ranks," he answered. "I'm a 'bus driver in London."
I thought to myself: "A 'bus driver in London--but a hero of heroes in
France!"
He raised his head as Sister Dolly held the glass gently to his lips.
"You are very kind," he murmured gratefully. "I'm a deal of trouble to
you."
The little sister smiled sadly and shook her head, then without a word
dashed from the room.
"I'd have burst out crying--if I'd stayed another minute," she exclaimed
impetuously, when I met her a moment later in the hall. "I'm a fool, I
know--I'm too chicken-hearted to be a nurse."
"You're a real woman," I ejaculated in genuine admiration; "the world is
the better because you were born!"
We then visited the large ward. There were forty patients in it, most
of them looking as jolly as if hospital life were one of the most
amusing experiences in the world. Some were reading, some playing
cribbage, some of those with minor wounds were helping about the ward,
and all were smoking.
But one, who had just arrived, looked dangerously ill. We approached
his bed, his greenish pallor was alarming. I felt for his pulse--it had
disappeared. We gave him a hypodermic at once to stimulate him, but we
knew all too well he was far beyond human aid. He smiled slightly as I
spoke to him. His mind was clear, with that preternatural clearness
which heralds death. I sat down beside his bed--it was screened off
from the others--and took his hand.
"Have you any friends to whom you wish to send a message?" I asked him
gently.
"Why, doctor," he enquired, with a keenness of perception that was
embarrassing, and looking up at me with a glance of slight surprise, "do
you think I am going to die?"
"You are very ill indeed," I replied hesitatingly, "and I think it would
be well, if there is some one in whom you are specially interested, that
you should write at once."
He smiled faintly again as he looked me in the eye and answered: "There
is only one person in the world who concerns me deeply--my mother;" he
turned his head away an instant, "I have already written her. How long
do you think I have to live?"
Even when one can answer, this is always the most awkward question in
the world. No one ever gets accustomed to pronouncing a death sentence.
I shook my head sadly and replied: "I cannot tell you positively--but I
fear you have only a few hours more."
"Well, well," he said somewhat indifferently, and then his voice became
more interested. He turned back and asked suddenly: "By the way, will
you grant me a favour?"
I assured him I would do anything in my power; but I was totally
unprepared for his request. He spoke eagerly:
"Then, may I have a bowl of rice pudding?"
His _sang-froid_ startled me beyond speech. Death to him was a matter of
small moment--but hunger was serious. We got him his pudding. He ate it
with relish, and two hours later, with a cigarette between his lips, his
brave eyes closed forever.
There was a bustle in the hospital that afternoon. We had orders to
send two hundred patients to England. The boys were in a state of happy
excitement; those who could walk hurrying down to the pack-stores and
returning with all sorts of wrinkled tunics and breeches, and with old
boots and caps. Sometimes an Irishman secured a kilt, and a "kiltie,"
much to his annoyance, was obliged to wear breeches. For when men from
hospital were returning to England, although all their clothes were
sterilised, no special effort was made in those days to return them
their own. New clothes were issued at home. Those patients who were
unable to get up were dressed in bed, their heads were encased in
woollen toques, big thick bed-socks were drawn over their feet to keep
them warm, and they were rolled in blankets and placed in the hall on
stretchers, ready to depart.
The nurses had slaved for hours. Every patient had been carefully
bathed, his hands and face were spotlessly clean, his wounds were
freshly dressed and he was wrapped up so snugly that the loving eye of a
mother could have found no fault.
The ambulances were at the door once more--but on a different mission
this time--and the boys, all smiles and chatter, were carried out upon
their stretchers or clambered gleefully down the stairs. Nurses,
officers and men were at the door saying good-bye to their patients.
Murmured words of thanks or gratitude on the one hand, and warmest well
wishes on the other were exchanged, and at last, with much waving of
caps and handkerchiefs, the convoy of ambulances started for the steamer
at Boulogne, carrying the happy, care-free loads of boys another stage
toward home, or, in Tommy's own vernacular--toward "Blighty."
*CHAPTER XII*
It was a wild fight the day the Germans broke through at Givenchy; and
the _Bosches_ were wilder still when, finding themselves in the town,
they were in considerable doubt what to do with it. Of course it would
have been perfectly all right if the rest of their corps had followed on
and backed up the intrepid stormers. But the enemy had reckoned without
his host, and Tommy decided that such visitors should be given a warm
reception. In fact, they went so far in their efforts at hospitality
that they entirely surrounded their guests and closed the breech behind
them, in order that they might receive no "draft" from the rear.
Having thus graciously encompassed them, Tommy proceeded to kill them
with kindness, rifles, bayonets and hand grenades. The Germans, greatly
bewildered by this flattering reception, would fain have rested on the
laurels already won. Tommy, however, insisted on entertaining them
still further, and at last, despairing of ever satisfying such a busy
host, the visitors threw down their arms and capitulated.
When we opened the doors of the Ambulance Train at Etaples and, instead
of the customary khaki, saw the drab coats and the red-banded skull
caps, we were almost as surprised as the Germans had been the day
before.
They were a sorry-looking lot. Dazed and bewildered by their
astonishing defeat, they looked like men still under the influence of a
narcotic. As they got slowly down from the coaches, their heads or arms
in bandages, they looked sick--very sick indeed; but it was not so much
with an illness of the body as an illness of the mind. They stood
together, silent and sullen, seeming to expect ill-treatment at our
hands.
[Illustration: GERMAN WOUNDED]
There is so little of the time "sport" in the German composition that
they cannot understand that to the British war is still a game and, when
the contest is over, ill-feeling ceases. We bore no more enmity toward
these hapless victims of a malevolent militarism than as if they had
been helpless waifs cast upon our charity. This is not a matter for
self-praise; it is the inevitable result of a wholesome and broad-minded
upbringing. God knows these defeated men looked sufficiently depressed
and mean without our adding to their brimming cup of sorrow!
Waiving prejudice for the moment and looking at them with an impartial
eye, what did we see? Stripped of their accoutrements of war, they
looked quiet and inoffensive enough, but the closely shaven heads gave
them the appearance of criminals. In spite of this handicap some looked
to be decent, reliable chaps, not so very different from our own men.
Some were dark and short of stature; some were tall, broad-shouldered
and strong. Some had the fair hair and blue eyes which we always
associate with the Saxon. But there were those too whose low brows,
irregular features and cruel eyes indicated an unmistakable moral
degeneracy which boded no one good.
One, a corporal, who spoke English and acted as interpreter for his
fellows, presented a countenance of such striking malignancy and low
cunning that the mere contemplation of his ugly features--the long nose,
receding forehead and sneaky grey eyes--impressed one with an uneasy
feeling that no dastardly deed would be beneath him. Upon request, he
herded his companions into the ambulances, and as they were, with a few
exceptions, but slightly wounded, a strong guard was sent to the
hospital with them to see that they should do no mischief nor attempt to
escape upon the way.
When they arrived at the hospital and were drawn up in line in the
admittance hall, it was perhaps a pardonable curiosity which prompted
the orderlies to crowd around and get a glimpse of the first German
prisoners they had ever seen. The _Bosche_ corporal took his stand
beside the registrar's desk and called out, in English, the names,
numbers and regiments of each of the prisoners. Amongst them were
Prussians, Bavarians and German Poles. It is difficult to say how this
medley of nationalities came to be together.
Sergeant Honk was in the forefront among the orderlies, and perhaps that
was the reason he was drawn still further into the limelight. For
suddenly a prisoner, putting his hand into the pocket of his coat, drew
forth a hand grenade, and thrust it at him. Honk was startled, and,
jerking his half-extended hand away with great expedition, backed
hastily from the evil-looking bomb.
"'Ere you!" he gasped excitedly, "wot the dooce are ye h'up to now?"
"_Ein 'souvenir' fuer Ihnen,_" said the German, astonished at Honk's
precipitate retreat. Honk understood only the one word, but that was
enough.
"H'I down't want any damn dangerous souvenir like that!" he returned
wrathfully. "Put it h'on the tyble!"
The German, gathering his meaning from his actions rather than Honk's
words, did as he was bidden, and stepped back into line.
"The bleedin' fool might 'a' blowed h'up the 'ole hospital," he
declaimed peevishly to his companions, "whippin' out 'is blimed
h'infernal machine like that; blessed if h'I wouldn't 'a' put 'im in the
clink fer h'it."
Burnham now ordered our men to get about their business and proceeded
with the allotment of beds for the prisoners. A slight difficulty arose
at this point, as to their disposal. The colonel had decided to put
them all in one ward; but, as we had no armed guard, we thought they
would be safer if distributed in the several rooms. A number of them
were so slightly wounded that, if segregated in one room, they might
easily concoct schemes for escape or even offence. At the same time, by
decentralising them, they would not only be under surveillance by the
ward orderlies, but by the British Tommies as well, and there would be
little opportunity for collusion. This plan was finally adopted. The
Prussians fell to Reggy's lot; the Bavarians to mine, and the balance
were divided amongst the different wards.
The next morning Reggy, who had studied in Berlin and spoke excellent
German, when making his rounds approached the bed of a tall, fair-haired
prisoner, whose steely blue eyes contained no hint of welcome, and who,
in spite of his good treatment, was still openly suspicious of us.
After bidding him _guten Morgen_ and dressing his wound--which was in
the place we would have liked to see all Germans "get it," viz.: the
neck, Reggy enquired:
"What do you think of the war? Do you still think you are going to
win?"
The Prussian looked up with a half smile and the suspicion of a sneer
curled his lip. "Is there any doubt about it?" he returned.
"There should be considerable doubt in your minds," Reggy answered
warmly.
"We shall win," the prisoner said, with imperturbable coolness and
assurance; "the war has only commenced, as far as we are concerned."
"But you will be starved out, if you're not beaten otherwise," Reggy
continued.
The shortage of food in Germany was one of our early delusions about the
war. The Prussian laughed amusedly--not by any means a pleasant laugh.
"If we do not grow a grain," he replied scornfully, "we have sufficient
food stored away to last us for three years. For the past ten years
every city in Germany has kept a three-year supply stored, and only the
oldest crop has been used annually." An illuminating confession!
"But you will run short of men," Reggy persisted.
His patient smiled again at our innocence. "We have ten million trained
soldiers in reserve, who have not yet been called up," he answered
calmly.
We were not prepared at the time to dispute the veracity of these
statements, although later events seem to have corroborated them.
There was a grim heroism about this cold-blooded man, for when he was
placed upon the operating table, although he must have suffered greatly
while the deeply embedded bullet was being extracted under cocaine, he
permitted no groan or complaint to escape his lips. However much we may
hate the Prussians, or loathe their materialistic and unsentimental
attitude toward their fellow human beings, if this man was a sample,
they are as well prepared to suffer as to inflict pain. Proud,
disdainful and bitter, one could not help but feel that he hated us so
thoroughly that should the opportunity have occurred, he would have
killed his attendants without a qualm of conscience.
The contrast between this prisoner's mental attitude and that of one of
my Bavarian patients was striking. The latter had had his left arm
cruelly shattered, and on dressing it I discovered a large ragged wound
above the elbow. He spoke no English, so that I was obliged to use my
indifferent German.
"_Wie geht es dieser Morgen?_" I asked him.
"_Ganz gut,_" he replied, as he looked up with a grateful smile at
hearing his native tongue. He continued in German: "The nurses have been
very good to me, but my arm pains greatly."
We carried on a more or less desultory conversation while the dressing
was proceeding, but, by dint of getting him to speak slowly, I managed
to understand him fairly well. Wishing to estimate his frame of mind as
compared with the Prussian, I remarked:
"I presume you feel badly over being taken prisoner?"
"No," he replied slowly; "I am glad. To us Germans this war means a
fight to the death; there are only two ways of escape: being crippled
for life--or this. You will wonder at my confessing that I am glad, but
I have left behind me in Heidelberg all that I love best on earth--my
wife and two little children----" His voice choked and tears came into
his eyes, but after a moment he sighed: "God knows whether I shall ever
see them again--for me the war is over--it is just as well."
Do you blame one for forgetting that this man was an enemy? "One touch
of sympathy" in spite of the horrors of war, still "makes the whole
world kin." We may hate the Germans _en masse_, but heart cannot help
going out to heart, and in the weeks that followed I confess, without
apology, that I learned to look upon this man as a friend.
It was about four o'clock the following afternoon that Wilson approached
me, and, pulling himself up to attention, said:
"Th' nurse on Saskatchewan ward, zur, ses as that German corporal ain't
had any feed t'day."
"Why not? I asked him.
"Dunno, zur, but he ain't, an' she's ast me to bring th' Orderly Officer
to see him."
We had laid it down as a principle that German patients, in every
instance, were to be treated the same as our own Tommies, so that it was
annoying to hear that one of our men had been guilty of Hun tactics.
Although I despised this corporal more than any of the others, neglect,
even of him, could not be countenanced in a hospital. I hastened up the
stairs to investigate. The nurse corroborated Wilson's statement. The
German had complained to her that he had had only a light breakfast and
no dinner, although the other men in his room had received theirs.
I called the ward orderly. "Why did you not give this man his dinner?"
I asked him sternly.
"The meat was all gone when I went for it, sir," he replied, without
looking me in the eye, "but I gave him a dish of custard."
Evidently the orderly had made up his mind to punish the _Bosche_, and
while I sympathised secretly with his antipathy to the individual, I
couldn't condone his disobedience or the principle.
"Come with me," I commanded, "and I'll ask him myself."
We entered a room which contained only three beds. In the farthest was
a burly giant of a Highlander, in the middle the wretched German
corporal, and nearest to us was a Munsterite of prodigious muscle and
who was but slightly wounded in the leg.
I asked the German in English, which I well knew he understood, whether
he had received his dinner or not. He affected not to understand me,
and answered in German. As my German is not as fluent as my French, and
I knew that he also spoke this language and might have some secret
reason for not wishing to speak English, I tried him in French. He
pretended not to understand this either. My opinion of him sank even
lower. I tried him then in German, and he replied quite readily in his
own tongue.
"I did not have any meat, but I was given a dish of pudding."
"Did you eat it?" I asked him.
"I had no chance to do so," he answered.
"Why not?" I queried.
He turned his head slowly and looked first at the big Highlander and
then at the equally big Munsterite, and shook his head as he replied: "I
don't know."
There was some mystery here, and not such a deep one that it couldn't be
unravelled. I asked the Munsterite:
"Did you eat this man's pudding?"
"No, sir," he answered readily, but with a queer smile. The Highlander
also answered in the negative. There was still a mystery.
"Do you _know_ this German?" I asked the man from Munster and whose bed
was nearest.
"Do I know him, sir!" he replied, with a significant look directed at
his enemy. "I've seen that swine several times. He's a sniper, and
used to go about with another tall swine who wore glasses. We never
could kill the blighter, but he picked off three of our officers and
wounded a fourth. Do I know him, sir?--my eye!"
Under the circumstances I couldn't reproach him. I felt morally certain
he had stolen the German's pudding, as he could easily have reached it
from his bed. I didn't care to probe the matter further, but warned him
that such a breach of discipline must not occur again. After
reprimanding the orderly also for his negligence--more from a sense of
duty than desire, I admit--I ordered that some food be brought up at
once, and saw that it reached its destination.
We could not have punished the German worse than to leave him in that
room. One could easily understand why he pretended not to understand
English, for I am sure the remarks which passed across his bed in the
days he was there made his ears tingle and his miserable flesh creep.
After I had retired that night, Tim came up as usual to see that I was
comfortable. Sometimes, when I was in the humour, I told him a story;
not so much with the idea of enlightening him as to hear his comments as
I proceeded and from which I gained much amusement.
"Did you ever hear of the mammoth whose carcase they found in Siberia,
Tim?" I asked him.
"Wot's a mammoth, Maje?" he queried, as he seated himself upon my box
and, crossing his legs, prepared to listen.
"A mammoth, Tim," I replied, "is an extinct animal, similar to the
elephant, but which grew to tremendous size."
"How big?" he enquired tentatively--his head on one side as usual.
"Oh, taller than this house, Tim; often much taller. His teeth were
nearly as big as a hat box, and his leg bones almost as big around as
your waist."
"Go on--go on, I'm a-listenin'," he growled dubiously.
"Well, this mammoth had tumbled over a cliff in the mountains of
Siberia, thousands of years ago, and falling upon a glacier was frozen
solidly in the ice, and, as it never melted, his body didn't decay. A
few years ago they discovered it, and dug it out practically intact."
Tim's eyes were wide, and his mouth had fallen open during this
description.
"Wot more?" he demanded quizzically.
"Only this," I continued, "that everything had been so well preserved by
the ice that even the wisp of hay was still in his mouth."
"Dat'll do--dat'll do," he cried, as he rose abruptly to his feet.
"Don' tell me no more. I sits here like a big gawk listenin' to dat
story wit' me mout' open an' takin' it all in like a dam' fool. An' I
stood fer it all, too," he continued, with remorseful irritability,
"till ye comed to dat 'wisp o' hay' business--dat wos de las' straw."
"Hay, Tim," I corrected.
"Hay er straw, it's all de same to dis gent. Gees! you is de worse liar
wot I ever heard."
Tim's humiliation at the thought that he had been taken in was so
comical that I had to laugh. He turned hastily for the door, and as he
passed out cried:
"Good night, sir. Don' have no more nightmares like dat."
The first faint light of day was stealing into the room as I felt myself
tugged gently by the toe. I opened my eyes and dimly saw Tim's
dishevelled head at the foot of my bed.
"What is it, Tim?" I asked, in some surprise.
"Look'ee here," he said huskily, "tell me some more about this yere
biffalo." And with a soft chuckle he tiptoed out of the room.
When the time came to send the German prisoners to England little
Sergeant Mack was detailed to guard them. After a comfortable stay for
two weeks in hospital, and with a keen recollection of kindly treatment
throughout, it was hardly likely they would attempt violence or brave
the dangers of escape. But Mack, seated in the ambulance with a dozen
healthy-looking Germans, who could easily have eaten him alive had they
been so disposed, clutched in his coat pocket a little .22 revolver
which Reggy had lent him. He seemed to appreciate the possibility of a
catastrophe and, judging by the uneasy expression on his good-natured
face, he had little relish for his precarious duty.
Even the ill-famed corporal looked his disappointment at leaving us, and
the others seemed to feel that they would rather stay with captors whom
they knew than fly to captors "whom they knew not of."
The Pole had, remarkable to relate, learned to speak English with a fair
degree of success during his two weeks' stay, and quite openly expressed
his regret at leaving. The others were merely silent and glum. Perhaps
they felt that now that their wounds were healed, like well-fed cattle
they were to be taken out and killed. The ambulance driver and Sergeant
Honk were seated in front, but little Mack was alone inside, and they
had twenty miles to go.
Nothing of moment happened until the ambulance, threading its way
between the railroad tracks at Boulogne, pulled up upon the quay at the
_Gare Maritime_. Here unexpected trouble arose. No German prisoners
could be taken upon the hospital ship; the Embarkation Officer refused
to let them aboard. He said they must be taken back to the Canadian
hospital until a proper boat was ready for them.
During this discussion it got whispered about amongst the populace that
there were _Bosches_ in the ambulance, and in an incredibly short space
of time it was surrounded by an angry mob who shook their fists and
swore savagely at the occupants. Apparently they only needed a leader
to urge them on, and the Germans would have been torn from their seats.
The prisoners remained quiet, but the pallor of their faces showed that
they realised the seriousness of their position.
Sergeant Mack drew his little revolver and shouted to the driver to make
haste and get away. The driver needed no further urging; the danger was
too obvious. The car started with a jerk and cleared the crowd before
they were aware of Mac's intentions, but they shouted wrathful oaths
after it as it sped up the quay.
"Blimey, if them French ayn't got a bit uv temper too!" Honk ejaculated,
as he wiped the sweat from his excited brow; "five minutes more'n they'd
'ave 'ad them blighters inside by the scruff uv their bloomin' necks."
Imagine the surprise and dismay of the nurses as they saw the crowd of
broadly smiling Germans coming up the hospital steps. The nurses, who
had for two weeks repressed their natural antipathy to these men and had
given them good care, felt considerably put out by their return. But
the prisoners, like mangy dogs who had found a good home, were so glad
to return to us that it was pitiful to see their pleased faces, and we
took them in again with the best grace we could assume. The few hours
they had had together in the ambulance had given them a chance to
compare experiences. They were content. All we could hope was that our
own boys under similar circumstances in Germany would be treated as
tolerantly and well.