“The submarine is just full of machinery…”

Once again we are looking back precisely 100 years. With strict censorship still in force nursing sister Ruby Peterkin relies on stories of her off-duty amusements in Salonika, Greece, to brighten the life of her sister Irene back home in Toronto. An invitation to take a tour all over the British submarine HMS E11 was a genuine thrill. Last year the submarine had been involved at Gallipoli against Turkey, and before its mission was over E11 would sink 85 enemy vessels in the Sea of Marmara.

Picnics and tea were always something to look forward to, especially when suggested by Canadian officers. Ruby’s brother Charles, with his family which included her nieces Theresa and Marie who are close to her in age, had moved to 285 High Park Ave. in Toronto. The “kiddies” are Irene’s kindergarten pupils.

No. 4 Canadian Hosp
Greece, April 14-16

Dear Rene, —
I fear it is ages since I wrote you, but you know it was ages and ages before I got your letter since the one before.

You certainly had one awful time with those boxes. It is too bad you had to repack them. They have not come yet but parcels always take at least two weeks longer than letters. We have heard that they are not going to accept any more parcels in the mails for the Mediterranean forces. Is this true?
How did your dance come off? Your description of Minnie’s sounded good. Think of it, we have not danced since we joined the army, and such excellent opportunities going to waste.

Things are going along much the same here. We are busy the weeks we receive (every third week) and not at other times. We are still having one day a week off.

British submarine HMS E11

I must tell you the wonderful thing we did the other day. Last Saturday, Capt. Foster, (you know, the A.S.C. Off. with the hyphen in his name) sent me over a note asking four of us to go for a picnic. So he called in his car at one o’clock (on Sunday) and he had one of his own officers and a naval officer with him. This naval off., Lt. Brown, was from the submarine the E11 which was in the harbor at the time. You know it is the wonderful one which got up behind Heliogoland three times and has torpedoed 94 enemy craft in the sea of Marmora. Well, Capt. Fletcher went with us (that is the new rule that we have to be accompanied by one of our own officers wherever we go) and four went in the car and took the provisions and four of us walked. We went up to a ravine about four miles from here and had a great time. When we got back Col. Roberts seized the naval officer and made him stay to dinner. He had been down on the submarine the day before, it seemed. Now this made things very simple for Mr. Brown had asked us to come down and have tea there on Tuesday so, knowing Col. Roberts made this easily arranged for he got ambulances to take us down. We went all over the submarine and it [is] just full of machinery. They have really very little space to live in. But when they are in harbour they always anchor alongside a larger boat and live on it. We had tea on the “Prince George” which is the old battleship they were living on. It is worth coming to the war just to have been on the E11. You never pick up a magazine hardly but there is something about it and pictures and Commander Nasmith who got the V.C. or D’Oyley Hughes or Lt. Brown both of whom got the D.S.O. There are just three officers, thirty-six men altogether.

Give my best to everybody at High Park Ave. I do mean to write to them but it is so hard writing letters. I will try to write a little for Aunt Clara’s Red Cross, but if I can get the films and take some pictures it would make it more interesting for my powers of description are very limited. (I realize this on reading over my description of the submarine, but you read it up in any magazine. We saw it all.)

Nursing sisters and officers enjoying tea (?!)

I was in town with Capt. F. the Sunday before last and then for a long drive out towards the mountains – we have had various picnics. A very successful one with this same A.S.C. off. and one of his, and Capts. Wookey and Van Wyck. The four of us in our tent went. There is a glorious ravine about four miles away, the same one we went to Sunday, only this was farther down and it is green there (all rocks up farther). There is one real tree growing in it. I have been riding quite a bit but I fear they are going to put a stop to that because one sister at 29th Hosp. fell off her horse and was hurt. We are getting frightfully fed up here. I hope something happens soon.

Irene Peterkin posing in a Greek costume that her sister must have sent her from Salonika.

Are you busy now? How are the kiddies? Did you get your appointments and where is Theresa now? Minnie told me you were getting my dresser enamelled for your use at her house. That’s fine. I wish you were out here and seeing all these things that we are, but on the other hand it is a great relief to know that all the people I care about are safely at home.

Is Andy still counting on being married in June? I must send them a wedding present.

Best love, Ruby

Near the firing line at Gallipoli

It is a week later and nursing sister Ruby Peterkin is finally “there”, which is Malta. But it hasn’t been all quiet and uneventful on the SS “Kildonan Castle”. At Gallipoli they sail right up to the firing line, with shells bursting nearby. Then orders are received to carry on to Salonika and almost immediately to return to Malta. No one knows what happens next …

Ruby is still on her way to her final destination in Greece

Union-Castle Line
R.M.S. “Kildonan Castle”
Nov. 5 – 1915

Dear Rene –
We are still on board and are now in the harbour at Malta. We have just been taking a little Mediterranean cruise and taking in the places we did not visit when you and I were over here last. The patients are to be unloaded this a.m. for of course, you understand, we have been working our passage. When I wrote you last we thought our destination was to be Lemnos but not so. We went right from London to Lemnos. There the boat was ordered to the Gulf of Suvla Galipoli, to take on a load of wounded and so no one knew what to do with us and had heard nothing of NO. 4. We went with the ship, the nursing staff for this boat having failed to make connections. We were right up at the firing line at Galipoli all right, anchored ½ mile from shore and saw the shells bursting on land and in the water. We got out board – about seven hundred and went back to Lemnos, got orders to go to Salonika and proceeded thither. They knew nothing more about us there, but they said twelve of us were to stay on the ship to take the patients to Malta and the others of us were transported to another hospital ship the Karapara in the harbor. The whole sixty-three of us slept in a big ward and in the a.m. we got orders to go back to our own ship. So we all were conveyed back in the lighter and very glad were the twelve, who had been left on board, to see us.

Then we set out for Malta and arrived here yesterday. They are going to begin to unload now and no one knows what is going to become of us. They cabled London last night and are waiting a reply. We have not heard of our officers and men who are supposed to have come out in a troop ship. No doubt they are as much in the dark as to our whereabouts.
Don’t be surprised if you don’t hear very often. I’ll write when I can. Let Minnie and Ern know the news as I have not time to write them just now.

Ruby