LEWIS’ EXPERIENCE IN HOSPITAL
As we have already seen, back in Britain the Red Cross by 1918 had taken over a large number of institutional buildings, and even stately homes, in order to tend to the wounded, so the Endsleigh Palace Hotel in London was one of many.
The injured Lewis was taken across the English Channel from France, probably on 24 May 1918, a very dangerous journey because of German attacks on shipping. In fact every stage of the journey had its perils. Not only had the field hospital at Étaples where Lewis had been staying been bombed, but there was no mercy from the Germans for any of the injured at any point. The British Journal of Nursing (BJN) at the time reports hair-raising firsthand accounts of the danger to medical staff and patients left behind in France and the huge risks taken by those seeking to escape the Germans and get to safety.
No wonder the nurses themselves often suffered shell shock and needed places of recovery as well as the soldiers and sailors. There are many accounts in the BJN of horrific incidents that fill in some of the detail missing in the more restrained reminiscences of Lewis and Tolkien, for example. But one report by a nurse in France could not help but remind me of a very important incident in Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings and Gandalf the wizard’s shout at the fiery Balrog: “You cannot pass!” (or “You shall not pass!” in the film version). This was a cry that would have been very familiar to everyone of Tolkien and Lewis’ generation who knew about warfare at the Western Front in France. The phrase “Ils ne passerons pas!” was a rallying cry for the French soldiers in the midst of battle:
Back in England, Lewis would have been transferred to a hospital train in order to reach his first recovery hospital in London. There had been many medical and scientific advances during the war, including a new design for a stretcher by the Americans which was very adaptable, which could have been the one used for Lewis by this point.
The nurses did their best to make the injured men as comfortable as possible for the journey. The next photo is not very clear, but it shows how canaries were kept in cages on hospital trains so their songs could cheer up the wounded! [1]
All wounded men from the Front were brought to Charing Cross station before being separated out to different locations for recovery. There is a Pathé news film clip of such an arrival, and the crowds of people wanting to cheer them on but of course also looking out for the return of loved ones [2]. From the station they would be taken next door to Charing Cross hospital for triage, so that they could be allocated to the appropriate place according to the severity of their wounds, so of course this was also the case for 2nd Lieutenant ‘Jack’ Lewis [3].
The place chosen for Lewis, as we know, was the Red Cross Military Hospital that had been the Endsleigh Palace Hotel in the Bloomsbury area of London.
On 25 May 1918 Lewis sent a telegram to his father that he was now at the Endsleigh Palace Hospital, Endsleigh Gardens, London. He was now well enough to sit up in bed to read and write letters [4].
We can again turn to the photo album of 2nd Lieutenant Cyril Edwards to see an example of a room at this hospital from 1917, probably the very sort that Lewis had. As you can see, it is a stripped-down version of an Edwardian hotel room, with a fireplace and rug, a bedside table and lamp, and vases of flowers, so much more like home.
Lewis himself was very pleased with having his own room, tea in the morning, a relatively large bed, and close proximity to London’e bookshops. He is almost hoping that the two pieces of shrapnel in his chest will give a bit more trouble so he won’t have to return to the Front [5].
I particularly wanted to see the view from the top floor where Lewis had his room. So this was a view familiar to Lewis, although of course it is now hugely changed. I could see a long way across many roof tops, but the view is now dominated by the British Telecom Tower in Fitzrovia from the 1960s. which would of course not have been there in CSL’s day, nor would many of the other buildings.
I could only take photos from the corridor as I did not go into the individual rooms that are now offices. From what Lewis says in his long letter to Arthur of 29th May 1918, his room faced north and he could see a huge expanse of houses, and in the distance a green hill with trees which he was told was Hampstead [6]. As I said previously, that is where I lived in the early 1980s, when I was travelling everyday to do my research, then teacher training, to the same area of London as this hospital. Apparently Euston Station was in the foreground of the view from Lewis’ room. From the other end of the corridor, all I could see was the fire escape!
But at least my photos can give an idea of some of the views over London that Lewis would have had going to and from his own room, and also just how far you can see from that floor of the former hospital.
LEWIS’ READING
The British Journal of Nursing in May 1918 asks readers to send books to the Red Cross War Library, Surrey House, Marble Arch, London W1: “Our troops need thousands of the best, grave and gay, so don’t miss this chance of doing them a real good turn. What would life be, even in a happy environment, without books? Then realise how all-important they are for the brain rest and amusement of those at the front.” [7] Lewis, of course, was quick to turn to books for stimulation and comfort, now he had got a “Blighty” that meant he could leave the war behind and return home for a while. He had already read Walter Scott’s Old Mortality and Guy Mannering in the field hospital,
plus Anthony Trollope’s Barchester Towers, probably in the very portable Everyman editions.
He now enjoyed The Private Papers of Henry Ryecroft by George Gissing. He went on to relish the rest of The Barchester Chronicles, partly because it reminded him of the reading available at home [8]. Other reading included Hume, Maeterlinck, and Swinburne.
Lewis suggested to his father a ‘pilgrimage’ they could make together to see their old tutor Kirkpatrick in Great Bookham in Surrey [9]. This didn’t happen with his father, but he did have a companion when he visited Kirkpatrick on Sunday 16 June. Was this his ‘adopted mother’ Mrs Moore?
Meanwhile Lewis is actually sending books to Arthur from the lovely old bookshop Hatchard’s in Piccadilly (ah, I remember several happy visits there)!
And he has sent home a fine edition of Yeats’ poetry for future use, and has bought to keep with him Dent’s Malory with designs by Beardsley.
Lewis is obviously enjoying the beautiful look and feel of the books themselves. At Hatchard’s he was also shown fine old copies of Virgil and Rabelais and some of the Morris Kelmscott Press editions including Chaucer, but fortunately the type didn’t appeal to him as they were very expensive, and I suspect on the large side to lug up to the top floor of the Endsleigh Red Cross Hospital! He was probably better off at this point sticking to the more portable Everyman editions, or ‘Everymen’ as he called them.
Part 4 of this series will cover Lewis’ increasing mobility and his exploration of the surroundings of the Endsleigh hospital, plus details of his nursing care before his transfer to Ashley Court in Bristol.
NOTES
1] Canaries on board hospital train to cheer soldiers in BNJ, Vol 60, May 18, 1918.
2] British soldiers returning wounded via Charing Cross station – Pathé news film clip
https://www.britishpathe.com/asset/76237/ .
3] Injured being brought to Charing Cross Hospital for triage – https://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/205025659 .
4] C S Lewis, ColLected Letters, Vol 1, edited by Walter Hooper, p373.
5] Ibid.,p374.
6] Ibid.,p375.
7] British Journal of Nursing, Vol 60, 25 May, p365.
8] C S Lewis, ibid., p380.
9] Ibid, p380.
