Page 167 - Life of Gertrude Bell

WAR 149
August 4th from Rounton: ‘Dear Dr Keltic, I am not coming
to London this week. My brother’s Territorials arc mobilizing
and I do not wish to leave home while he is here. The next few
days will enable us to ... form clearer decisions, but it looks as if
maps of Arabia must give place to more pressing matters.’
September 8th, still at Rounton: ‘Dear Dr Kcltie, I do not think
there is any reason why I should not give the lecture in November
... Do you know what has become of Captain Shakespear? ... Ps.
Please note that my second name has a w in itl’
September 9th, from Dr Keltie: ‘I know the tendency here to
mis-spel [j/V] your second name and I am always correcting it... It
would be a good thing if you could come to London on 21st to
start the map. The sooner the better as our draughtsmen have
been busy ever since the war began, and are still busy in doing
work for the War Office ... I expect Captain Shakespear has gone
off somewhere: he was eager to go. He was not allowed to go into
active service although he was not required to return to his post.
But I know he volunteered for service of any kind he could under­
take under the circumstances. I wrote to him a day or two ago but
have not heard from him yet.’ On September 22nd the director
wrote to tell her that Hilaire Belloc had been persuaded to give a
‘war lecture’ in place of her long-postponed paper. ‘If it is con­
venient we should take your paper on 7th December.’
By December Gertrude had followed Shakespear into whatever
service she could profitably render her country. Neither delivered
their promised papers, though many years later in a much-changed
world others did it for them.
Gertrude wrote to Keltie again on November 6th: ‘I am going
next week to help Lady Onslow to run her hospital. I have asked
some of my friends at the Red X to join me in the first suitable
job abroad that falls vacant... and I have written to friends of
mine in Paris asking whether I could be of use to them in any
way ... Arabia can wait, can’t it?’
On November 19th she wrote from Lady Onslow’s Clandon
Park Hospital at Guildford: ‘I’m busy all day long here and I
expect before the end of the month to go to France. I am so sorry.
I must ask you to forgive me.’
By the end of November she was in Boulogne where she
worked in Lord Robert Cecil’s office for tracing the missing and
wounded, together with Flora and Diana Russell. Her father had
asked her if she would like a motor car sent over. Tan Malcolm