During this flood of 1915, several of the Salisbury streets were flooded and people went about them by boat. Gina Fisher and I decided that it would be a historic feat to be rowed down Fisherton Street, so we set off for the starting-point, each accompanied by a scoffing sister to watch. I blush to say that our hearts failed us at the crucial moment. We found that there was a considerable gap between the last dry spot where it was possible to walk, and the point where the water was deep enough to float a boat. Stout policemen carried the would-be passengers across this no-man’s-land—a most ridiculous sight, which all day attracted a large and hilarious crowd. But this was not the worst. The boat itself was so wet and dirty that no one dared to sit down in it. Everyone had to stand, each man clutching at his nearest neighbour when the boat lurched suddenly. An unexpectedly big lurch always sent two or three people into the water, so that the lookers-on had plenty of fun for their money. We watched the scene for some time and then we agreed that although we had been right to think that this would be a historic occasion, yet it was better to watch history in the making than to make it ourselves.
At Wilton people went to their work in farm wagons which plied busily up and down the streets in the early hours, and the curate was pushed to church in a wheel barrow. One morning, while it was still almost dark, the people in West Street looked out of their windows and saw an unreal and fairy-story figure looming through the twilight. A giant seemed to have risen from the waters and was now making his way from the outskirts of the town. There was no doubt as to his alarming proportions, for his head was level with the upper windows, and when he came nearer it was seen that the water splashed on each side as though Leviathan himself were churning it up. This super-man turned out to be Frank Haines, the Wilton House carpenter, who had got up early to make himself an enormous pair of stilts. As long as the flood lasted he walked on these the mile which separated his house from his work.
All sorts of horse vehicles were pressed into the service of the marooned inhabitants. The Herbert children filled their pony-carriage with stores which they took to the flooded houses and then cords were dropped from the upper windows to fish up the provender. Fred Rawlence then possessed that now-forgotten thing a double dog-cart, and to this he harnessed his old grey horse. He took with him a ladder and many cans of hot soup. His quarry was any old person who was too feeble to get out of bed to fish for himself. Fred drove his dog-cart against the wall of the house he was visiting and planted his ladder on the seat of his dog-cart. Up it he climbed and into the window with his can of soup.
A Canadian Regiment which was stationed near-by sent its ambulance to rescue two old people who were too ill to be left in their flooded house. It was a very difficult feat to get them through the window and down the ladder on stretchers, but this was brilliantly done; and then arose an unexpected complication. The two old things refused to be saved without their cocks and hens which were shivering on a beam in a shed near the house. The gallant Canadians were ready for this rescue too. They waded into the shed, and made grab after grafe at the squawking, fluttering, frightened birds, who violently objected to being saved. They made a good fight for it amid the shouts and laughter of the soldiers, who finally captured them all and triumphantly conveyed their clucking captives through the streets to Fred Rawlence’s dry chicken-run at Bulbridge.
Such floods never arose entirely without warning. The water-keepers (Drowners as they call them in Wiltshire) controlled the rivers as well as they could raising and lowering the hatches so as to allow the water to pass through by degrees. Then they sent warnings to the various villages on the banks to say at what hour the flood was likely to reach each place. When these messages came, people who lived in houses near the stream began carrying upstairs the furniture from their lower rooms. Having done this, they generally refused to leave their houses, preferring to remain encamped on their upper floors, for they always hoped that the flood would not be so deep as it had been last time.
Two women lived alone in a cottage standing some way back from the main Wilton Street. They received the customary flood warning and they decided to stay on in their house, as the mother, a very old woman, was ill in bed. The daughter carried upstairs as many of their possessions as she could manage, and she stacked them in a little unused bedroom. They lit a fire in the only other room on the first floor, and there they awaited events. They heard the water rush into the house. It gurgled and swished round the kitchen table. It poured out of the downstairs windows. It began coming up the stairs, and from it an icy draught came under the door into the room where the two women were listening. The old mother grew worse. Bronchitis set in. When it began to grow dark, a policeman waded to their door and asked whether they needed help. They said they only wanted a bottle of medicine from the doctor. This had always made the old woman better before and they were sure it would do so again. The policeman brought it and handed it up. Thus they faced the night.
Miss Turner built up the fire and gave her mother some of the doctor’s medicine. They were now completely
