And that, by pure mischance, was all that A.J. saw of the actual Russo-
Japanese War, for the beer had been mixed with foul water, and that same
evening, after sending a long cable to the Comet, he fell violently
ill and had to be taken to the base hospital. There his case was at first
neglected, for it was hardly to be expected’ that the doctors, in the
after-battle rush of work, should pay much attention to a foreign war-
correspondent with no visible ailment. Later, however, when his temperature
was a hundred and four and he was in the most obvious agony, they changed
their attitude and gave him good nursing and careful attention. For a
fortnight his life was in danger; then he began to recover. The hospital was
clean and well- managed, though there was a shortage of drugs and bandages.
Barellini, on whom the bad beer had had no ill effects at all, visited him
from time to time, as also did some of the other correspondents. It was
universally agreed that he had met with the most atrocious luck. Afterwards,
however, he looked back upon his period in hospital as the time when he
really began to know Russia and the Russians. To begin with, he made great
progress with the language. None of the nurses or patients could speak any
English and after his third week in hospital he found himself beginning to
converse with them fairly easily. What struck him most was the general
eagerness to help him; he could not imagine a foreigner in a London hospital
being so treated. Both men next to him were badly wounded (one in the stomach
and the other with both legs amputated), yet both took a keen delight in
teaching him new words. They were middle-aged, with wives and families
thousands of miles west; they accepted their lot with a fatalism that was
bewildered rather than stoic. One of them always screamed when his wounds
were being dressed, and always apologised to A.J. afterwards for having
disturbed him. Neither could read or write, yet when A.J. read to them, very
haltingly and with very bad pronunciation, from a book by Gogol, they
listened enthralled. They were devoutly religious and also very
superstitious. They had not the slightest idea why their country was fighting
Japan, but they assumed it must be God’s will. The one with the
amputations did not seem to worry very much; his attitude seemed chiefly one
of puzzlement. It had all happened so quickly, almost as soon as he had gone
into battle; he had had no time to fight any of the enemy; indeed, it was as
if he had travelled seven thousand miles merely to have his legs blown off.
He could not get rid of a dim feeling that the Japanese must have been
personally angry with him to have done such a thing. He felt no
vindictiveness, however. There was a badly wounded Japanese in the ward; the
men treated him very courteously and often spoke sympathetically to one
another about him. As they did not know a word of his language nor he a word
of theirs, it was all that could be done.
Both A.J.’s neighbours told him all about themselves and showed the
frankest curiosity about his own life. They thought it very strange that
people in England were so interested in the war that they would send out men
especially to describe it for them, and they were amazed when A.J. told them
how much his journey had cost, the price of his cables to the Comet,
and so on. They listened with great interest to anything he told them about
English life, English politics, and so on, though such matters were difficult
to compress within the confines of his still limited Russian. They always
showed their appreciation with the most childlike directness, often giving
him articles of food which he really did not want, but which he could not
refuse without risk of hurting their feelings.
