III America to the Rescue
On the first of January, three days after the great earthquake, a band of Calabrians, living in New York, flashed this message across the Atlantic to their mother country:
“Do not forget Scylla!”
Scylla, how the old name thrills! Scylla had suffered severely, though its gray castle, perched high on the cliff that rises sheer from the shore, was spared. Scylla, the ancient village at the foot of the purple Calabrian mountains, was not forgotten, nor Reggio, nor the white fishing hamlets that line the tawny shores of Sicily and Calabria on either side of the restless straits. The people of the coast were soonest reached and soonest helped by the sailors of the passing ships, for the navies of the world flew on the wings of love and pity to succor the stricken ports. Never were ships watched for with such eagerness, never were sailors greeted with such passionate rapture since Theseus sailed back from Crete to Athens with his precious freight of Athenian youths and maidens, saved from the dreadful Minotaur. The people who lived in the hills and valleys of the interior suffered longest, were last relieved; but even to them help came, for the sailors were faithful and carried the world’s bounty to the desolate inland towns of Sicily and Calabria. The story of their labor of love would fill an encyclopedia. This is the story of the American relief ship “Bayern,” that brought comfort and hope to the forlorn survivors of the great earthquake; to tell the story clearly, we must go back to Rome where the cruise was planned.
Saturday afternoon, January second, the Via Quattro Fontane, in the neighborhood of the American Embassy, was crowded with carriages, cabs and automobiles. The tall handsome porter of the Palazzo del Drago was on duty in full dress; he wore a long broadcloth overcoat that came down to his feet, a black cocked hat with a cockade of red, white and blue. His mighty staff of office, a certain grand air he has, make him a formidable personage to those who have no real business at the palace. Once you are known to this Cerberus, he has no terrors for you; he is gentle by nature as such big men so often are.
“Can I see the Ambassador?” I asked the porter.
“That I cannot promise, lady. He has just returned from the Quirinal; there are many persons waiting to see him, but—” he raised his shoulders with the Latin gesture that expresses doubt—“who knows? The Signora can but try.” He stood back, made me a splendid bow with as fine a flourish of his tricorne as if I had been a princess, and the way was free. I entered the handsome portone, walked through the long marble gallery, past the courtyard where the noise of the fountain sounds like the trampling of impatient steeds, past the twin lions of giallo antico that guard the entrance, and up the magnificent stairway leading to the piano nobile, the home of the American Ambassador. At the door of the apartment I was met by another of those prodigious serving men—the giants of the American Embassy were the talk of Rome that winter—they were recruited from the ex-cuirassiers of the King’s own body guard, the glorious hundred, the shortest of whom is six feet tall.
“Her Excellency would receive me; as to his Excellency, it was just possible. The ladies were in the dancing hall.” He waved me towards the mirrored gallery. I paused a moment to stare about the great anticamera, big enough to hold an ordinary embassy. At one end there is a wide fireplace, over which, instead of armorial bearings, our Eagle spreads its mighty sheltering wings. This splendid anticamera was in strange confusion, crowded with packing cases, piled half-way to the ceiling with bales of goods, boxes of clothing, boots, food, medicines, relief supplies of all kinds. Every able-bodied American in Rome was working pro Sicilia e Calabria, and the Ambassador’s home was not only the nerve-center of the relief work but a warehouse, a base of supplies.
From the ballroom came the sound of women’s voices, the snip-snip of shears, the click of sewing machines. Here was another transformation; the sumptuous ballroom with the smooth polished floor had become a busy workroom. Under the gilt chandelier stood a long table, heaped with bales of flannel and cloth, over which leaned four or five ladies, scissors in hand, cutting out skirts, blouses and jackets. On the satin-covered benches sat a bevy of young women and girls, basting, sewing, planning, and chatting as they worked.
“I have nothing left but red flannel,” said the chief cutter-out, “what shall I do with it?”
“Petticoats and under jackets,” said the Doctor’s wife. “We must put all the colored goods into under-clothing. The poor things beg so for black dresses. You wouldn’t want to wear red or blue if you had lost twenty-five members of your family, as my profughi have.”
“Still we must use what material we have. Let us keep the black for our profughi here in Rome and send the colored things down there where the need is greater and they cannot be so particular.”
The scene was typical of Rome, of Italy, of the civilized world at that time. In every home, rich or poor, in every country, women of all classes were sewing for those naked wretches who had escaped from the great earthquake with nothing but their lives. In the Palace of the Quirinal the little princesses, Jolanda and Mafalda, sat up in their high chairs, stitching busily for the children of the stricken South. The fury of benevolence that had driven men and women all over the world into some action, some sacrifice, for their suffering brothers, was being organized, had become the great driving force that should compel some sort of order out of chaos unparalleled. When it grew too dark to see in the ballroom the friendly giant lighted the chandelier and the candles in the gilt sconces. As he passed me he murmured:
“If the Signora can wait till the other ladies have gone her Excellency—“
“Of course I can wait.” I settled down to overcast the seams of a black woolen frock.
“Do you know where one can buy handkerchiefs?” asked the chief cutter-out. “Every shop I tried today was sold out. All Sicilians use handkerchiefs, even the poorest; it’s one of their good points. I was at the station this morning helping the English Committee—they meet every train from Naples that brings ‘survivors,’ and fit out the poor things with shoes and clothes. Some of them were half naked; one pretty girl—a perfect Hebe—was dressed in an officer’s uniform. The poor souls cry so one has to give them one’s own handkerchief; I have hardly one left!”
“Ask the Ambassadress; she knows more about what’s left in Rome than anybody,” said the Doctor’s wife. Then in an undertone to me: “It’s wonderful how she takes the lead and the rest of us all fall in line; she makes us lose sight of the woman in the Ambassadress; she’s taken command of the scattered forces of the colony like a generalissimo; she’s proclaimed an armistice to internecine strife. Look at those two women, the lamb and the wolf cutting out together; it took the earthquake and Mrs. Griscom to bring that about!”
“Time to go home,” said the chief cutter-out, as the cracked bells of San Bernardo’s rang six. “My hands ache with the weight of these shears; this is the best day’s work we have done.”
One by one, the ladies, colonials and transients, fashionable and unfashionable, took their leave. When all had gone, the giant ushered me into the yellow drawing-room, where I found her Excellency seated in a low chair before the fire making tea. She greeted me with her flashing smile and bade me welcome.
I asked for news of those who had gone down to the city of the dreadful night; we had heard nothing of Major Landis, Mr. Cutting, Mr. Chanler and the others who had gone to Messina the Thursday before.
“No news—but from home, oh, so much! It is as we all knew it would be; we shall do our share.”
Rumor already had it that great sums of money had been cabled from America, both to the Ambassador and to the Italian Red Cross. If that money was to be well spent, the Ambassador’s work was cut out for him, as hard work as even he could covet.
A few moments later Mr. Griscom came in and asked his wife for a cup of tea. His Excellency’s dark inscrutable face showed fatigue; the veiled fire of the eyes was nearer the surface than usual, the clear-cut lips were compressed. As the Doctor’s wife said, it was fortunate for us that we had these strong young people to take the lead in the American relief work. From the first they bore the brunt gallantly; work as hard as their helpers might, they out-stripped all others, gave with a lavish hand, power, sympathy, wit, energy, health; in a word they gave themselves. We turned to them as to our natural leaders in all large and even in small questions. It had seemed to me the most natural thing in the world that, having given away all our available cash and all the clothes we could spare, I should go to the Embassy to beg for my profughi, the family of Francesco Calabresi, the plumber from Messina.
“You have received large sums of money from home,” I said to Mr. Griscom.
“Yes,” he looked at me steadily, ready to guard the treasure from the most desperate assault. He listened patiently to my story of the Calabresi family, to my plea for money to buy clothes and a cradle for the imminent baby, and plumber’s tools to set Francesco up in business before he should become demoralized by the dreadful Roman system of paying so much per capita every day to each family of profughi, without demanding any work in return for the money. First to lose everything they owned, then to be robbed of their habit of self-dependence was the cruel fate of too many.
“We must help these poor people to help themselves,” said the Ambassador, sounding the key-note of the American relief work from first to last. Then very kindly he pointed out to me that my interest in an individual case made me lose sight of the fact that he must deal with the situation as a whole. The American funds must be distributed with method and exactness; the generous help our country was sending must be well spent; his work was to lay out the general scheme, the detail was for others; he had appointed an American Relief Committee; they had held their first meeting that morning.
I saw it all then in a flash, got a sense of some great plan maturing, and took my leave, mortified enough that I should have troubled the god-in-the-machine with a mere detail.
The next day, Sunday, was like a poem bound in blue and gold. I went up on the terrace to gather the last chrysanthemums that had escaped the frost, and to loosen the soil about the first hyacinth, whose close-furled pointed leaves pricked through the brown mould. Below the Tiber rolled, a tawny flood, under the arches of the Ponte Margherita. Across the river the angel of the Castel Sant’ Angelo lifted his bronze sword over the tomb of Hadrian, the dome of St. Peter’s showed like a pale blue bubble against the deeper blue of the sky; the bells of Rome rocked and pealed in their towers, calling the people to mass. From the barracks in the Prati di Castello the bugles sounded, and a regiment swung down the white road by the Tiber, past the statue of Ciceruácchio, and over the bridge to the gay music of the royal march. I was leaning over the parapet to watch the soldiers out of sight, when Agnese called me downstairs.
“A messenger from the Embassy, Signora, with a bundle so large we had to open both sides of the portone to let it pass!”
I hurried down in time to thank the good-natured giant for the gigantic parcel he had brought. Agnese cut the strings and handed me a card with a line in pencil signed Elizabeth Griscom.
“Signora, it is a cradle but of an unimaginable fineness! Observe the pillow case, it is of linen. This is a blanket for a queen’s son; and these garments, truly they are fit for a queen’s children, no less! They doubtless belonged to that small angel with the eyes of his beautiful mother, whom I saw when I took a letter to the Ambassadress? Consider, Signora, are these magnificences fitting for the infant of a plumber? Madonna mia! It is turning to their account this business of the earthquake! This dress, it is quite new; you yourself could wear it—the color would suit you, or we could have it dyed a dark purple.”
What the Ambassador could not do, the Ambassadress had done. Besides the dainty cradle, the blankets, jackets and other baby luxuries such as neither Lucia nor Agnese had ever dreamed of, there was a little knitted shawl for poor old Rosina, and good warm dresses for the plumber’s wife and mother. Agnese was right; the pretty baby finery belonged to the little son born to the Ambassador during his first months of office in Rome. There is a story that the King, on being told that Mrs. Griscom could not be present at some official reception on account of her baby, exclaimed in astonishment:
“I never before have heard of an Ambassadress with a baby!”
The time had come when the King, the colony, all concerned were thankful that the American Ambassador and Ambassadress were young people, with strong young nerves and generous young hearts.
“Send for Napoleone,” I cried to Agnese. Napoleone the cabman can only be reached through the connivance of a clerk of Fasani, the grocer in the Piazza de Spagna. Napoleone is very “black” and has the superior manners of the “clericals.”
By the time I had my bonnet on, Agnese announced to me that Napoleone was at the door. When we appeared on the sidewalk he was deep in the Popolo Romano, the Vatican organ which he reads so faithfully that J. says he often loses a fare from being too much engrossed in his newspaper.
“To the house in the Via Lamarmora where you took me the other day to visit those unfortunate profughi,” I said.
“It appears to me, Signora, that they have become very fortunate people,” said Napoleone, making room for the cradle beside him. He whipped up his strawberry roan, a horse with an action like a crab’s, as unique a figure in our Rome as his driver. Napoleone’s eyes were very kind when he helped me out with the cradle and the big bundle of clothes.
“I will wait for you, Signora, at my own cost, one understands. Diamini! we must all do something for these unfortunate profughi.” Napoleone smoothed out the Popolo Romano, put a nosebag of fodder over the roan’s head and prepared to wait for me, at his own expense!
When the porter’s wife looked out from her little den and saw the big bundle, she put down the dish of carciofi she was preparing for her husband’s dinner and came to the rescue.
“Per carità, Signora, allow me to carry up that great big bundle; ask the padrona to leave the door open till I come.”
The padrona di casa was smartly dressed and freshly powdered. She wore huge pearl and diamond peasant earrings, and her wonderful hair with its thick regular waves shone like the plumage of the black swan in the Villa Borghese. She recognized me with a smile. “Ah, the American lady! What a pleasure to see her again!” She motioned me to the room where the theatrical costumes had been packed closely together to give more space. The light from a big window struck across the gaunt barn of a place and fell on a group in the center that Andrea del Sarto would have painted as a “Visitation.”
Rosina, the wrinkled old woman, looked a perfect Elizabeth as she stood there, holding her daughter-in-law by the hand: Lucia would have made a lovely Mary. The young woman saw me first. She came towards me slowly, heavily, took my hand in hers and with a strange solemnity kissed me on the mouth; Francesco, her husband (the plumber), followed her example. Caterina, sitting up in the big white bed, smiled at me with a radiant inner lighting of the face, like a young martyr. Rosina mumbled my hand with her withered lips and wiped her eyes upon a black-bordered handkerchief I had given her; all this was before they caught a glimpse of the porter’s wife, toiling upstairs with the gigantic bundle.
I was the first stranger who had come into the new life that was opening before them, after they had passed through that hell of suffering at Messina. The shackles of convention had dropped from them in that elemental experience, that fearful convulsion when the very earth had stoned them. They met me as equals on the ground of our common humanity; they embraced me because I had brought them help from America, the land of hope. When we grow old, I heard a poet say, we count the treasure of unforgotten kisses as a miser counts his gold; In the coming years those kisses, given for my country’s sake, will shine bright in my imperishable hoard.
The next day, Monday morning, January 4th, as we were having early coffee, Agnese brought in a note.
“Anything interesting?” I asked, as J. folded the small sheet of lilac paper and put it back in the envelope. “It looks like an invitation.”
“It is,” said J., “one I shall accept.”
I must have looked incredulous, for he handed me the note. It was from one of the ladies of the Embassy, who wrote to say that volunteers were wanted for a relief ship the American Committee was fitting out. This was the first we either of us heard of the expedition of the “Bayern,” that a few days later thrilled all Italy and America. Ten minutes later we were in Napoleone’s cab, rattling through the Piazza San Bernardo. As we passed the Hotel Europa our friend, Mr. Samuel Parrish, came out of the door. Mr. Parrish, a distinguished New York lawyer, had come to Rome to pass a quiet winter, to improve his knowledge of the language and to study Italian “primitives.” It seemed rather early for him to be about, though I found a possible explanation for this as we passed the flower-stand of the Piazza Mignianelli, brave with deep purple violets and pale winter roses. The early birds get the best of everything; the sunny salon at the Europa, where our friend proposed spending the easy restful days of his “season off,” was always filled with lovely flowers—yes, that was it, Mr. Parrish had come out at this unearthly hour to buy his flowers.
In the Piazza Barberini, where a brisk wind blew the spray of the fountain of the Triton half across the square, we passed Mr. William Hooper of Boston, hurrying along; Mr. Hooper had arrived in Rome a few weeks before with his wife and was established for the winter in the Hotel Regina.
At the office of the American Embassy we were received by the smiling usher, who showed us into the waiting room, threw a lump of soft coal on the fire, and smiled himself out. Shortly after one of the habitues of the Embassy, a Roman American, came in and told us a meeting of the American Relief Committee was going on at the Palazzo del Drago; if we could wait, they were all sure to come round to the office when it was over.
“They have two or three meetings a day,” the Roman American said; “they were up half last night. What with sending and receiving cables from America, holding consultations with the King, Giolitti (the Prime Minister) and Nathan the Sindaco, those men don’t have time to eat or to sleep.”
At last Mr. Griscom came in, passing directly to his private office; a little later Mr. Parrish and Mr. Hooper followed him. Through the open door I caught a glimpse of the Ambassador at his desk, talking with Mr. Nelson Gay and Mr. George Page, both American residents of Rome. These five gentlemen were the Relief Committee, there was only one stranger to us in the group; the naval attaché of the Embassy, Lieutenant-Commander Reginald Rowan Belknap. As we waited in the reception room, most of the American men in Rome passed through; first one, then another of the committee or of the secretaries came in to speak to some visitor. We could not but hear scraps of their conversation as they passed to and fro.
“Griscom couldn’t have chosen his committee better: Parrish and Hooper to help him raise the money in America; Page and Gay to help him spend it; and Belknap—one sees with half an eye he’s a man for an emergency,” said a visitor.
“Of course we shall get the money; I am ready to guarantee it!” exclaimed the treasurer of the committee.
“Parrish is head of the Southampton Red Cross. He has cabled the President,” murmured another.
“The steamer will start from Genoa. Smith, our Consul, is buying up the town to fit her out,” said a young secretary.
“The Ambassadress has collected half a shipload of supplies!”
“All the sterilized milk you can lay your hands on—” This to one who offered contributions.
“Put my money in tobacco; those poor devils need a smoke if ever man did,” said the Roman American.
Waiting in that office was like watching the movement of a vast engine, feeling the throbbing of our country’s mighty heart—our pulses leapt to keep time with it.
“Weston Flint is just the man for you. He is a graduate of our school and speaks Italian well,” said Mr. Carter, director of the American Classical School.
“If you can get Giordano of the Tribuna, he’s your man. He speaks English as well as I do,” said a journalist.
“I know three trained nurses who are ready to go if they’re wanted.”
At last our turn came; Captain Belknap found time to speak to J. The intense concentrated force that we had felt in the atmosphere of that room seemed personified in the naval attaché. To be in his company was like touching an electric battery. Only a few words were exchanged; the upshot of it all was that J. offered his services and was accepted. He said he was ready to go in any capacity, and was then and there appointed interpreter and general handy-andy-man to the expedition. My services were refused; no women except professional trained nurses were wanted.
“Do you know a man with some knowledge of accounts you could get to go with us? He must speak Italian.” Captain Belknap said it lightly enough, as if he were merely dropping a hint. What was it that made that hint more imperative than a command?
“I will try to find one,” said J. As we walked out of the Embassy he exclaimed, “Thompson is our man! This is a sort of press-gang business; we had better drop down on him at once.”
We hurried to the studio in the Via Degli Artisti, where we found Wilfred Thompson at work on his decoration for the English church. After the tense atmosphere of the embassy the studio seemed strangely peaceful. On the easel was a picture, still wet, of the pine trees in the Villa Borghese, with the red sunset light striking between their smooth stems. A little cat rubbed its arched back against my dress purring her friendly song of welcome, “three thrums, three thrums.” We felt like conspirators come to break up our friend’s quiet life. He listened gravely to the proposition that he should volunteer for the relief ship, and took time to consider it. In one sense it was not difficult for him to go, he said; he only had to find a home for the kitten, and, as a lesser consideration, to make a will. The words struck chill; there was danger then! In the end Thompson decided to go; he spoke without enthusiasm; it was evident that having been called upon he felt it his duty to go. His mood was in strong contrast to the enthusiasm of those men at the Embassy; they were on the circuit of the Great Dynamo, they throbbed with the thrill of it, glowed with the Niagara-like power of it. Tuesday morning Thompson offered his services to Captain Belknap. When we met him that afternoon, we knew that he too had come within the magnetic circle, had felt the thrill of the Great Dynamo, for from that time on he toiled like the others with heart and soul, with nerves and body doing double, triple work.
“Thompson’s got the pace,” said J., “a jolly good one too.”
A man may not choose how he shall serve the great Republic, but whatever service is asked of him, that let him render with heart and soul. Though Thompson would not have chosen the post of supercargo—any more than Flint would have asked to be cashier or J. interpreter—once it was assigned him, he threw himself into the work with all his might. The studio saw him no more; the little cat—all the family he had—missed him. He spent his days and most of his nights trying to bring order out of that chaos of supplies, checking bills, making lists and invoices of clothes, food, medicine, tools, all the wonderful things bought for the relief ship. The cargo was got together somehow, anyhow; the thing was done—that was the main point. From morning till night those tireless men and women bought and bought, sewed and sewed, packed and tied up in bundles the stores, clothing, shoes, medicines, for the sufferers. It was Thompson’s duty to try and bring some sort of order out of that chaos. When men and women are dying of cold and hunger, when human life is at stake and the race is with death, haste is the only thing to strive for; waste counts not. So Griscom and his Americans resolutely cut the Gordian knots of red tape that strangle Italy, whenever they came across one, and never counted the cost.
Now that we look back, what they did seems incredible. Remember, it was Sunday morning, January 3rd, that the Ambassador appointed his committee to help him put through the thing he had planned to do; the work of the next three days would not be believed if it could be told. From the beginning Griscom did the impossible—the only thing worth doing in this world. He was told that the idea of fitting out a relief ship was chimerical; every available steamer was already engaged by the Italian Government. Even if a ship could be found, where would the supplies come from? The Roman shops were well nigh sold out. If ship and cargo could be scared up, how to get the cargo to the ship? It took a month to get a box from Rome to Naples! This last argument seemed final!
Every objection was met, every obstacle overcome. In three days the ship was found, the cargo bought, the men and women of the relief crew enlisted, ready, eager to start. Monday Captain Belknap engaged the Austrian Lloyd steamer “Oceania;” she could be ready to sail in nine days. Monday night the North German Lloyd’s agent telephoned, offering the “Bayern” to be ready to sail from Genoa Wednesday, January 6th. This was a saving of six days; the offer of the “Bayern” was accepted, the Austrians handsomely refusing to claim the forfeit of one thousand dollars due them for breach of contract. Who says corporations have no heart? The committee knew they could count on the Germans to do what they undertook to do. The discipline, the steady hammer-hammer of the army drill master has got into the very blood and bones of that nation.
So the ship was found!
As for the cargo: when the committee was not in session, William Hooper, the famous Harvard athlete, Samuel Parrish, the connoisseur of Italian Cinque Cento, Nelson Gay, the historian, George Page, the banker, were working under the lash, buying coats, blankets, shawls, pins, needles, biscuits, cheese, sausages, picks, shovels—all they could lay hands on of these grave-digger’s tools, for still on the eighth, the tenth day after the earthquake, even later, men and women were taken out alive from the ruins. In Genoa, James Smith, American Consul, was gathering together a vast store of hams, beans, potatoes, salt pork, rope, canvas, candles, all the ship wares to be found in the great seaport. It was one thing to put these goods bought in Genoa on board the “Bayern,” but how to get the masses of clothing, tools, food, medicines and bedding, purchased in Rome—a tithe of which cumbered the great hall of the Palazzo del Drago—to the ship?
“If the railroad to the south cannot take the goods to Naples, the railroad to the north shall take them to Civitavecchia; the old papal seaport is as good a place to sail from as from Naples!” Griscom argued; so that knot was cut.
Stein, the shipper, was called in, another of those busy silent Germans who year by year are getting more and more of Italy’s commerce into their strong capable hands. Stein undertook to have the cargo at Civitavecchia on the “Bayern’s” arrival there, and he was as good as his word. The Government gave free transportation to the goods.
Reports are dull reading, statistics worse—there is nothing quite so misleading as statistics—there are a few exceptions to this rule; the reports of the American Relief Committee are among them. The minutes kept by Samuel Parrish lie before me; they are as interesting as a novel. As interesting? Twenty thousand times more interesting. The story is told gravely and concisely, but the romance shines through the conventional terms, transfigures the formal statements; it has the life pulse of an old Greek drama; it moves with the inevitable sequence of history. The titles of Chairman, Secretary, Treasurer, are disguises like the masks worn by the Athenian players. They serve to hide the personality of the actor, leaving him freer to play the role for which he is cast. The characters speak their lines, the play moves steadily from the first lurid scene of the earthquake to the final chorus of Hope. After Nature had done her worst and the greatest disaster of history had stunned the world, the network of nerves with which America has enmeshed the globe, the telegraph wires and submarine cables, flashed the dreadful intelligence from nerve center to nerve center. Whether for good or for ill, we gave the world its nervous system; ours the responsibility for the quickened pulse of life! The cables were kept busy; message after message flashed from the Embassy at Rome to Washington, to New York, Philadelphia, Boston, San Francisco. That cry of the Calabrian exiles: “Do not forget to help Scylla,” touched the public imagination. I hear the thrill of it in all the messages that follow, the committee’s appeal to the American Red Cross, to the Governors of the States, to the people of America. The Ambassador and Mr. Parrish telegraph the President, Mr. Parish cables Governor Hughes and Mayor McClellan, Mr. Hooper calls on Governor Guild of Massachusetts for funds for a relief ship. Time is so precious they do not wait for answers; strong in their faith in America’s generosity, these men assume a personal responsibility for the great sums of money needed, so no time is lost in waiting for answers to their appeals. This is the secret of how the incredible thing was done; it was not only by the labor of these resolute men but by the faith that was in them that the country would “back” them, would make good all they promised.
“Theirs,” said the Roman American, “is an infallibility absolute as the Pope’s; they know that God and the American people are behind them!”
We were in Athol’s library Wednesday evening when J.’s sailing orders came. The large pleasant room was just light and warm enough. There was a wood fire, there were flowers—blood-red Roman anemones—there were books and pictures, there was Athol himself (the man of whose mellow culture and sensitive taste, the room was an expression) seated in a beautiful Savonarola chair at an ancient, perfectly appointed table, writing despatches with pen and ink on large foolscap paper.
“They have telephoned from the Embassy,” said Agnese, who brought the news, “that the Signore should be at the station at nine o’clock tomorrow morning. The Signora is invited to go as far as Civitavecchia with the Ambassadress and the other ladies to witness his departure—ah! sainted apostles! for that land of death!” Agnese disapproved of J.’s going down to Messina. “Give those unfortunates anything in reason,” she argued, “clothes, food, even a little money! But to go oneself, or even to allow one who is dear to go down to that—that pozzo d’infezione, ah! no, there is no reason in that! It is the act of the mad. Mama mia! Are there not enough dead already?”
“You will be too late for Messina,” said Athol, looking up from his despatches. “They don’t like having foreigners about; the English ships from Malta were there a week ago but they found they were not wanted! You will find more than enough to do at the smaller villages; they have been neglected. Have you any flannel shirts?”
“Hundreds,” said J.
“For the profughi, yes, but for yourself? You’ll need them and flannel collars; I can lend you some and a hold-all. Have you seen the last subscriptions to the Lord Mayor’s Fund?” He handed J. a London paper with the list of subscribers to the English Earthquake Fund. There was a generous rivalry of “who shall give and do most?” between the Americans and English that was heart-warming.
“You deserve a large share of the credit for this,” J. said; “I hope it will be set down to your account.”
Athol’s telegrams and articles were read by English-speaking people all over the world; they had great influence in raising the Mansion House Fund, and other contributions.
The next morning was gray and mild, a depressing sirocco day. Napoleone who drove us to the station was gloomy as Agnese about J.’s going to Messina. His clerical sympathies made him scoff at the value of all lay relief work.
“Those afflictions that are sent by the Padre Eterno can best be assuaged by the Church,” he grumbled, as he put Athol’s fine English hold-all on the box beside him. Even the strawberry roan was out of spirits and took ten minutes longer than usual between the palace and the station. “What has his Excellency to do with such matters?” Napoleone flung the words over his shoulder. “I tell you frankly, Signora mia, his life is worth more than all the Sicilians put together. It is a pity the island of Sicily did not sink beneath the sea and remain there twenty minutes, long enough to drown all the inhabitants. It would have been a good thing for Italy, magari, and for the rest of the world!”
Wilfred Thompson, who was at the station when we arrived, introduced Weston Flint, the cashier. Mr. Flint wore a leather money bag over his shoulder.
“Ask for the special,” said Flint, as he wrote our names down on a list; “the Government has put a train at the Ambassador’s disposal; they treat us handsomely, you see.”
“That young man came to Rome to study archeology,” said the Roman American, who was going with us. “He will learn more about ruins and excavation in the next few days than he could have learned at school in a lifetime.”
A cab drove up with three neat, plainly dressed, young girls.
“The American nurses, God bless them!” said the Roman American. “There come the English nurses; and there’s Robert Hale, the painter—why have they gone in so heavily for artistic talent?” Then answering his own question: “Because artists are the hardest working people in the world, and the most generous; they always do more than their share of good work; rich people give their money, they give themselves!”
Just then the Ambassador and Mrs. Griscom came up in their motor and we all got on board the train. The journey to Civitavecchia was all too short; we hardly found time to look from the window and were only half conscious of passing the ancient Temple of Minerva Medica, or Ponte Galera, the picturesque, fever-stricken, abandoned town hung in its green shroud of ivy. The artists missed nothing of the beauty of the trip (their search for beauty is as unconscious as breathing); the rest of us had to be forcibly wrenched from the discussion of medicated gauze and flannel bandages when a turn of the road brought a wonderful view before us,—the campagna swimming in an amethyst haze, the blue clear-cut lines of the Alban hills, and far off, a fainter blue stain against the sky, Monte Circeo, home of Circe, daughter of the sun. These things the sons of Mary saw, while the sons of Martha talked of ways and means.
What had been accomplished in the few days since that first meeting of the committee Sunday afternoon seemed a miracle. The men who had worked the miracle were with us, quiet, alert, full of attentions for the comfort of the ladies who were going to see the “Bayern” start on her cruise of mercy. The leader of the enterprise, Lloyd Griscom, and his right-hand man, Captain Belknap, who bore the brunt of all the great work that was to follow, talked together in undertones, discussing the final arrangements. Later Mr. Gay, Mr. Parrish and Mr. Page joined them. The rest of us kept apart, as it seemed they were holding an informal committee meeting, to decide some last weighty matter, and exchanged our news.
“Mr. Griscom saw the King,” said the Roman American, “and offered him the relief ship. The King accepted it and told the Ambassador that nothing could have been devised better than such a gift. The money for the expedition was given by the American Red Cross to Mr. Griscom to spend at his discretion.”
That was wise, for what was needed now even more than money was the good sense to spend it well, ability, organizing power—the thing that is so much harder to get or to give than money—brains!
At Civitavecchia we were received by the Sindaco, the Sub-Prefect, and the Captain of the Port; they all wore black gloves and crape bands on the arm. The general exaltation and excitement that ran like fire through Rome was lacking in the small provincial seaport; there was a sense of hopeless mourning here, more distressing than the tearing passion of Rome.
Two of our ladies disappeared as soon as we reached Civitavecchia. The rest of us, escorted by the officials, were rowed out in small boats to the “Bayern,” a fine steamer of 5000 tons, lying in the outer harbor surrounded by a fleet of lighters.
“Still taking on stores, you see,” said Mr. Stein, who had come in person to see that the goods from Rome were delivered on time. “By four o’clock everything will be on board; they will be able to start without delay.”
“This is Captain Miztloff,” said Belknap (how could he find time for everything?), presenting the big florid typical North-German-Lloyd commander.
“They tell me you shall not with us go?” said the captain. “It is a pity; we shall a moon and a fine weather have, and a good run to Messina make. Will you my quarters visit?”
His calm blue eyes, his smiling undismayed presence were comforting. Here was a man who had not been whirled out of his natural orbit like the rest of us. After we had gone over the “Bayern” with Captain Mitzloff, visited his cabin and admired the portraits of his wife and flaxen-haired children, the expedition began to look more rational, a little less out of the ordinary. His practical sober kindness was somehow reassuring. We went down to see J.’s cabin, an outer room with a good window. The familiar smell of stale sea-water brought a pang of homesickness—of course we were going to sail for America, there never had been any earthquake, it was all a bad nightmare; it was curious how the illusion persisted. It grew even stronger when a pink and white steward announced luncheon, and we made our way to the dining saloon, decorated and furnished in the usual North German Lloyd fashion. The chief steward allotted us our seats—oh, it was just like the beginning, of twenty other trans-atlantic crossings! I recognized the way the table was set, the napkins folded, the bread cut; we were going home—together.
“I shall order green goose and mirabellen—” I announced.
“You are to sit beside the Sindaco of Civitavecchia because you can talk Italian to him,” said one of the committee at that moment; the illusion vanished. I was placed with Mrs. Griscom and the other ladies of the Auxiliary Relief Committee at the captain’s table. J., already separated from me, sat with the nurses, and other assistants, Flint, Hale and Thompson, at the doctor’s table, below the salt as it were. He was under orders; discipline had begun.
Though we were all anxious and sad enough, there was a brave effort at gayety. The Ambassador proposed the health of the King and Queen of Italy in a neat little speech; and the Sindaco, a stout man with red eyes, responded with a toast to the President. He pronounced a few flowery sentences, and then speaking of the six or seven people from Civitavecchia who had escaped the earthquake and come back to their native town beggared and bereft, he faltered, burst into tears and sat down. After luncheon I found my way to the ladies’ saloon, all white and gold and blue brocade, with that faint dreadful under-smell of stale sea-water in its draperies, cushions and carpet. Here I found the nurses unrolling two bundles of stuff.
“You missed us,” said one of the ladies, “and wondered where we went from the station; this is what we were in search of.” She unrolled a piece of ivory-white flannel and another of scarlet cloth.
“Who can cut me out a neat cross? This is all lopsided,” said the chief cutter-out. She held up a badly cut cross of red cloth.
“I know who can make a better one than that,” I cried and went in search of J.
“We shall want a good many, for every one of them must wear the badge on his left arm,” said the chief cutter-out.
“We fly the Red Cross then? It has been arranged?”
The Ambassador had cut another strand of the red tape that strangles Italy. Permission to fly the Red Cross flag had been asked and refused because none of the party belonged to the Italian Society, though several were members of the American Association. When in order to overcome this objection the leaders asked leave to join the Italian Red Cross, the answer was that it would take two weeks for them to be elected. Mr. Griscom passed over the refusal and carried the request to a higher court, where it was granted.
My last impression of the “Bayern” was that scene in the saloon, where Thompson and J. stood patiently cutting out the red cloth crosses and the trained nurses sat stitching them neatly on the ivory cloth bands. At two o’clock Mrs. Griscom and the ladies of her auxiliary committee left the ship and took the train for Rome with Mr. Parrish and Mr. Page.
“Of course I wanted to go to Messina,” said Mr. Parrish, “but somebody had to stay in Rome to attend to this end of the business!”
At four o’clock the “Bayern” sailed,
Captain Belknap having commandeered three small craft against the need of landing on an open beach, for which the ship’s boats were unsuitable. As she sailed out of the harbor of Civitavecchia, past the old lighthouse with the two defending towers, the “Bayern” flew the American ensign at the fore, the German merchant flag aft, and between foremast and funnel on the triatic stay the flag of the whole Christian world, a cross vermilion on a ground white.