with men everywhere and it was more than possible that some fortunate man would be able to win her.

Both in Russia and in America and also while she was in Bulgaria and in Paris she had a great number of admirers and had over thirty proposals from men of different nationalities. She even had a j.a.panese suitor. But she never was interested in any of these suitors and once told my mother that she would never marry unless she had a complete and all consuming feeling for the man she chose.

But for the moment the war was on and everyone had other thoughts and jobs on hand than romance.

But I was growing up and so was my feelings for her. Every time Nelka would come to Petersburg, I would see her off to the train, taking her back to the front. On one such an occasion I gave her a box of white cream caramels. It was nothing, but for some reason or other it touched her very much and she always said that to her it was measure of my devotion.

On these departures to the front, she was always in a hurry--having so much to do and attend to. On these occasions the determination of her character manifested itself at different times. Once she failed to secure the necessary permit to board a train going to the front--there just wasn't the time for it. At the entrance to the platforms armed guards stood and one had to show one's pa.s.s to get through. I warned Nelka that she probably would have trouble, but she said there was no time for this now and that she would find a way to get through. Of course we arrived just about the time the train was pulling out and dashed towards the platform. A soldier stood at the entrance with his rifle and when Nelka plunged headlong towards him, he thrust his rifle horizontally in front of her to stop her. Without a moments hesitation she ducked low and slipped under the extended rifle, and was on the moving train before the sentry knew what it was all about!

On another occasion we arrived at the station just a little too late, even though she had her pa.s.s. When we dashed out on the platform we just could see the two receding red lights of the departing train. To this day I do not know what happened, but Nelka raised such fireworks that that train backed into the station. Nelka got on and the train pulled out again!

I have often said that it took courage to be in love with a woman of such determination!

After her winter in Novgorod, Nelka decided to form and organize a unit of her own to serve with the cavalry. She proceeded to raise the necessary money and to select the personnel. As the head of the unit she chose my uncle, my mother's brother, and as a.s.sistant a friend of his. She also chose some of the doctors she knew in Kovno as well as some of the sisters. The regular men orderlies and the horses were being supplied by the Red Cross. This unit was attached to the First Guard Cavalry Division. The doctors, the orderlies, the nurses were all on horseback; the stretchers for the wounded likewise were on long poles between two horses. When the whole unit was strung out Indian file it was a very long unit.

Once attached to the Cavalry Division, the unit moved right along with it. Often this was very rough going. Often they would be called out at night, had to saddle and be on the move. Nelka rode a horse named 'Vive la France.' If they were to move any distance they were loaded into trains. She always remembered a dark autumn night unloading the horses from the train in the dark, in the woods, and right next to the position of artillery batteries, firing steadily--the difficulty of controlling and trying to keep the horses reasonably quiet. She had a great deal of trouble with her frightened horse, trembling and scared, because of the noise and flas.h.i.+ng guns.

The fighting was going on a short distance ahead and hardly had they unloaded as the wounded started to be brought in. They worked on them in muddy dugouts. Between moments of respite Nelka would run out into the dark and try to soothe her horse which was tied in the woods. The guns kept on firing all night.

This was the kind of life which went on. In July 1916 my uncle, the head of the unit, was killed by sh.e.l.l fire, at a moment of some very heavy fighting. The work they were carrying on was right near the firing lines.

At one time, during 1916 Nelka came for a few days to our country estate and one day I went with her to Petrograd. There she received a letter from her Aunt Martha Wadsworth. I was coming back to the country with Nelka on the train. She had the letter in her hand but would not open it for she said she felt it was bad news and she was afraid. She had a premonition of something wrong. We traveled all the way in silence and I could see how very anxious and upset she was.

Feeling as I did for her, it was painful for me to see her in that state but there was nothing I could do. She did not open the letter until we reached home and she went alone into her room. It was what she had expected--the news that her beloved Aunt Susie Blow had died in New York.

Another terrible, painful shock, Nelka took it in a very hard way but with great calm and fort.i.tude. She felt that she had failed her aunt, that she should have been with her, instead of at the war. She blames herself. She felt that being at the war was a form of selfishness of self-indulgence, when her duty should have been to remain with her aunt.