There are men who pass through such scenes unmoved. If they have
eyes, they do not see; and ears, they do not hear. But John McCrae was
profoundly moved, and bore in his body until the end the signs of his
experience. Before taking up his new duties he made a visit to the
hospitals in Paris to see if there was any new thing that might be
learned. A Nursing Sister in the American Ambulance at Neuilly-sur-Seine
met him in the wards. Although she had known him for fifteen years she
did not recognize him,--he appeared to her so old, so worn, his face
lined and ashen grey in colour, his expression dull, his action slow and
heavy.
To those who have never seen John McCrae since he left Canada this
change in his appearance will seem incredible. He was of the Eckfords,
and the Eckford men were "bonnie men", men with rosy cheeks. It was
a year before I met him again, and he had not yet recovered from the
strain. Although he was upwards of forty years of age when he left
Canada he had always retained an appearance of extreme youthfulness. He
frequented the company of men much younger than himself, and their youth
was imputed to him. His frame was tall and well knit, and he showed
alertness in every move. He would arise from the chair with every muscle
in action, and walk forth as if he were about to dance.
The first time I saw him he was doing an autopsy at the Montreal General
Hospital upon the body of a child who had died under my care. This must
have been in the year 1900, and the impression of boyishness remained
until I met him in France sixteen years later. His manner of dress
did much to produce this illusion. When he was a student in London he
employed a tailor in Queen Victoria Street to make his clothes; but with
advancing years he neglected to have new measurements taken or to alter
the pattern of his cloth. To obtain a new suit was merely to write a
letter, and he was always economical of time. In those days jackets were
cut short, and he adhered to the fashion with persistent care.
This appearance of youth at times caused chagrin to those patients who
had heard of his fame as a physician, and called upon him for the
first time. In the Royal Victoria Hospital, after he had been appointed
physician, he entered the wards and asked a nurse to fetch a screen so
that he might examine a patient in privacy.
"Students are not allowed to use screens," the young woman warned him
with some asperity in her voice.
If I were asked to state briefly the impression which remains with me
most firmly, I should say it was one of continuous laughter. That is not
true, of course, for in repose his face was heavy, his countenance more
than ruddy; it was even of a "choleric" cast, and at times almost livid,
especially when he was recovering from one of those attacks of asthma
from which he habitually suffered. But his smile was his own, and it was
ineffable. It filled the eyes, and illumined the face. It was the smile
of sheer fun, of pure gaiety, of sincere playfulness, innocent of irony;
with a tinge of sarcasm--never. When he allowed himself to speak of
meanness in the profession, of dishonesty in men, of evil in the world,
his face became formidable. The glow of his countenance deepened; his
words were bitter, and the tones harsh. But the indignation would
not last. The smile would come back. The effect was spoiled. Everyone
laughed with him.
After his experience at the front the old gaiety never returned. There
were moments of irascibility and moods of irritation. The desire for
solitude grew upon him, and with Bonfire and Bonneau he would go apart
for long afternoons far afield by the roads and lanes about Boulogne.
The truth is: he felt that he and all had failed, and that the torch
was thrown from failing hands. We have heard much of the suffering, the
misery, the cold, the wet, the gloom of those first three winters; but
no tongue has yet uttered the inner misery of heart that was bred of
those three years of failure to break the enemy's force.
He was not alone in this shadow of deep darkness. Givenchy, Festubert,
Neuve-Chapelle, Ypres, Hooge, the Somme--to mention alone the battles in
which up to that time the Canadian Corps had been engaged--all ended in
failure; and to a sensitive and foreboding mind there were sounds and
signs that it would be given to this generation to hear the pillars and
fabric of Empire come crashing into the abysm of chaos. He was not at
the Somme in that October of 1916, but those who returned up north
with the remnants of their division from that place of slaughter will
remember that, having done all men could do, they felt like deserters
because they had not left their poor bodies dead upon the field along
with friends of a lifetime, comrades of a campaign. This is no mere
matter of surmise. The last day I spent with him we talked of those
things in his tent, and I testify that it is true.