Her Ambulance Unit
An English Woman’s Contribution Was Her Fortune and the Daily Risk of Her Life
Among the decorations worn by Mrs. Hilda Wynne are the French Croix de Guerre, the Belgian order of Leopold, and the Russian Order of St. George—certificates of preëminent service in circumstances of danger that demand the high courage of utter self-devotion. Mrs. Wynne is a young English woman who gave her fortune to organize an ambulance unit and risked her life driving an ambulance on the firing line. Her organization was known as the Bevan-Wynne Unit, and it cared for some 40,000 wounded soldiers in the course of the war. Mrs. Wynne visited this country in the Autumn of 1917 for the purpose of arousing interest in the public in the needs of soldiers in France. Happily her mission was a successful one.
While she was in Denver the Post of that city induced Mrs. Wynne to tell some of her experiences, which are here reproduced.
“Looking upon the human courage I have witnessed, from this distance and in the little breathing space I have taken from service I can recall thousands of heroic acts, but the bravest happened on the Russian front.
“I saw two aviators go up to certain death. They were a Russian and a Frenchman. Both were little men. They went up to meet twenty German aeroplanes. It was suicidal. But they had been ordered to go—and theirs was the spirit of the gallant six hundred. I stood near them as they made ready to go. They said nothing. That is one of the lessons you learn in war—not to waste time nor words.
“They got their machines ready as a rider tests his saddle-straps and stirrups before starting for his morning gallop through the park. A little pothering and fixing of the machinery and they had gone. They went straight up and began blazing away at the German planes. I watched and the cords of my heart tightened, for the German planes, looking like great gray birds with wings widespread, came closer and closer. They surrounded them. They formed a solid double circle about them. Then they began to fire. And I turned and covered my eyes with my hands. A few seconds later what had been aeroplanes were splintered wood and what had been men a broken mass covered by smoking rags.
“While this was the bravest act I saw in two and a half years on the firing line, I readily recall the most pathetic. It was the second line of men in the Russian trenches. They were unarmed soldiers. There were no guns for them. They took their places there expecting that the man in front might drop, and the second-line man could pick up his gun and take his place.
“I have seen many of the Allies die. They all die bravely. At Dixmude when the fusiliers arrived 8,000 and went out 4,000 there was magnificent courage in death. The Frenchman dies calling upon his God. The Englishman says nothing or feebly jests; just turns his face to the wall and is still. The Russian is mystic and secretive. The Russian lives behind a veil of reserve. You never fully know him. In the last moments you know by his rapt look that his soul is in communion with his God.