It must not be imagined that a trooper can be sent to hospital without
having to go through innumerable formalities, the French administrative
system being so devised as to complicate the simplest matter. Before
going to hospital, a full inventory of all the trooper's belongings has
to be drawn up by the Sergeant _fourrier_, the trooper being allowed
to retain only the undress uniform which he wears. The remainder of
his kit, including his arms, are returned to the stores, where a
fresh inventory is made, his saddle alone remaining in the squadron
saddle-room. It would be tedious to describe the innumerable documents
which have to be drawn up on the occasion. All these formalities having
been at length completed, I was marched to the hospital by a Corporal,
and, on arriving there, fresh ceremonials had to be gone through, after
which I was handed over to the tender mercies of a Sister of Charity.
She took me to the ward reserved for soldiers, the hospital being a
mixed one, where civilians also were received. Our ward contained about
twenty-four beds, and was spotlessly clean. The beds were excellent,
and certainly far superior to those usually found in English hospitals.
I then received my hospital kit, consisting of a huge night-shirt, a
pair of dark blue flannel trousers, with a dressing-gown of the same
material, a pair of woollen socks, slippers, and a _bonnet de coton_,
a most extraordinary head-gear made of thick knitted cotton, finishing
up in a point with a tassel sewn on to it. (Most of the French peasants
still sleep in a similar night-cap, and, until thirty years ago, every
Frenchman, even if belonging to the higher classes, used to wear this
strange head-gear at night.) I was put to bed; my temperature was
taken, and then I was left to my own thoughts. In the next bed to mine
a poor fellow lay with typhoid fever, while in the bed on the other
side lay an infantry soldier suffering from jaundice. The _personnel_
of the hospital, or at least of the military wards, consisted of three
Sisters of Mercy, with an old male nurse belonging to the Hospital
Service Corps. The latter, however, was of little use, as he was
usually drunk during three parts of the day. The Sisters, however, did
not look harshly on this little vice of his, for the fellow was a most
fervent Catholic, who never failed to go to Confession, and to High
Mass every Sunday.
I had been about half an hour in my bed, when one of the Sisters
brought me a cup of _tisane_, a kind of tea made of harmless herbs,
which is always given in case of sickness, whatever may be the disease
one may be suffering from. That Sister was a middle-aged woman, with
hard, drawn features; the turned-down corners of her mouth expressed
a violent temper, and a square chin showed indomitable energy. She
sat down near me, and asked me if I was a Catholic. I replied that I
had been baptized a Roman Catholic, but that I did not approve of the
teachings of that religion, all my tendencies being Protestant. She
expressed absolute horror at my being so plain-spoken, and told me
that all the patients who were Roman Catholics were expected to go to
Confession and Mass every Sunday. "If they don't," she added, "we can't
compel them, and that is their own look out, but they do not usually
stay here very long. You had better think the matter over, my lad,"
she added, as she arose from her chair. "I will send, in any case, the
chaplain to talk to you of your spiritual state." I thanked her, but
had no wish to discuss matters with her.
Later in the afternoon the head doctor of the hospital, who was
Surgeon-major to the infantry regiment, and held the rank of Major,
came on a visit of inspection. When he came to my bedside, he did not
even give me a word of greeting, but looked at the board which hung at
the head of my bed, and reading the diagnosis made by our regimental
doctor shrugged his shoulders.
"Again a Dragoon," he said. "Why can't Dr. Lesage keep his patients in
his own dispensary? Why did he send you here?" he went on, addressing
me.
"I don't know, sir," I answered; "I suppose he found that I needed to
be sent here."
"Well, let me see your throat."
He examined me, and remarked to the Sister that there was nothing much
the matter with me, and that, although I might have a slight rise of
temperature, every man had fever sometimes, adding that, if every
Dragoon who had fever was to be sent to hospital, the place would soon
be overflowing. He walked away with the Sister, and I could see that
they were having an animated conversation. The doctor then came back to
my bed:
"I hear," he said, "that you are a d----d heathen; is that so?"
"No, sir," I replied; "I told the Sister that I did not approve of the
Roman Catholic religion, and that, although I had been baptized a Roman
Catholic, I was a Protestant at heart."
"Oh," he said, "that is all the same; you are a heathen, and you ought
to be ashamed of yourself. That is why, I suppose, Dr. Lesage sent you
here. He likes heathens, and I don't. Well, he can look after you if he
chooses." And, turning on his heel, he walked off.
Later in the afternoon Dr. Lesage came to see me, and I told him what
had taken place. He said that he was not in the least surprised, and
that he was thoroughly disgusted with the bigotry of all the people
connected with the place. He then called the Sister, and told her to
show him the register where the head surgeon had written out his orders
concerning my case. After looking through it, he told me that, just as
he had expected, the head surgeon had put me on ordinary rations, but
that he was not going to have it; and he immediately ordered that I
should be put on a diet of chicken, eggs, and the like. He found my
throat very bad, and said that I ought to have come to see him much
sooner than I did. He also explained to me that he would give orders
enabling me to get from outside whatever food I fancied, as well as
books; he promised too to come and see me on the following day. I took
advantage of his permission to send the hospital orderly to fetch me a
stock of eatables, books, and some newspapers.
Our dinner was served at six o'clock, and I was much astonished when
the Sister brought me a piece of beef which had been boiled to a rag to
make soup. I reminded her that Dr. Lesage had put me on "fowl and egg
diet."
"I know it," she said, "but, as there is none to be had to-night, you
will have to put up with what there is."
I pointed out to her that rations of fowl had been served to at least
six of the other patients.
"Well," she said, "the fact is there is none left."
Upon this I declared that, unless I had a portion immediately brought
to me, I would forthwith send a letter to Dr. Lesage to explain how
matters stood.
"Oh," she said, "please don't trouble yourself, and I'll go to the
kitchen, and see if there is some remaining."
Ten minutes later she returned with the wing of a fowl, and when I had
finished it she brought me an omelet. I mention this incident to show
the gross partiality which is usually displayed by Sisters of Mercy
in French hospitals. Most of the patients, who belong to the humbler
classes, are afraid to complain, and I have constantly seen patients
who make a display of deep religious zeal treated with the utmost
attention, receiving the best of fare, while others who were lax in
the practice of religion, or who had the misfortune to be Protestants,
were given the commonest food, even if the doctor had ordered special
delicacies for them. The Sisters of Mercy have absolutely no training
in nursing, and an English nurse, after a year's hospital work, is
far more efficient than Sisters of Mercy who have spent years in the
wards. I do not mean to say that there are not to be found among the
Sisters touching examples of disinterested devotion to their fellow
creatures, but, taking them as a class, their employment in hospitals
is not calculated to benefit the patients, and they are far inferior
to English trained nurses in education, manners, and skill. They have
no fear of dismissal, as, in case of their failing to do their duty,
they are merely removed to the headquarters of their order. It is true
that it would be most difficult to replace them in French hospitals,
as there exists in France no body of trained nurses like those in this
country. The French lay nurses are almost invariably middle-aged women
of the charwoman type, who have had no practical training, and are
usually addicted to drink. In the largest hospitals the administration
of drugs and the dressing of wounds devolves entirely on the medical
students, and nurses, whether Sisters of Mercy or lay, merely stand
in the wards to watch the patients, and in case of need they have to
go and summon a student. While I was in the hospital, I witnessed
some shocking examples of the way in which sufferers were treated.
I remember one night when a patient, who was suffering from a most
serious attack of jaundice, cried out to the Sister on duty for a
basin. The Sister, who was counting her beads and muttering prayers
in a half-dozing state, merely lifted her eyes dreamily towards the
patient, but took no notice. The poor fellow called her again and
again, and, seeing how matters stood, I got out of bed, and, going to
the Sister, called her attention to the patient. "Go to bed," she said
to me: "it is no business of yours. The female attendant has gone out;
it is her work, and not mine, to carry basins about." I thereupon went
to fetch what was needed myself, and rendered what help I could to
my sick comrade. Facts such as these help to explain why the poor in
France have a greater dread of the hospital than many people have of
the workhouse in England.
It took me a few minutes to find a basin that night, and while I
looked about I must have caught a chill, for the following day I had
a relapse. I had been rather upset, too, by the death of the typhoid
patient in the bed next to mine. His old mother came with his father
that afternoon, and their distress was heartrending to witness.
"They have taken my boy, they have killed him," the poor mother kept
repeating; complaining bitterly that she had not been informed of his
illness till too late.
Two days later, early in the morning, as luck would have it, none
other than Piatte was brought into the hospital; he was carried on a
stretcher, and carefully laid in the vacant bed next to mine.
"You see, old chap," he said, "I would not leave my chum Decle, so here
I am."
"What is the matter with you?" I asked.
"Oh, broken leg, that is all."
The two cavalry and infantry doctors then arrived, and Piatte was
questioned as to the way in which the accident occurred.
"It's a beast of a charger that's kicked me in the stables," he told
the doctor.
He was carefully examined, and the doctors found that he had broken his
leg below the knee. The limb was set, and although the poor fellow must
have suffered dreadfully, beads of perspiration running down his face
during the process, he did not utter a single complaint. Dr. Lesage
remained near him after the others had retired, and told him that he
would soon be all right.
"Ah, that's nothing, sir," said Piatte; "but look here, sir, I'll tell
you what: if you would like to do me a great favour you would come and
look after me yourself. _You_ can do anything you like to me, but I do
not want that other infantry doctor to mess about with me."
Dr. Lesage promised that he would attend him, and before retiring held
out his hand to the injured man. This evidently went to the poor chap's
heart, and his eyes moistened.
"Thank you, sir," he said; "thank you. It is good of you to shake
hands with me--a bad character as they make me out. If the officers
were all like you, why I would jump into the fire for them--and mind
you, sir, I won't forget it."
Dr. Lesage retired, more moved than he liked to show. When he had gone,
I asked Piatte how he felt.
"A bit queer," he said; "but you don't know, old chap, how well I
worked it. I thought I had killed myself, you know."
"Weren't you kicked?" I queried.
"Kicked," he said; "well, it wasn't a horse that kicked me. I'll tell
you how it all happened. When I got out of prison yesterday, I said
to myself, I must have a spree, so, after 'Lights out,' I got over
the wall. You see, my old granny had sent me another ten francs for
the New Year, but, of course, being in prison, I only got my money
when I came out, so then I jumped over the wall, and, my boy, I can
tell you I had a grand booze. At two o'clock this morning I said to
myself, 'It is time to go back.' So I got into the little lane at the
back of our stable, you know. The wall there on the top side of the
lane is only six feet high, so I easily got on top of it, but on the
other side there is a drop of at least thirty feet, you know, alongside
our stable. I had often done it, and it was only thirty yards along
the wall to get to the back door of the barracks, where you can get
down quite easy. But last night it had been raining, and freezing
afterwards, so that the wall was that slippery that I had to walk on
all-fours to keep my balance. I was a bit on, I suppose, and I don't
know how it happened, but just as I was getting near the end of the
wall I slipped, and down I went. Oh, my boy, what a drop it was! I came
down flop, and when I tried to rise it was no go; one of my legs felt
like cotton-wool. I knew that if I called for help I should be nabbed,
so I crept on all-fours as far as the room. I then went to wake up
Titi; he took off my clothes and laid me on my bed. By jove! didn't it
hurt me. Titi says to me, 'Let me go and call for help, you can say
that you have fallen down stairs.' But I say, 'No, that's no go, and it
won't wash.' So we arranged with Titi, that just before _réveille_ he
would take me down to the stables, which he did. By God, you don't know
what it meant to go to the stables: I felt my heart in my mouth the
whole way; to come down the stairs I sat down, and holding on to Titi's
neck, I let myself slide, and then to cross the yard I tried to stand
on my other leg, but it was all numb; so I sent Titi to fetch Monard,
and between them they carried me to the stables and lay me behind your
kicking mare, as she's known as a kicker. As soon as the others come
down to clean the stables, I shout, 'Ah, murder, murder!' One of them
goes and fetches the Sergeant, and I tell him how, passing behind your
mare's heels, I got kicked. Titi, in the meantime, had gone to fetch me
a stiff glass of brandy, as I felt pretty queer. The Sergeant then sent
for a stretcher, and they carried me to the dispensary. When the doctor
came I told him I had been kicked, and when he looks at my leg, he
says: 'It's jolly funny that it should have got swollen up so quickly.'
Of course I told him that I have got a queer constitution, and he says,
'Yes, a queer constitution indeed,' and then he tells the Corporal that
I must be taken to the hospital at once, and he sends everybody out of
the room, and he says to me:
"'It was not a horse that kicked you, eh, Piatte?'
"'Well, sir,' I says, 'if you ask me, not as an officer, but as the
gentleman that you are, I will tell you the truth.'
"'Go on,' he says, ''tis not as an officer that I am asking you.'
"'Oh, then,' says I, 'that mare, sir, that kicked me, 'twas a
paving-stone.' And I tell him the whole story, from beginning to end,
and then he got very wild, and asked why I hadn't sent for him at once,
and he also asked whether I supposed that he would give me away.
"My boy," concluded Piatte, "he is a ripper, that man."
"I remember one day--it was two years ago--I went to the medical
visit, and he says, 'What is the matter with you?' so I replied, 'I
rather tell you privately, sir,' and he says, 'Very well.' After the
medical visit he calls me to his room. 'Well?' he says. I then told
him what was the matter with me, and as it is the rule, you know,
that men suffering with that complaint are punished with thirty days'
confinement to barracks, I asked him if he would mind keeping it dark.
'Of course,' he said, and he sent me to the dispensary for a fortnight
for rheumatism. Now don't you think that he was a brick?"
I quite agreed with him. This matter is one which has given rise to
many discussions in Parliament, and in the English Press, especially
with regard to the British troops in India. The French system appears
to me one of the chief causes of depopulation in France, when one
considers that nine-tenths of the male population have to pass through
the ranks of the army. The fear of punishment prevents most soldiers
from attending the medical visit when they suffer from complaints of
this kind, and the consequence is that in most cases they wait until
the disease has made such progress that the doctors are unable to cope
successfully with it.
The day Piatte was brought to hospital the Roman Catholic chaplain came
to see me. I told him exactly what my religious views were, but far
from showing himself offended, he showed me the utmost kindness, and
asked me to go and visit him when I was able to leave my bed. I did so,
and found him a most enlightened man. I frankly explained to him my
views, and although we could not, of course, agree, our discussion was
carried on in the most courteous terms, and he told me that although he
regretted that he was unable to convince me, he should always be glad
to see me, placing at the same time his fine library at my disposal. He
was a man well versed in science, and, although a fervent Catholic, did
not consider those whose opinions differed from his as black sheep,
and he had the utmost respect for sincere religion of every kind.
I stopped a week longer in hospital, and felt rather glad of Piatte's
companionship, as I had taken quite a liking for this poor fellow, who
interested me. I asked him many a time why he did not give up drink,
which meant his ruin.
"Give up drink, old fellow," he invariably replied, "why should I? It
is the only thing which makes a man forget. Don't imagine that I was
a drunkard before I came to the regiment; but they've driven me to
it. During my first year's service I was keen on doing my best, and I
hoped to be promoted to the rank of Corporal. I had got through the
exams all right, and had been actually nominated for promotion after
the manoeuvres we were in the thick of were over, when the crash came.
One night, when three other troopers and myself had made ourselves
comfortable in a barn full of straw, in comes a Corporal with a pipe in
his mouth. Just then he hears a step outside, and suspecting that it is
an officer, he shouts out:
"'Who's been smoking here? Now look sharp--are you going to tell me or
not?'
"I wasn't asleep, and I saw through his dirty trick in an instant. The
other fellows were soon aroused, and confusedly asked what was the
matter. The Corporal repeats his question, but of course there was no
culprit to answer it. Then in comes the officer--for the Corporal's
suspicion was right enough.
"'Go and fetch a lantern,' says he.
"Off goes the Corporal and gets one.
"Then the officer says:
"'Some one has been smoking here, let the man come forward.'
"Of course nobody moves because nobody has done it, for 'twas the
Corporal all along.
"'Very well,' the officer says; 'let's have your numbers,' and he tells
the Corporal to put them down.
"Mine was the highest as it happened, and on finding this out the
officer says:
"'You put eight days' _Salle de Police_ to that trooper.'
"When the officer has gone I go out to the Corporal--he was a Hussar
chap, and so was the officer--and I tell him that it's not right what
he's done, and that he knows well enough that it's him that had been
smoking, so he turns savage on me, and he says:
"'You'll have two days more for insulting me.'
"The next day I tell what's happened to my Lieutenant, and he says that
he will speak to the Hussar officer; but my Lieutenant comes back,
and he says that the officer doesn't mind cancelling my punishment,
but that the Corporal insists on letting his two days stand as they
are, and that he won't cancel them. All that makes a shindy between
the younger officers of our regiment and those of the Hussars, and the
General hears of it, because two of them officers actually applied
for leave to fight a duel. The General sends for me--he was just mad
because during the past fortnight two other barns had been set on
fire--and he tells me I am a scoundrel to have smoked in the barn; but
I tell him how things happened, and that 'twas the Corporal himself
who'd been smoking. The Colonel of the Hussars, who just happened to be
coming for some report to the General, says:
"'Ah, that's the swine who nearly set a barn on fire last night, and
now he tries to take away the character of one of my Corporals!'
"This makes the General quite mad, and he gives me fifteen days'
prison. Yes, old chap, fifteen days' prison, when I'd done nothing.
It fairly turned my blood, and I went away hardly knowing what I was
doing. I passed a pub and went in. I called for absinthe and brandy
and the Lord knows what else. The more I drunk the more I wanted, and
I was that mad that when two Hussars walked into the pub I sprang on
them, and if others hadn't come to their rescue 'twould have been a
case of murder, I think. They had to tie me up, and by Gad it took
eight of them to do it. To my first punishment, fifteen days' prison,
and fifteen days' solitary confinement in cells, were added, and when,
two days later, the manoeuvres ended, I was marched back to barracks--a
prisoner. Of course any question of promotion was at an end--to think
of it after I had worked so hard to become a Corporal! When I came
out of prison I no longer cared a b---- d---- what happened to me. I
drank whenever I had money, and if I hadn't, Decle, my boy, I would
have shot myself. How I have got through these last three years I don't
know. They threatened more than once to send me to Biribi. What did I
care? If it hadn't been for our late Colonel--he understood me, that
man--I should have done something desperate; but since he is dead--ah,
_malheur_! The new Colonel calls me a disgrace to the regiment, and a
disgrace to the French army: but what do I care? But then when a chap
like our doctor doesn't feel ashamed to hold out his hand to me--well,
my boy, it goes to my heart. You, too, old Decle, although we are both
mere troopers, you are a gentleman, while I am but a labourer and a low
blackguardly drunkard; and yet you treat me as a friend. Give me your
hand, old boy."
I gave it to him, and he pressed it between his two enormous palms, and
then, in a husky voice, he added,
"Ah! it's long since I have felt so happy," and with the back of his
hand he wiped off a tear.
"Forgive me, old chap," he said, "I know I'm making a fool of myself!"
For answer I could only squeeze his hand, and I turned round to hide
a tear of my own--a tear of pity for the poor fellow whose feelings I
could now understand so well.
During the long days we spent together Piatte delighted to speak of
his home; he belonged to the country, where he drove a diligence: he
loved horses and animals, and he was still full of old and quaint
superstitions. "I was seventeen," he once said to me, "when I drove a
coach for the first time, and I shall never forget that night. I had
never driven the coach except to bring it round from the stables to the
inn, when one night the governor orders the diligence to be got ready
for a foreign gentleman who wanted to catch a train twenty miles from
our place. All the other carriages were out, and the diligence alone
was available. When Jean-Paul, the usual driver, hears of it he says
that he will not drive it for all the money in the world, it being a
Friday night in the month of January. 'Why?' I asked him. He told me
that at one place where the road meets the Strasbourg road there was
a ghost which always came out from behind a tree when the diligence
passed along at night on a Friday in January: 'his grandfather, his
father, and him too had seen it, and he did not want to see it no
more.' I didn't believe much in ghosts, so I offered to drive, and my
governor, to whom the coach belonged, let me go. The horses were fresh,
the carriage light, and we were rattling along at a good pace when all
of a sudden I see a woman dressed in white jump from behind a tree and
stand in the middle of the road. 'Hi! hi! look out!' I shout, but she
did not seem to heed me, and before I could pull up the leaders were
on her. They shied and reared, but there she rises between the two
of them and seems to jump over the wheelers, and for a second or two
she flitters in front of me like a huge bat. As I looked round I saw
that we were just at the spot which Jean-Paul had told me was haunted.
I felt my heart in my mouth, and lashing the horses put them at a
gallop--and they didn't want no urging either; but the ghost seemed to
fly in the air alongside the coach for a distance of about a hundred
yards, when she disappeared in a bush."
I told Piatte that it was the effect of his imagination, but he was
positive about it; according to him the ghost had the face of a young
girl with very dark hair, and was draped in white garments with a kind
of hood over her head.
Soon after his first adventure he became the regular driver of the
diligence, the former driver having been upset with the coach and
killed on the spot. During the year previous to his military service
he had worked in some large engineering works, and he always swore to
me that until he was first punished he had never been drunk, adding at
the same time that during the fourteen months he had still to serve he
meant to drink whenever he could get a chance. I thoroughly believe
that if he had become a Corporal he would have been one of the best men
in the regiment, and there is no doubt that it was the injustice with
which he had been treated which led him to drink and degradation.
At the end of ten days I left hospital, and, on my return to barracks,
was kept for three days in the dispensary as a convalescent. During
the whole time I had been in hospital I had been unable to get a bath,
and when I suggested taking one the doctor laughed at me, and the
Sisters considered me a kind of lunatic to want a bath when I had a
sore throat. It was therefore with great relief that, on my return to
barracks, I was allowed by our doctor to go out to the town to have the
wash of which I was naturally in great need.