LE NUMÉRO 106.
The school building, hurriedly transformed on the outbreak of war into a
hospital, forms three sides of a quadrangle, the fourth side of which is
blocked by a high wall, so that in the courtyard thus formed the sun can
never shine.
This was the hospital of the French Red Cross--L'Hôpital Auxiliaire du
Territoire, No. 106, Union des femmes de France. The accommodation for
patients is limited to five rooms, all of which look on to the dismal
courtyard. "Salle un," to which I was taken on arrival, the only room at
all resembling a hospital ward, is a long lofty room running the whole
length of one side of the quadrangle.
Along each side of the room beds of various sorts and sizes were ranged
several yards apart. Mine was a large and brand-new double bedstead
with large ornamental brass knobs. The sheets were of the finest Cambrai
linen. Under several layers of blankets, and surrounded on all sides by
hot bricks wrapped in flannel, I soon began to recover from the effects
of my journey in the ambulance.
The first thing that struck me about my new quarters was the number
of nurses and orderlies, most of whom were local volunteers whose
experience of hospitals dated from the German invasion. They were
relieved from night work by a number of extra volunteers attached to the
hospital, who each took one night a week.
[Illustration: L'Hôpital "106."]
It was now past eight o'clock, the nurses had all left, and the night
staff--three youths from the city--had taken off their bowler hats,
retaining their coats and mufflers, and sat themselves at a table near
the door. At the far end of the ward a tall young German soldier sat
working silently at his table far into the night. He belonged to the
motor transport, and was suffering from earache--so much I had gathered
from the nurses. I speculated that perhaps he was working to pass
examinations for a commission; the little lamp burning late,
the absorbed attitude of the student, seemed incongruous in such
surroundings. In the bed opposite mine lay a badly-wounded German
officer, shaded by a screen from the lamp round which the night-watchers
sat reading. These were the only two Germans in the hospital. Presently
the studious German put aside his books, retired to bed, and the
ward was silent. The services of the orderlies did not seem to be
required,--one sat for a while aimlessly turning over the leaves of an
illustrated paper, then rested his head awhile upon the table, and
was at once asleep. From the bed opposite there came a gentle tinkling
sound. One of the watchers, a young lad, still a schoolboy, crossed
the ward on tiptoe and bent over the wounded man, whose whisper was too
feeble to reach my listening ear. The light was turned on, the sleeper
resting on the illustrated paper awoke, left the ward, and returned
after a few minutes with the night nurse. Now that the screen was moved
I could see that the face in the bed opposite was that of a young man,
perhaps not more than nineteen; it was the face of a gentleman and a
soldier, but drawn, pinched, more yellow than reality in the gaslight,
gasping with pain, gasping for morphia. When at last the merciful
injection had been given, "Merci, merci," said a strengthened voice;
"merci, vous êtes tous si bons pour moi." The screen replaced, the gas
turned low, the watchers returned to their table, and all was quiet
again till dawn.
Next morning just before ten o'clock the ward was visited by two
surgeons, one a German, the other my friend from the Hôpital Civil,
Dr Debu. By the dull light of a wet October morning they examined the
wounded German officer. From Dr D.'s face I knew the case was
hopeless. Still, an operation might save life, if not the leg. When the
stretcher-bearers came to carry the young officer away he thanked the
nurses for their kindness, speaking perfect French with pathetic accents
of real gratitude. He asked that the chocolates, cigarettes, &c., on his
table should be distributed among the French soldiers in the ward, and
again expressed his thanks, and asked pardon for the trouble he had
caused. The operation was unsuccessful. He was taken, such are the
coincidences of life and death, to the same bed as I had occupied at the
Civil Hospital--numéro sept--where a few days afterwards he died, but
not before his mother, in mourning already for two sons, had been called
from Germany to his bedside.
No special accommodation was provided for officers at the 106 Hospital.
There was a French officer in Salle 5, on the ground floor, and it was
arranged that I was to be taken downstairs to his ward.
The worst ward in the hospital was undoubtedly No. 5. The room had
formerly been a classroom for junior pupils. Poor little children! how
miserable their lessons must have been in that damp sunless schoolroom.
On the courtyard side, facing north, the light is obscured by a large
wide verandah; on the south side the ground of another small courtyard
is five or six feet higher than the level of the room.
Of the Salle cinq I have many pleasant memories, but my first impression
of it--a picture which I cannot forget--was sadly depressing. The room
is a small one, not more than 36 by 20 feet. One had the impression of
entering a basement, almost a cellar. The windows were all shut. Judging
from the heavy fetid atmosphere, they had not been opened since the
declaration of war.
Except for a small open area in the centre, the whole floor-space was
filled with beds, which were ranged all round the room, each one close
up against the other. In the corner next the door one bed, standing by
itself, was occupied by the French officer, X., a reserve Captain of
the Colonial Infantry. My bed was also a corner one. On one side stood a
cupboard in which bandages, morphia, and other necessaries were kept.
Salle 5 was not only the worst ward, but it also contained the worst
cases. This was probably owing to the fact that the nurse in charge,
Mme. Buquet, was the most efficient nurse in the hospital. The number
of beds was thirteen. No. 1, known as "le Picard," was a cheery, jovial,
hardy little fellow, who had lost a leg. No. 2, Sergt. Blanchard,
suffered from a badly suppurating wound in the thigh, and was taken away
for an operation to the Civil Hospital, where he died a few days after.
No. 3, Chasseur Alpin, shot through the chest about an inch above the
heart. A very serious case. No. 6, left arm amputated, right leg and
foot shattered. Nos. 8 and 9, very bad gangrenous leg wounds. Both died
shortly afterwards.
[Illustration: M. Vampouille in the Salle Cinq.]
Under the circumstances it was perhaps only natural that on my arrival
into the Salle cinq I was rather depressed. Most of the poor fellows
in the ward were in continuous pain, but the only one who made audible
complaint was No. 6. This man was a Charentais from Cognac. His wounds,
although very terrible, were yet not so bad or so painful as those of
many others who suffered in silence. No. 6 never ceased day or night,
except when under the influence of morphia, from groaning and whining
about his foot; he was known in the ward as "Oh mon pied!" On the
afternoon of my arrival No. 6 came near to death--nearer even than he
did on the day when a German shell blew off his arm and destroyed most
of his right leg. No. 6 was sitting propped up in bed, when suddenly his
head fell back, his thin yellow face turned a pasty white, and he lay
back apparently a corpse. Fortunately an orderly was in the room at the
time, and help was immediately forthcoming. About a dozen nurses crowded
round the bed. There was nothing to be done. The doctor was sent
for, also the Curé. "The man was dying;" "he was dead." "No, he still
breathed." Then some one made an intelligent suggestion. "Look inside
the bed." The bedclothes pulled down revealed a dreadful sight, which
explained at once what had happened. The whole bed was soaked in blood.
A blood-vessel had burst in the wound and the man was bleeding to death.
The bleeding was easily stopped by the application of a tourniquet, but
it was doubtful if any man could live after the loss of so much blood.
Doctor and Curé arrived together as No. 6 was beginning to come round.
The tourniquet had been applied just in time.
No windows were left open during the night.
Café au lait came in next morning at 7.30, and was distributed by
Pierre, the orderly, a most willing and really excellent fellow. During
breakfast one window was opened about three inches. As soon as breakfast
was over the window was closed, the breakfast things removed, and the
nurse began to prepare for the morning's work.
Mme. Buquet, head nurse of the ward, wife of a well-known French
surgeon, was assisted by two volunteers from Cambrai, Mlle. Marie and
Mlle. X. The dressing of wounds is quite a simple, straightforward
business when the wounds are clean, but it is a very different story
when there is gangrenous infection. No. 1, "le Picard," whose bed was
just opposite mine, gave no trouble; his stump had nearly healed up and
required very little attention. A deal of time was given to No. 3, the
Chasseur Alpin; the bullet wound had made a small hole just over the
left nipple, and the dressing of it was most painful to watch, as the
poor boy evidently suffered great agony, though he never cried out or
complained. No. 6 provided what one might call "le pièce de résistance."
He began to howl before he was touched, and during the whole time his
wounds were being dressed he continued either to shout or groan, or
repeat his favourite exclamation, "Oh mon pied, mon pied!" Picard used
to jeer at him for making so much fuss. "There is no one in the ward who
makes such an infernal row as you do." No. 6 replied that no one in the
ward suffered so much pain. This statement met with vigorous opposition
from all over the room; even No. 3, who could scarcely breathe, was
roused for the first time to husky speech. "Some of us suffer in
silence: you should do likewise." In the heated discussion which
followed No. 6 forgot for a time all about his bad foot. Poor No. 6 was
in a minority of one. He was told that, though we were all very sorry
for him, we objected to the continual groaning and shouting, which could
do no good, and only disturbed those who suffered far worse pain in
silence.
Nos. 8 and 9, the two beds nearest to mine, were the last to be dressed
that morning. No. 9, whose bed was so close to mine that there was only
just room between for the nurse to stand, was badly shot in the upper
part of the thigh. The wound was in such a condition that there was no
hope of recovery. A stream of dark-green gangrenous liquid poured out
of the wound at the first washing. I covered up my head under the sheets
and lit a cigarette, but even so could not escape from the sickening
smell.
Owing to the serious condition of most of the wounded, the limited
number of surgical instruments, and the cramped space in which the work
had to be done, the dressing of wounds went on the whole morning, and
was seldom finished before midday. During all this time the windows
were kept shut, until just immediately before lunch, when one window was
opened--not too wide, lest too much of the foul putrid atmosphere should
escape and let in some of the clean air of a fresh autumn morning.
After lunch, M. le Médecin Chef Faméchon and Capt. Viguié came to pay
us a visit. The Médecin Chef is a man between sixty and seventy years of
age, tall, straight as an arrow, dignified, reserved, almost austere in
manner, _au fond_ the kindest and best of men, as I found out later
on from personal experience. He was taken prisoner at Arras, and now
remained a prisoner in this hospital. Thus do the Germans observe the
Geneva Convention.
The Médecin Chef and Captain Viguié shared a small room at the other
side of the hospital. Viguié, who had formerly occupied my bed in Salle
5, used to come every morning to visit his old friends. The visits were
always an occasion for the exchange of humour between Viguié and myself,
in which combats Viguié, possessed of a Parisian quickness of repartee,
always came off best. Perhaps it was the case as Mme. Buquet said, that
I suffered from "du retard dans la perception." We all used to tease
Viguié, and I used to greet him in the morning as "vieux coco." "Dites
donc, Monsieur l'Ecossais," was the usual answer; "nous n'avons pas
gardé les cochons ensemble." It has taken nearly a year and a half to
find the correct answer to this pleasantry--an answer which I could send
to my friend in his German prison, only that the Boche might refuse
to pass it. "Non, mon ami, mais nous avons été gardé ensemble par les
cochons!"
My diary states that "on October 26th I got up in the evening and
had dinner at the table. There is great excitement in the hospital on
account of large bodies of German troops having passed through the town.
This is supposed to be a retirement." This opinion was strengthened by
the visit of a simple-minded citizen of Cambrai, who came in with the
news that "Metz had fallen." Stupid stories such as these were believed
for a time by a great many people. "The smell in my ward is not so
strong to-night. I have succeeded in getting a window kept open."
"October 30th. M. Heloire, the Veterinary Surgeon from Caudry, came to
see me yesterday." Perhaps it was because he was not wearing the white
overall that I did not recognise the tall, erect, grey-bearded man, who
stood at the door of the Salle cinq and looked anxiously round the ward.
Presently he came over to my bedside and stood looking. Then he spoke
some commonplace, but not until he mentioned Caudry did I realise who
it was. Labouring under a racial disability, I struggled to express my
gratitude, but M. Heloire put an end to my efforts. With tears rolling
down his cheeks he embraced me tenderly and thanked the _Bon Dieu_ that
I was still alive. "They said at Caudry that you had died on the way
to Germany, and so I came to ask the truth as soon as I could get a
permit." We talked of many things, and M. Heloire refreshed my memory as
to many incidents of my short stay at Caudry which I had forgotten. He
told me among other things that when I was carried on a stretcher out of
La Maison Camille Wanecq and put into the cart, the villagers standing
by, who were not quite sure if my immediate destination was to be
the hospital or the churchyard, were overcome with astonishment at my
exclaiming, as the stretcher was lifted on to the cart, "En route la
marchandise!" "Every day," went on the old man, "for days after you had
left, my little granddaughter, who is only eight years old, begged to be
taken to the place where grandpère had found the poor wounded officer.
One Sunday afternoon, when it was fine, we went for a walk along the
road that you must so well remember--the cart road from Caudry to
Beaumont. When we reached the place, the ditch by the roadside, where,
the morning after the battle, after much searching, I found you lying,
my little girl, asking me to show her exactly where you had rested,
picked from the spot some of the grass and a few common wild flowers to
keep as a souvenir of grandpapa's wounded soldier."
On that same evening, after M. Heloire had gone, I made another friend,
M. Vampouille, a Belgian, the proprietor of a small pork-butcher's
business, Rue de l'Arbre d'Or, Cambrai. M. Vampouille worked in the
hospital during the day when his business would permit, took one night a
week in the Salle cinq, and was to me a faithful and devoted friend, to
whom I never can hope to express as I would my admiration and deepest
gratitude. Vampouille himself would be much astonished to hear me
express such sentiments, for the kindness which always took thought
and trouble, the tact and common-sense which made his companionship so
agreeable, are natural virtues of which he is wholly unconscious.
At the 106 we had no restrictions as to visits; at all hours of the day
numbers of people used to visit the wards, many came out of curiosity,
and such visits were for me at any rate a penance, chiefly owing to the
prevailing mania for shaking hands. At times whole families, dressed all
in deep mourning, would drift into the room and stand awkwardly grouped
at the foot of my bed. "Allons ma petite Françoise, va dire bonjour à ce
brave soldat," and the whole tribe would come, one after the other, to
perform the ceremony of "le shake-hand." After this function followed
the inevitable question, "Where were you wounded?"
My method of dealing with this question always amused Mme. Buquet.
"Où avez-vous été blessé?"
"A Caudry."
"Oui! mais à quel endroit avez-vous été blessé?"
"A l'entrée du village!"
"Oui, mais dans quelle parti avez-vous été blessé?"
"In the head, that is why I wear these bandages."
"Go, Françoise, say au revoir to the poor wounded soldier."
The function of le shake-hand having been re-enacted by each member of
the family, they passed on to the next bed.
I had many friends whose welcome visits helped to break the monotony
of hospital life. Mlle. Waxin and Mlle. Debu used sometimes to come and
talk to their old "Numéro Sept," and tell me all the latest news.
From them I first heard of poor Captain Lloyd, an English officer very
seriously wounded, who occupied my old room in the Hôpital Civil. I
wrote a short note to Lloyd, expressing my sympathy, and next morning,
when Dr Debu made his daily visit to the ward, I asked him to take it
back with him.
There must be some special department of the German Staff solely
occupied with the task of thinking out new things to make _verboten_.
It is incredible, but true, that the Germans had forbidden any
intercommunication between wounded and dying soldiers in the different
hospitals, and so my correspondence with Lloyd was carried on secretly
through the kind offices of Madame Buquet. Owing to her knowledge of
German, Mme. Buquet was able to obtain a permit to visit the Hôpital
Civil, and every day at 2 P.M., instead of taking her daily walk, she
went to visit poor Lloyd, who was feeling rather lonely, and longed, as
he said in one of his letters, to talk once more to a fellow-countryman.
It was after dinner on All Saints' Day, November 1, that I made my first
attempt to walk without any one's help. I got outside the ward and along
to a door which led into the courtyard. The night was clear and still,
the wind cold and restless. I stood awhile on the wet gravel of the
court, looking up once again at the clouds playing among stars by the
light of a rising moon.
"Vous n'êtes pas fou," said a voice from the doorway. "We looked for you
everywhere; you will catch your death of cold out there in the dark."
"You cannot understand," I replied, "how good it feels to stand once
more on the soil of the earth and look up into the heavens."
Two of the worst cases, Nos. 8 and 9, were taken away during the night
to the Civil Hospital for a fruitless operation. In the afternoon, it
being La Fête des Morts, Madame Buquet went to the military cemetery.
Even the frozen soul of a German staff officer could not forbid the
citizens of Cambrai to visit their dead.
In the military cemetery of Cambrai, visited on this day by crowds
of mourners, the French and British soldiers are buried together in a
common tomb, under a single wooden cross. There are several such tombs
in the cemetery, and each to-day is covered with wreaths. A row of long
black crosses, with name and regiment painted in white on each, marks
the resting-place of the officers. The same order prevails in the German
quarter of the churchyard.
In all the surrounding countryside at Caudry, at Le Cateau, in village
churchyards, in open fields by country roadsides, beside the plain
wooden cross which marks the soldier's grave, some one to-day has laid a
wreath and knelt in prayer.
At this time large numbers of troops were constantly passing through
the city, coming from the direction of St Quentin and leaving in that
of Valenciennes, from which point they proceeded to reinforce actual or
impending attacks on Arras and Ypres. According to the universal
opinion of Cambrai, the departure of the Germans from the city was to be
expected at any moment.
The sound of the cannonade at Arras could be heard quite distinctly, and
when the wind was favourable the boom of the big guns seemed nearer
than ever. "They were coming nearer," said the citizens of Cambrai with
mutual congratulations. The inevitable morning salutation now became,
"Bonjour, bonjour; the guns sounded nearer last night and they will soon
be here--listen! comme ça roule."
A gentle westerly wind carried to our ears the sound of the distant
guns, like an echo of a distant thunderstorm.
One evening, late in November, a still clear night, when the cannonade
could be heard more distinctly than usual, Captain Viguié and I stood
out in the yard for a long time listening. To the long loud rumble of
the German cannon we could hear, after an interval, a faint and more
distant answer--an answer that spoke, as it were, in another tongue. It
was the French 75!
It was obvious to those who did not yield to vain hopes that the German
occupation of Cambrai was being organised on a permanent basis. Very
few German soldiers remained billeted in the town. Numbers of them were
constantly coming back on short leave from the front, and from them the
story of the new trench war gradually became known to us all.
The Military Governor of Cambrai occupied the Town Hall, now known as
the Kommandantur. The French préfet having fled the city on the approach
of the enemy, a successor was appointed by the Kommandant, and the
administration of the city proceeded under German supervision and
according to the usual German methods. Edicts were published at regular
intervals declaring some new thing to be verboten, and always under
penalty of death. Such things as bicycles and sewing-machines were
requisitioned and might not be retained under penalty of death. Any
person at Cambrai or in the district found, after a certain date, in
possession of pigeons of any kind would be condemned to death.
The old Cathedral had belonged for years to the pigeons, who, suspecting
no danger, fell an easy prey, and for several days afforded fine game
to the German sportsmen. Mlle. Marie, who passed the Cathedral every
morning on her way to the hospital, told me that there were still a few
survivors who, having learnt the lesson of their comrades' fate, circled
high round the Cathedral tower or remained anxiously perched on some
lofty gargoyle.
The "Cambrai" pigeons were presented to the Hôpital 106 by the Secretary
of the Kommandantur, and thus did not meet with the final indignity of
being eaten by the enemy.
A typical illustration of German morality is afforded by an edict which
was published in Cambrai towards the end of November. All able-bodied
Frenchmen were ordered to present themselves at the Kommandantur on a
certain date, and were to be sent to Lille to dig trenches. Only a
small number of men presented themselves on the appointed day, and were
offered the job of digging trenches at five francs per day. Those who
refused would be sent to Germany. Not more than twenty or thirty men
accepted the proffered wage, and the remainder were sent to a German
prison. Owing to the failure of the citizens to respond in sufficient
numbers to this demand, the town of Cambrai was fined a large sum of
money.
A declaration, printed in French and German, of which I have seen a
copy, was posted all over Cambrai under the heading, "Who is responsible
for this Terrible War--ENGLAND." Only the German mind could have
produced such an extraordinary document, in which England is accused,
among other crimes, of "having abandoned Belgium to her fate." Most of
the French population of Cambrai were much entertained by the clumsy
anti-British propaganda which emanated from the Kommandantur.
Another large poster appeared in all parts of the town stating that the
British had been convicted of using Dumdum bullets. A British rifle,
with ammunition, was on show in a shop window in the market-place, and
the German soldier in charge explained to those who stopped to look
that the hollow thumb-piece of the cut-off of the British rifle had been
designed explicitly for the purpose of manufacturing dumdum bullets. By
inserting the point of a bullet into the recess and giving the cartridge
a rapid jerk, the pointed end broke, leaving a square ragged surface.
In their dealings with the civilian population of Cambrai the Germans
showed how they utterly failed to understand the French mind.
Salle cinq vastly enjoyed the visit of a certain German officer who came
ostensibly to inspect, but in reality for purposes of propaganda. The
man's name is unknown to me. He was always referred to among ourselves
as _l'imbécile_. He was so short of stature that the long Prussian cloak
reached almost to the ground, and a more fatuous face I have seldom seen
on any man. He spoke French fluently but ungrammatically, and with a
pronounced German accent. "Ponjour, Matame; here we are all French,
is it not? Your so beautiful Paris I so much admire." The "imbecile,"
having gone round the ward, stood at the bottom of my bed facing the
centre of the room, and entered into amiable conversation with Mme.
Buquet and the other nurses.
He held forth at some length on the amenities of Cambrai, and expressed
delight that the fortunes "of this terrible war" had been the occasion
of his meeting and learning to love still more the French people, whom
he had always held in such esteem.
"It is not the French who are the real enemies of Germany. If we had
not been forced to do so by the treacherous English, never would we have
invaded the soil of France. Ah, those English, what barbarians, what
uncultured savages, such different types from those I see around me
here!"
At this point Mme. Buquet, catching my wink from behind the "imbecile's"
back, nearly exploded with laughter, which she, however, managed to turn
into a coughing fit, and the Salle cinq listened eagerly for more.
We heard the whole pathetic story of how Germany had been goaded into
war. Paris now was safe. The German armies thirsted solely for English
blood. When England had been crushed, then France and Germany would fall
into each other's arms and all would be forgiven and forgotten.
The "imbecile" departed, satisfied that he had sown good seed. Mme.
Buquet, with tears rolling down her cheeks, was too exhausted for
laughter. The Salle cinq remained silent for a while, stunned by this
wonderful exhibition of stupidity.
Picard, the one-legged soldier, idiomatically expressed the thought of
the Salle. "Eh bien, il n'a pas peur celui là," which remark might be
translated: "Fools rush in where angels fear to tread."
The Inspecting Officer, who came round every two or three days, was
General Oberarzt Schmidt. In addition to this more or less regular
visit, there was another doctor named Meyer, who was charged with making
up lists of "transportables." Every one naturally wished to put off the
evil hour of departure to Germany as long as possible, especially as
hopes were still entertained by many that the French troops would drive
the Germans out before Christmas. Meyer only paid one visit to the Salle
cinq, on which occasion its inhabitants appeared all to be on the point
of death!
The list of Salle cinq showed that there were ten French and one
British. Meyer stopped at the foot of my bed and turned his cold
cod-fish eyes at me. His finger reached for pencil and note-book.
Mme. Buquet saved my name from going on his list by declaring that my
paralysis was such that I could neither move nor speak. The cod-fish
eyes looked hard at me: "Können Sie Deutsch verstehen?" I gazed at him
with dropped jaw and vacant eyes, shaking my head very slightly. There
were no "transportables" that day from the Salle cinq.
Meyer was cordially detested by the whole hospital staff, by reason of
the contemptuous insolence of his manner. His hatred of the English was
fanatical. Mme. Buquet once asked him if there was any prospect of an
exchange. "Of the French, yes," he replied; "of the English, never!"
[Illustration: General Oberarzt Schmidt, Königliche Erste Bayrische
Reserve Corps.]
General Oberarzt Schmidt, a very different type, was a tall, big-framed,
and full-bodied man, large in the belly, bulging at the neck, with
a pinky-red face and a large square head, bald on top, fringed with
short-cut grey-blond hair. He spoke no English, and only a half-dozen
words of French. It would be difficult to find an attractive feature
in the face of General Oberarzt Schmidt. The large mouth which droops
shapelessly to one side is decorated on the upper lip with a few clipped
badly-grown blue-grey bristles. The eyes, small and shifting, are almost
colourless. Whatever his true character may have been, to us at the 106
he was always courteous and well-behaved. He used to come to the Salle
cinq every week, and often remained to talk to Mme. Buquet, who, owing
to her fluent knowledge of German, was able to obtain from Dr Schmidt
a certain amount of latitude regarding the question of the
"transportables." It was thanks to Mme. Buquet that the two French
captains, whose wounds were completely healed, were able to remain at
106 for several weeks after they were fit to travel.
At the Hôpital Civil, the German weekly inspection, when carried out
by such men as Grigou, was a merciless visitation, and for those whose
names went on the list there was no reprieve. But at the 106 we suffered
from no such unreasoning severity. Doctor Schmidt was often induced to
postpone the departure of any soldier really unfit for the journey.
"'Tetanus' made the night hideous with groaning and moaning, so that
no one could get any sleep." This entry in my diary refers to a young
Breton soldier who was isolated in a room opposite the Salle cinq. The
word "room" gives a wholly wrong impression of the place where this
unfortunate man had to be put. In one corner stood an old and useless
bath, in another two broken bedsteads; the rough flooring was littered
with rubbish. The walls had never been papered, the plaster still hung
in patches, cracked and yellow with damp. A wooden partition half-way
up to the ceiling divided the place off from the corridor, and thus the
moans of the dying man could be heard distinctly in our room. There was
no other accommodation in the hospital wherein a patient, such as this
one, could be isolated. Tetanus was very common at Cambrai. We had eight
cases at the Hôpital Civil, six of which died. Very little treatment
could be given, as there was no anti-tetanus serum to be had. The horror
of tetanus is unique, for there is no disease so insidious, so sudden in
its effects, and so terrible in its end.
For three days the man lived in a semi-unconscious condition. The first
evening we could hear him moaning, a low, steady, pitiful moan. About
the middle of the night there was a sudden silence, then a crash, and
a sound of struggling. M. Vampouille, who was on duty that night in our
ward, rushed across the corridor and, by the light of a match, bent over
the man's bed. It was empty! From the middle of the room came again the
low moaning sound; the unfortunate man had struggled out of bed in a
fit. The stitches of his leg, which was amputated above the knee,
had burst, and he lay in a pool of blood. M. Vampouille's further
description of the scene is too awful to dwell upon. From that evening
of November 4 until the morning of November 7, almost without a stop
day and night, there came from that room the most mournful lamentation,
loud, deep, and sonorous, though it came through teeth clenched in the
rigor of the dreadful disease. Through locked jaws and motionless lips
came the sound that expressed the sole thought of his mind. There is
no phrase or turn of writing that can express the pitiful, appealing,
struggling effort of the dying soldier to articulate this dying call for
his mother. For three days and three nights, first strong and loud, then
weaker and weaker, his constant call was "Maman, Maman," expressed in
this awful moaning. On the third day I went in to see him. A nurse
was attempting to force some warm milk between his teeth, but with no
success. It was better to let him die in peace. He did not look more
than nineteen. Sweat ran in trickles down the pale face wrinkled in
agony. His thick black hair fell low down over clammy forehead and
temple. The blue-grey eyes stared fixed and sightless. The moaning was
now low and weak, but one could hear that the call was still for "Maman,
Maman." Early next morning I woke while it was still dark, sat up in
bed and listened. From somewhere in the hospital there came a swishing,
gurgling sound very like the whistling noise of a turbine engine. Still
half asleep, I sat wondering what kind of engine it could be. When day
dawned the swishing, whistling noise had ceased, and the suffering of
the poor Breton boy was over. Mme. Buquet was very late in coming to the
ward that morning. She told me that the last few minutes before the
end were quite peaceful. M. le Vicaire-Général administered the Last
Sacraments, and Captain Viguié spoke in the dying man's ear the only
earthly consolation that remained: "Mon garçon, tu meurs pour la
France."
In many respects life in the Salle cinq now began to be much easier. As
a result of my insistent propaganda in favour of fresh air, I obtained
some small concessions, and succeeded in obtaining a number of adherents
to the policy of the open window. The worst cases in the ward had been
taken away; those that were left gradually got better, and even No. 6 in
the corner began to improve. In the afternoon I played bridge with the
French captain and some other friends who used to pay me regular visits,
or discussed the gossip and news of the town with Vampouille. First of
all there was that most excellent M. Herbin, a big, strong, hearty
man, certainly well past fifty, with honest brown eyes that looked you
straight in the face, showing that his heart was in the right place,
as the saying is. My friend was a man of few words. "Allons, mon pauvre
vieux, ça va bien hein! la santé?" "Très bien, mon cher ami." "Tant
mieux. Tant mieux." And the Boches? We used to talk of them.
Cambrai was like a city stricken by the plague. Most of the shops had
their shutters up. No one went abroad for pleasure, one stayed at home
these days; and the "place publique," with its German military band
which played every day at 4 o'clock, the café where one used to take the
evening "Pernod"--such places were now the haunt of the Boche.
M. Herbin owned a draper's shop, his speciality was ready-made clothes,
and his business was practically at an end. At the time there was very
little cash in circulation at Cambrai. Notes for 1, 2, and 5 francs
were issued by the Town and the Chamber of Commerce, with an inscription
stating that "this note will be cashed by the Chamber of Commerce
100 days after the signature of peace." The German usually paid for
everything with "bons de réquisition." These vouchers were guaranteed by
the German Government only when stamped by the Kommandantur.
During the first few weeks of the German occupation officers and men
made a practice of entering shops, taking whatever suited their fancy,
and then, by way of payment, offering the helpless tradesman a scrap of
paper covered with unintelligible hieroglyphics. These scraps of paper
were absolutely worthless. It was the German idea of humour thus to
rob the unfortunate tradesman by presenting him in return for his
merchandise with a written statement certifying "the bearer of this is a
silly fool." A still more Germanic humour found its expression in coarse
vulgar filth. When the bewildered shopkeepers brought their promises to
pay to the Kommandantur for verification they were greeted with jeering
laughter. German humour finds its happiest element in all that concerns
the lowest functions of the body, and doubtless the story of such vulgar
jests at the expense of a helpless enemy were repeated with much gusto
by the elegant fraus of the Fatherland.
Among other visitors whom I was always glad to see were M. et Mme. Ray.
The latter used to come to the Salle twice a week during the afternoons,
so that Mme. Buquet could get off duty. Mme. Ray was an incorrigible
optimist. Every movement of German troops, whether entering or leaving
Cambrai, she always referred to as a retirement. Whenever the wind
changed and the sound of guns was more distinctly heard--the French
were advancing. On Christmas day, she used to tell me, we will be "in
France." I rather think that these opinions were expressed for the
purpose of cheering up the Salle cinq, for Mme. Ray was too sensible a
woman in other matters to be in reality so lacking in judgment in this
particular case.
M. Vampouille came every afternoon, except when detained by his
business, which at this time consisted chiefly in killing pigs to make
sausages for the German soldiers--sausages which they had to pay for
in hard cash, as Vampouille always refused to deal in vouchers. My kind
friend never came to see me without a "surprise," a little parcel which
he brought in his pocket--a slice of "pâté," or ham, or "saucisson à
l'aile," and many other tit-bits.
During these days there was a great scarcity of decent tobacco, although
there was plenty of what was called "Belgian tobacco." It is difficult
to suggest what this stuff might have been. It was sold in large square
parcels, covered with blue paper, labelled "Tabac Belge," and cost one
franc for a very large-sized packet. Once a week a woman came into the
hospital yard bearing on her back a large basketful of tobacco, cigars,
and matches with which she had travelled on foot from Belgium. The
cigars only cost three sous for two. I never made any attempt to smoke
them, but once out of curiosity I dissected one and made a strange
discovery. The outside leaf was cabbage, stained dark-brown; it came off
quite easily and disclosed a second and a third cabbage leaf of a light
yellow colour. Inside these three layers of cabbage leaf was a hard
rolled cylinder which, as it would not unroll, I cut into two pieces
with a sharp knife. The cylinder was filled with small shavings
and dust, whether from fag-ends of cigarettes or merely from street
sweepings, it was impossible to tell. I have seen a soldier achieve the
wonderful feat of smoking one of these cigars to its hot and bitter end.
This was Picard, the one-legged man of Salle cinq--Picard, who smoked
all day and most of the night, quite indifferent as to the substance he
put into his clay pipe as long as it would produce smoke.
M. Vampouille succeeded where many other friends had failed. He found a
supply of "English Tobacco." A patriotic marchande de tabac had buried
the most valuable part of her stock in a back garden rather than let the
Boches have the advantage. There were three four-ounce tins of Craven
Mixture and three boxes of cigars "Bock." It was indeed a luxury to
smoke real tobacco and real cigars.
"First flakes of snow. Result, windows shut tight day and night. Next
day a stove was put into the middle of the room, which is now so stuffy
that one can hardly breathe even with the windows open. To-day, November
16, I began to walk with two sticks."
My good friends, the two French officers, had at last to go, and it
was a very sad day for us all. The list of transportables, a short one,
included five or six French soldiers. They made a very sad picture as
they limped painfully out into the yard and were helped up to a seat in
the ambulance, each one carrying on his back a large bundle containing
socks, a shirt, and as much meat and bread as could be taken by a
wounded man on such a journey. Mme. Buquet went down to the station with
the two captains. We were glad to hear that they were given good berths
in a hospital train, and thus were able to make the long three days'
journey in comparative comfort--a good fortune which in those days was
invariably denied to British officers, even when very severely wounded.
On 25th November I got away from the ward and the fruitless struggle for
fresh air by taking Captain Viguié's bed in the tiny little room shared
with le Médecin Chef. The room was long and narrow--perhaps 20 feet by
5,--with only just room for two beds, the washing-stand, and a small
table where the doctor and I used to sit and play piquet--a game at
which I had neither skill nor luck, for when our games came to an
end the doctor had scored over 5000 points to the good! A welcome
interruption to our card-playing was the visit of Mme. de Rudnickna, a
charming Polish lady who was nurse at the Hôpital Notre Dame, where she
for many months nursed two British officers--Major Johnson and Lieut.
Foljambe, both very seriously wounded. She saved Lieut. Foljambe's life
by careful nursing, when the doctors had given up hope, and she did
everything that could be done to make easier the slow decline of Major
Johnson, who, mortally wounded in the spine, lived till the first day of
1915. Mme. de Rudnickna came two or three times a week with a delicious
"Chausson au pommes," and sometimes a bottle of Vin d'Oporto to liven up
the grey, dull winter afternoons. One day she brought me a copy of 'The
Times' for November 19th, the first English newspaper I had seen since
August 12th.
[Illustration: Taken at l'Hôpital Notre Dame, Cambrai, October 1914.]
In a much-thumbed copy of the 'Figaro,' dated October 25th--a copy
which, it was said, had been dropped from an aeroplane, and which we
secretly circulated from ward to ward--we read the story of Ypres, vague
reports of which we had heard from German soldiers, who were told by
their chiefs, and firmly believed, that the objective now before
them was first Calais and then London. We heard that, once Calais had
fallen--and who could doubt that it would fall?--the famous big guns
that had done such deeds at Liége and Antwerp would batter down the
defences of Dover and sweep a passage across the Channel for the German
troop-ships. It was Bismarck, I think, who, looking over London from
the top of St Paul's, exclaimed regretfully, "Was für Plünder!" On this
"Plünder" the mind of the German was now fixed; and soldiers billeted in
the town talked grandly of the punishment to be inflicted on England for
having treacherously hatched a cowardly plot for the destruction of the
German Empire.
The bulletin of war news, posted up each morning outside the
Kommandantur, boasted each day of the capture of countless Russian and
French prisoners. One day in November the Cathedral bells were rung
to celebrate the victory of German arms in the East. All such official
displays of cheerfulness could not hide from our observant notice that
all was not well with the German armies. The glorious victories always
took place at the other end of Europe.
But nothing was published officially about the military situation on
the Western front. German soldiers back from the trenches of Arras spoke
bitterly of their failure to capture the French positions. Rumour said
that the German casualties between Arras and Ypres amounted to over
100,000 killed. Arras was known to us as "Le Tombeau des Allemands."
Reports from Valenciennes told of crowded hospitals, train-loads of
wounded, and train-loads of dead. Somewhere behind the line of battle,
not very far from Cambrai, there are large brick-fields. Here it was
that a crematorium was built. A tale was told of trains that passed in
the night, of open trucks in which men, limp and with nodding heads,
stood upright, packed in close array. By the light of some dim country
station lamp the corpses in their blue-grey uniform had been seen and
recognised, though hidden by blood and earth, fresh from the field on
which they had fallen. Even for the Boches this was too horrible an end,
to travel in such manner to the grave, strung together like bundles of
asparagus.
At times it would seem as if Martin Luther was right when he wrote in
1527 that the Germans are "a heathenish, nay utterly bestial,
nation." But I do not hold with the judgment of this first apostle of
frightfulness. The German nation consists of the High Command, with its
hordes of obedient slave-drivers, and the rest of the nation, which in
the inner chambers of the High Command is referred to as the mob--die
Menge. The High Command is certainly heathenish, and may be looked upon
as utterly bestial, in view of the fact that they have replaced the
elementary principles of honour by some sort of jungle law of their own
making.
[Illustration: Germany at Home! A Member of the Medical Staff at
Cambrai.]
But there are still symptoms of humanity left in the mob, something of
human sympathy and of the brotherhood of man, which even at Cambrai made
itself felt on rare occasions. Such an occasion was a visit to the Salle
cinq of Herr Arntz. It was at the time when I was confined to bed,
as much by the fear of Germany as by the paralysis, and on one of the
darkest days of November. Mme. Buquet sat by my bedside, as she often
used to do of an afternoon when the day's work was over, and spoke of a
German who had called at the hospital a few days before, asking for her
by name. He had stood out in the corridor waiting for her to come, bare
headed, closely cropped, in the uniform of a private soldier, and not
until he spoke did she recognise a friend. They had not met for
three years, and the place of their parting--the Black Forest in the
spring-time. Herr Arntz, then a young student in chemistry on his
holiday tour, had now passed his degree as Doctor der Chemie. In spite
of weak eyesight and the wearing of blue spectacles, he had been called
up shortly after the outbreak of war, and was doing railway duty at
Cambrai. So much and more had Mme. Buquet told me of her friend on that
afternoon when he came again to see her.
It was cold, dark, and inhospitable in the corridor, and she brought him
into the Salle cinq, where the gas lamps, which had just been lit, gave
the room a touch of homely comfort. Perhaps it was the Numéro 6 who had
called for morphia, or some other wounded man who required attention,
so that Mme. Buquet left her friend sitting alone not very far from my
bedside. I cherish no friendly feeling towards any Boche, yet there was
something about this one which commanded my attention. This was not
the manner of our usual German visitors--to sit there quietly and as if
ashamed.
I started conversation with a hybrid sentence in French and German,
which encouraged Herr Arntz to draw up his chair closer to my bed. There
was nothing remarkable in the subject of our conversation. His attitude
towards the war was that of a fatalist towards an earthquake; he showed
a real sympathy for my state of health and the effect of my wound,
choosing strange and almost unintelligible phrases in his efforts to
speak the French tongue.
"Ah, mais 'le cerf' il n'est pas touché," then you will get well. That
was good. And to me when I would speak of der Krieg, "let us forget it
for a moment." How could this quiet gentleman and I, lying sick, be at
war? Was it indeed wrong, as many said at the 106, thus to converse with
a Boche? Should I have refused my hand at parting? My friend, so I must
call him for his kindness, lies in an honourable grave somewhere along
the long battle line. A year later, promoted from guarding railway
stations, blue spectacles and all, he "fell at the head of his company."
One of the mob--die Menge.
_St Andrew's Day._--Captain Lloyd is very much worse. Mme. Buquet goes
to see him every day at 2 P.M., carrying a note from me and a custard
pudding made by Mme. Tondeur. There was never a more motherly soul
than Mme. Tondeur. And there never was a cook so excellent and yet so
good-tempered, so pestered with visitors in the kitchen, yet always
smiling and with a kind word for each one. Wounded men able to hobble
out of the Salle cinq, or down from the other wards upstairs, loved
to sit in a corner of her kitchen and peel potatoes or wash dishes
and listen to the day's gossip. What with nurses and orderlies, stray
visitors from the town, soldiers on crutches, all congregating in the
kitchen, which might have been the H.Q. of the hospital, it was indeed a
wonder that Mme. Tondeur could produce such an excellent dinner.
When M. Vampouille, of his own idea and specially to please me, cured a
piece of bacon à l'anglaise, Mme. Tondeur and I put our heads together
over the cooking of bacon and eggs. The simple barbarity of English
cooking is always puzzling to French people. My dish, which started
on the range as bacon and eggs, arrived on the table as an omelette au
jambon.
What a sordid thing is a boiled potato in comparison with "des pommes
frites"! We had fried potatoes one day a week, on which occasion all
available hands were turned on to the work of peeling and slicing, no
unskilled labour, when wastage is not to be endured. For every ward
there was a large dish piled high, golden, crisp, and scalding hot
and appetising--good to take with one's fingers like fine pastry, very
different from the soppy, flaccid, colourless British imitation.
Every morning Mme. Tondeur prepared the custard pudding in a small dish,
which was then wrapped up in a napkin ready to be carried by Mme. Buquet
to our poor friend at the Hôpital Civil. "Ah, mon Lieutenant," she used
to say, "what a joy it is to do something to help, even if so little. I
also have a son in the trenches, and I pray le bon Dieu to send him back
to me, even with a leg or an arm less I would not complain. Si seulement
je le savais comme vous!"
Here in England, far from the presence of war, it is impossible to
realise the suffering of these unfortunate people in the North of France
who have never been allowed to get news from the trenches, who will
not know of the death of husband or son for months and years after. No
correspondence is allowed even with neutral countries. Though the land
under German occupation is a place of misery and desolation, it has one
redeeming feature--there are no pseudo-conscientious objectors. German
invasion and occupation of Britain would not be too high a price to pay
for the extirpation of this national dry-rot.
One who has lived long months among these despairing people writes to
say how hard it is for those outside the German zone to realise the
misery of invasion. "Old men and little children work in the fields
with neither horses nor oxen nor ploughs. In many places German soldiers
plough and sow, desecrating the soil of France.... And when in France I
hear it said that the war is without end, that the strain is too great,
I think of those who live in the invaded districts, those who are exiled
from France under the enemy yoke and yet do not despair, but wait with
patient confidence for the hour of deliverance; perhaps they have some
right to say the strain is hard to bear."
I do not envy the man, be he ploughman, starred tradesman, or merely
possessed of a sickly conscience, who can apply for leave to stay at
home, while old men and little children till the fields of Northern
France without horses, oxen, or ploughs, under the hard rule of the Hun.
We were a sad party on that St Andrew's Day at the Hôpital 106. Mme.
Buquet came in the afternoon rather later than usual to the little room,
where the old Colonel and I sat playing piquet, bringing sad news from
the Civil Hospital. Poor Captain Lloyd was not expected to live more
than a few hours.
We sat silently while the twilight melted into darkness. When a friend
is dying those that watch and busy themselves with small services can
find therein some small consolation. But we, weighed down in mind,
powerless to influence in any degree the inevitable order of fate, found
the pattern of the universe a hard reading.
To die is unimportant and common to all, the only important thing is the
manner of our leaving. Captain Lloyd, my friend whom I have never seen,
showed how the spirit of a man can rise above the saddest catastrophe of
war and throw a gleam of light on the apparently hopeless and senseless
maze of human misery.
Mme. Buquet used to come every afternoon straight back to my room after
her visit to the Hôpital Civil, and her report to me never varied. "He
never speaks of himself, but asks insistently for news of you." His eyes
lit up on hearing that I could walk with crutches. "Do tell him to be
careful and not try too much;" and to-day, and on this sad St Andrew's
Day, his last words to Mme. Buquet showed the full measure of unselfish
thoughtfulness: "Do not let him worry, do not let him know how weak I
am."
It was quite dark when M. Vampouille came in. He would not suffer the
darkness even after hearing the sad story, but lit the gas and kept a
cheery manner. "It is something to know," said he, "that there are 'de
si braves gens de par ce monde.'"
St Andrew's Feast was not forgotten that evening. Monsieur Vampouille
had brought me a scarce and much-valued delicacy which was prepared with
special care by Mme. Tondeur and served up at dinner as a savoury. There
was no escape from the six large healthy snails sitting in their shells
enthroned on pieces of toast soaked in oil and vinegar mixed with
chopped onions and garlic.
From Mme. Buquet there was a flower-pot with some early primroses and a
note, "To the Scotch Lieutenant on St Andrew's Feast Day."
These gracious incidents, as R. L. Stevenson remarked, are distinctive
of the French people, and "make the ordinary moments of life
ornamental."
Also I had almost conquered my insular prejudice against the eating of
snails, which are really quite succulent when served with such a sauce.