My War Experiences in Two Continents

My War Experiences in Two
Continents

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by
Sarah Macnaughtan, Edited by Betty Keays-Young
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Title: My War Experiences in Two Continents
Author: Sarah Macnaughtan
Editor: Betty Keays-Young
Release Date: May 10, 2006 [eBook #18364]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MY WAR
EXPERIENCES IN TWO CONTINENTS***
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Transcriber's note:
The unique headers on the odd numbered pages in the original book
have been reproduced with [Page Heading: ] tags. They have been
inserted in front of the paragraph or letter to which the heading refers.
There are several inconsistencies in spelling and punctuation in the
original. A few corrections have been made for obvious typographical
errors; these, as well as some doubtful spellings of names, have been
marked individually in the text. All changes made by the transcriber are
enumerated in braces, for example {1}; details of corrections and
comments are listed at the end of the text.
Text in italics in the original is shown between underlines.

MY WAR EXPERIENCES IN TWO CONTINENTS
by
S. MACNAUGHTAN
Edited by Her Niece, Mrs. Lionel Salmon (Betty Keays-Young)
With a Portrait

[Illustration: Camera Portrait by E. O. Hoppé.]

London John Murray, Albemarle Street, W. 1919

THIS BOOK IS DEDICATED, IN ACCORDANCE WITH A WISH
EXPRESSED BY MISS MACNAUGHTAN BEFORE HER DEATH,
TO
THOSE WHO ARE FIGHTING AND THOSE WHO HAVE
FALLEN,
WITH ADMIRATION AND RESPECT, AND TO
HER NEPHEWS,
CAPTAIN LIONEL SALMON, 1st Bn. the Welch Regt. CAPTAIN
HELIER PERCIVAL, M.C., 9th Bn. the Welch Regt. CAPTAIN
ALAN YOUNG, 2nd Bn. the Welch Regt. CAPTAIN COLIN
MACNAUGHTAN, 2nd Dragoon Guards. LIEUTENANT RICHARD
YOUNG, 9th Bn. the Welch Regt.

CONTENTS
PAGE PREFACE ix

PART I BELGIUM

CHAPTER I
ANTWERP 1

CHAPTER II
WITH DR. HECTOR MUNRO'S FLYING AMBULANCE CORPS 24
CHAPTER III
AT FURNES RAILWAY-STATION 60
CHAPTER IV
WORKING UNDER DIFFICULTIES 85
CHAPTER V
THE SPRING OFFENSIVE 111
CHAPTER VI
LAST DAYS IN FLANDERS 135

PART II AT HOME
HOW THE MESSAGE WAS DELIVERED 159

PART III RUSSIA AND THE PERSIAN
FRONT

CHAPTER I
PETROGRAD 179

CHAPTER II
WAITING FOR WORK 204
CHAPTER III
SOME IMPRESSIONS OF TIFLIS AND ARMENIA 219
CHAPTER IV
ON THE PERSIAN FRONT 237
CHAPTER V
THE LAST JOURNEY 258
CONCLUSION 272
INDEX 281

PREFACE
In presenting these extracts from the diaries of my aunt, the late Miss
Macnaughtan, I feel it necessary to explain how they come to be
published, and the circumstances under which I have undertaken to edit
them.
After Miss Macnaughtan's death, her executors found among her papers
a great number of diaries. There were twenty-five closely written
volumes, which extended over a period of as many years, and formed
an almost complete record of every incident of her life during that time.
It is amazing that the journal was kept so regularly, as Miss
Macnaughtan suffered from writer's cramp, and the entries could only
have been written with great difficulty. Frequently a passage is begun
in the writing of her right, and finished in that of her left hand, and I

have seen her obliged to grasp her pencil in her clenched fist before she
was able to indite a line. In only one volume, however, do we find that
she availed herself of the services of her secretary to dictate the entries
and have them typed.
The executors found it extremely difficult to know how to deal with
such a vast mass of material. Miss Macnaughtan was a very reserved
woman.{1} She lived much alone, and the diary was her only
confidante. In one of her books she says that expression is the most
insistent of human needs, and that the inarticulate man or woman who
finds no outlet in speech or in the affections, will often keep a little
locked volume in which self can be safely revealed. Her diary occupied
just such a place in her own inner life, and for that reason one hesitates
to submit its pages even to the most loving and sympathetic scrutiny.
But Miss Macnaughtan's diary fulfilled a double purpose. She used it
largely as material for her books. Ideas for stories, fragments of plays
and novels, are sketched in on spare sheets, and the pages are full of the