A V.A.D.'s TRAVELS.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume 45, Issue 13982, 19 November 1919, Page 2

A V.A.D.'s TRAVELS.

On IJriday evening Miss Lauise Mack, '.'a lady journalist who served abroad ■with, the V.A.D. in the war time, and also acted as a war correspondent, will lecture at the Opera House. Miss, Mack begins by describing the rush of Belgian civilians into Antwerp in the early days of the conflict. There was, she said, an air of gaiety about the place contrasting wiht the forecast one might have made of the scene. The place was like Melbourne on a Cup day—for all within believed that they were safe. The scene was different later, when all was over. Miss Mack describes at some length the ravages and the sacreligious acts wrought by the Germans in Aerschot. The Germans'had left bottles everywhere, bottles in unbelieva"ble numbers. "If any of you," said the lecturer, '' doubt the stories of the atrocities committed in the beginning of the war, you would not do so if you could have seen the thousands of empty bottles lying about. An army that drank to that extent was capable of any atrocity."

In Brussels Miss Mack met the heroic Miss Cavell, and spent two unfpi'gettable hours in the company of that lady and her nurses. Miss Mack relates a little story of Miss Cavell. The nurses one "night began to sing, in a practically empty ward, a verse of the British National Anthem. A lone German in a corner had chimed in as he lay there upon his back. Miss Cavell went over to him, and, propping him up with a pillow, observed, • "No, you don't; you, don't sing 'God Save the King' lying down." Turning to discuss the essence of the war, Miss Mack observed that what our returned men were likely to lack most upon re-entering peace conditions was the Avonderful spirit of camaraderie that they had found '' in the heart of the war."