From Triancourt we went straight to the Headquarters of General
Nivelle. They had just brought him the maps rectified to mark the
French advance. The advance had been made whilst we were
standing on the terrace at Verdun the night before. We had seen
the rockets sent up, requesting a "tir de barrage" (curtain of fire).
The 75's had replied at once and the French had been able to
carry out the operation.
Good news had also come in from the Somme, and General
Nivelle did not hesitate to express his admiration for the British
soldiers.
He said that there was no need to praise the first troops sent by
Britain to France, every one knew their value, but it should be a
great satisfaction to Britain to find that the new army was living up
to the traditions of the old army.
He added: "We can describe the new Army of Britain in two words:
Ca mord--it bites."
The Father of his own men, it is not surprising that General Nivelle
finds a warm corner in his heart for the British Tommy, since his
Mother was an Englishwoman.
At lunch General Nivelle and the members of his staff asked many
questions as to the work of the Scottish Women's Hospitals. I told
them that what appealed to us most in our French patients was the
perfect discipline and the gratitude of the men. We are all women
in the Hospitals, and the men might take advantage of this fact to
show want of discipline, but we never had to complain of lack of
obedience. These soldiers of France may some of them before the
war have been just rough peasants, eating, drinking, and sleeping;
even having thoughts not akin to knighthood, but now, through the
ordeal of blood and fire, each one of them has won his spurs and
come out a chivalrous knight, and they bring their chivalry right into
the hospitals with them. We had also learned to love them for their
kindness to one another. When new wounded are brought in and
the lights are low in the hospital wards, cautiously watching if the
Nurse is looking (luckily Nurses have a way of not seeing
everything), one of the convalescents will creep from his bed to
the side of the new arrival and ask the inevitable question: "D'ou
viens-tu?" (Where do you come from?) "I come from Toulouse,"
replies the man. "Ah," says the enquirer, "my wife's Grandmother
had a cousin who lived near Toulouse." That is quite a sufficient
basis for a friendship. The convalescent sits by the bedside of his
new comrade, holding the man's hand, whilst his wounds are
being dressed, telling him he knows of the pain, that he, too, has
suffered, and that soon all will be well.
Lions to fight, ever ready to answer to the call of the defence of
their country, yet these men of France are tender and gentle. In
one hospital through which I passed there was a baby. It was a
military hospital, and no civilian had any right there, but the
medical officers who inspected the hospital were remarkably blind
--none of them could ever see the baby. One of the soldiers
passing through a bombarded village saw a little body lying in the
mud, and although he believed the child to be dead he stooped
down and picked it up. At the evacuating station the baby and the
soldier were sent to the hospital together; the doctors operated
upon the baby and took a piece of shrapnel from its back, and,
once well and strong, it constituted itself lord and master and king
of all it surveyed. When it woke in the morning it would call "Papa"
and twenty fathers answered to its call. All the pent-up love of the
men for their own little ones from whom they had been parted for
so long they lavished on the tiny stranger, but all his affection and
his whole heart belonged to the rough miner soldier who had
brought him in. As the shadows fell one saw the man walking up
and down the ward with the child in his arms, crooning the
"Marseillaise" until the tired little eyes closed. He had obtained
permission from the authorities to adopt the child as the parents
could not be found, and remarked humorously: "Mademoiselle, it is
so convenient to have a family without the trouble of being
married!"
What we must remember is that the rough soldier, himself blinded
with blood and mud, uncertain whether he could ever reach a point
of safety, yet had time to stoop and pick that little flower of France
and save it from being crushed beneath the cannon wheels. I told
General Nivelle that the hospital staff intended to keep the child for
the soldier until the end of the war, and we all hoped that he might
grow up to the glory of France and to the eternal honour of the
tender-hearted fighter who had rescued him.
After lunch we stood for some time watching the unending stream
of camions proceeding into Verdun. I believe it has been stated
that on the average one passed through the village every fifteen
seconds, and that there are something like twelve thousand motor
vehicles used in the defence of Verdun. The splendid condition of
the roads and the absence of all confusion in the handling of this
immense volume of traffic are a great tribute to the organising
genius of the chiefs of the French Army.
We left General Nivelle as General Petain predicted we should find
him--smiling.