CHAPTER XX

HONORED BY THE KING

There would be little gratitude in me if I did not set down in this story of my experiences the delightful kindnesses and unremitting attentions which came to me after, on the score of a fighting man, I had become useless to my country. For the country certainly wasn’t ungrateful. Famous surgeons were giving attention constantly to the thorough healing and saving of my arm, there followed constant treatments to destroy the paralysis which afflicted it, treatments which promise in time I shall have the use of it restored.

And quite as remarkable was the repair of my broken jaw, the extraordinary skill of dentistry by which the broken teeth were re-made, the jaw itself braced and placed firm by golden bands. When the work was completed I was overjoyed to find that I could articulate without the slightest impediment and masticate as thoroughly and easily as ever I could. For a long time, however, I was restricted to mere liquid food, feeding out of a tube as if David Fallon were thirty weeks instead of thirty years old.

From the hospital where the operation on my arm had been performed I was taken in company with scores of other injured in a battalion of motor cars to a train at Albert whence we traveled to Rouen, where I remained for several weeks at No. 8 General Hospital and where my attending physician was Capt. Page, and my nurse, Miss Templey, a cousin of Maj. Templey, all of whom I had known in India.

I was quickly recovering my strength and was finally sent aboard the _Caledonia_ for the trip to Southampton. They had spotless, clean bunks for us and scores of charming young women--young college women, who had left their studies to serve in the Volunteer Aid Detachment. Imagine the peace and pleasure for men who were just returning from hell to have such companionship, to listen to songs beautiful and soft, where they had been listening to the scream of shells, to hear voices sweet and gentle where they had been for months hearing only the sharp moans of the wounded or the raucous voices of authority raised in deadly emergencies! Talk of Nirvana at its best! This was something better!

Arrangements for our reception at Southampton were as smoothly efficient and kindly as had been our transportation and treatment in France. Individually, good fortune was attending every little distance in my journey. Taken to London I found myself billeted in the home of Lady Carnarvon in Bryanston Square. She had turned her beautiful residence into a hospital and there I was quartered in a spacious apartment with Lieutenant McDonald of a Lancashire regiment who had a smashed leg and Capt. Fred Monk, M. C., who had also a smashed leg and lost an arm.

But he was very cheerful regarding the situation and so was McDonald. On the train for the wounded and also aboard the _Caledonia_ you hardly heard any talk of war. Everybody was sick of it. They wanted to talk about anything but war. But here at Lady Carnarvon’s in the days that followed, naturally our memories came crowding back. And we went over our hardships, the thrills we had experienced and then inevitably the panorama would sweep our vision of the sections of No Man’s Land we had seen with its piled and distorted dead and one of us without feeling the necessity of telling the others of what he was thinking would as inevitably say:

“Well, we are very lucky beggars after all.”

These would usually be the thoughts in the twilight hour and then in would walk our smiling rosy-cheeked Irish tease of a nurse, Miss Anne O’Laughlin--all the nurses at Lady Carnarvon’s were Irish and therefore for me the more charming--preceding an orderly with tea things. She’d sit and smile and jest and make an hour or more dash by so pleasantly that--well, we very well knew at those times that we were very lucky beggars indeed.

Then when I was on my feet, I was sent to Lady Furness’ hospital at Harrowgate and there I spent a delightful convalescence and there it was that I received the despatch from the Lord Chamberlain of His Majesty to appear at Buckingham Palace for decoration.

Col. Holland, D. S. O., of the Indian Army, commandant at Lady Furness’ hospital, personally brought me the despatch and seemed as proud of it as I was, for I had been one of his youngsters in the ranks in India.

The despatch read:

Your attendance is required at Buckingham Palace on Wednesday the twenty-fifth inst. at ten-thirty o’clock a.m. Service dress Regret that no one except those to be invested can be admitted to the Palace Please telegraph acknowledgment

THE LORD CHAMBERLAIN, London

I went to London as the guest of some old friends named Morris, and accompanied by Miss Dora Morris, daughter of the family, and Miss Norah Dixon of Australia, motored to Buckingham Palace, arriving under the arch at one of the entrances and then not being certain as to which of the roadways of approach to Buckingham I should take.

I had the problem solved for me by a “bobby” who, with an agonized expression, ran toward our car, frantically waving his white gloves.

“Out of the way quickly, sir!” he shouted.

I was pardonably nettled.

“But I have been commanded here to receive the Military Cross.”

He saluted, but shouted to the chauffeur:

“To the left--to the left. Good Lor’, the King’s behind you!”

Of course, the chauffeur responded with alacrity and as his Majesty went by, flanked by an Admiral and a General of his command, I saluted and the salute was returned by all three.

Then the “bobby,” still flustered, directed my car along the right road and a few minutes later the young ladies left me at the entrance to Buckingham. No arrangements for spectators are made for these ceremonies, none invited.

I was relieved of my hat and stick by an august-looking footman, who whispered to me to retain my gloves, and I passed into a large reception-room where there were already some two hundred soldiers, officers and men of the ranks, summoned for a like purpose as myself and within the next minute nearly one hundred more. The furnishings of the salon were Victorian, the upholstering well-worn. Big paintings were on the walls, illustrating most of the picturesque events in the life of Queen Victoria.

Among those assembled were six men who had achieved the rare distinction of the Victoria Cross, more than a hundred who had earned the Distinguished Service Order and the remainder M. C.’s. The majority of us showed on our bodies the marks of the experiences we had been through. There were more than a score who had been blinded, more than half a hundred who had to use crutches. Nearly every face was scarred.

The V. C.’s and D. S. O.’s were directed to the right side of the room and we to the left and then the Lord Chamberlain called:

“Order, gentlemen!”

When we had come to attention he said:

“This is the order of procedure you will observe. Names will be called with regard to seniority and alphabetically. You will walk in file as your names are called and you will then proceed under the escort of chamberlains until you come to the door of the room where his Majesty is presenting the honors. You will keep the left hand gloved and bare the right. As you enter his Majesty’s presence you will turn to the left and be facing the King. As your turn comes, I will read out from the Gazette the reason for which honor is to be conferred on you. Then you will advance two steps and bow. When your medal has been placed upon you by his Majesty who will, of course, shake hands and speak to you, you will step two paces to the rear, bow, turn to the right and leave by the right exit.”

As the names were being called attendants passed among us, affixing to the left on the breast of our tunics golden pins on which later his Majesty would hang the medals.

When my turn came and I had observed the instructions and stood before the King it was to face a small, slightly stooped gentleman of quiet, kindly-eyed, friendly demeanor and most unassuming despite the rather gorgeous general’s uniform he wore. An admiral stood at his left; a general at his right. Each had in his possession the medals to be awarded the men of his particular branch of the Imperial service.

My right arm was still perforce in a sling. The King, quickly noting it, extended his left hand to me and with my left hand I clasped it.

“You are to regain the use of your arm, I hope,” he said.

“The doctors are not sure, your Majesty,” I answered, “but I am optimistic.”

“I am sure you will,” he said, and glancing at the scar on my left cheek, asked me if my eyes had been affected. His voice was genuinely sympathetic; he appeared really interested.

I told him in this regard I had been most fortunate--my sight was not in any serious degree affected.

“I am happy to hear it. And how have you been treated in your illness? Are there any complaints that should be made in regard to arrangements for the wounded and their treatment?”

“I have only the greatest praise from beginning to end, your Majesty,” I answered.

“Good,” he said, and then as my Military Cross was handed him, he affixed it to my tunic and said:

“Lieutenant Fallon, we deeply thank you for your services and I hope you live many years to wear the decoration I have placed upon you.”

With that I stepped back the directed two paces, bowed and left by the right door, returned to the salon, received my hat and stick and stepped out to the entrance where the motor car, that had been parked on the grounds, was summoned and I started back to the home of my friends. My young lady companions had graciously awaited me in the car.

Yet I rode back not altogether happily. I had come through with my life, I was maimed but by no means crippled for future usefulness, my nerves and mind were unimpaired, I had the King’s decoration on my coat, but for all that I felt an actual keen pang of lonesomeness. I was out of it--out of the big fight.