CHAPTER III.

CAMBRAI.

"En haut! Montez au numéro sept," shouted a shrill female voice; "c'est un officier, il faut le mettre au numéro sept."

And so I became No. 7, Hôpital Civil, Cambrai. My room was a small one on the first floor; the furniture consisted of two beds and two iron stands. The floor was polished, the walls painted a dull brown, the door of iron, with upper panel of glazed glass. It was some time before these surroundings presented themselves to my view. At least forty-eight hours I remained without much consciousness, thankful in my lucid intervals that the jolting of the cart which brought me the eight miles from Caudry had ceased, thankful for the soft bed and the quiet cool room.

I wonder if Dr Debu remembers his first visit to me as well as I do? My memory of all that happened during these days is very clear.

I could not yet see faces, to me nurse and doctor were different coloured shadows, yet I remember well the nurse whispering to the doctor, "He is very bad," and the doctor answering, "Oui! mais je crois qu'il va s'en tirer." I do not remember exactly when I began to recognise faces and to speak. They told me later, but at the time I did not realise that the words came singly and with great difficulty, as if the language was unfamiliar.

My powers of speech were stimulated by a visit from Madame la Directrice of the hospital, who came to my bedside speaking with weird gestures in a strange tongue. It occurred to me that she might perhaps be trying to speak English, and so I addressed her slowly as follows: "Mettez vous bien dans la tête, Madame, que je parle le Français aussi bien que vous." After that day no one in the hospital made any further attempt to practise English at my bedside.

The adjoining bed was occupied for a short time by a French Colonel, who had been shot through both thighs and seemed in great pain. The whole night long he kept up a constant groaning, with intermittent exclamation in a loud voice, "Je suis dans des souffrances atrrroces." These Marseillais are a most talkative race. This one was also very deaf.

Attempts at conversation with me were hopeless, as he could not hear my whisper. However, he found consolation by talking to himself about himself most of the night.

When the nurse came in next morning she paid no attention to the old Colonel, whose wounds, although severe, were not dangerous, but after taking my temperature she looked anxiously at the thermometer.

My temperature was up two points!

That morning the Colonel was removed to another part of the hospital.

As the window of my room could not be opened, I was taken into an exactly similar room on the opposite side of the corridor. This was a pleasanter room than the other, it got the morning sun, and the window opened on to the kitchen garden. Shortly after moving into this room two visitors came to see me. One was M. le Médecin Chef, who was afterwards imprisoned at the Hôpital 106. At this time, however, he was allowed by the Germans to visit the hospitals. I was quite unable to speak the day he came to see me, but was able to recognise and wonder at the French uniform.

My other visitor was a German officer. I can only vaguely remember that he was tall, well-built, and I think wore a beard. He spoke English fluently, and said that he used often to visit Cairo many years ago, when one of the battalions of my regiment was stationed there. I asked him if he would send news of me to England. He sat down by my bed, and put my name and regiment down in his note-book.

The post-card he sent, which reached the War Office _viâ_ Geneva, was signed von Schwerin. It may seem a small thing to be grateful for, but the sending of that post-card was a very hard favour to obtain and a very great favour to be granted.

During the first few months of the German occupation of Cambrai no messages or letters were allowed to leave the district, and the severest penalties were imposed on those who were caught attempting to get letters out of the country. It was said that two German officers were sent home in disgrace for writing to Geneva on behalf of a wounded prisoner.

On September 15 a French Red Cross nurse came in to see me at 10 o'clock in the evening. She was a tall, fine-looking woman, dressed in a large heavy coat. After asking my name, she said she had a letter to give me from an officer of my regiment.

The letter, written in pencil, on a page from an exercise book, was as follows:--

CAUDRY HOSPITAL.

MY DEAR M.,--So glad to hear you are going on all right, as I heard you had a bad wound in the head, which sounded serious. I saw a priest a few days ago who told me there was an officer of my regiment at Cambrai, and I presumed it must be you.

I also heard you were brought to the hospital the day I was brought in, but had left by the time I got here.

I hear our regiment was captured _en bloc_ at Bertry; they marched slap into the Germans in the dark, so we may be better off where we are. I hear M., M., and L. were killed the day we got wounded.

We are very well done here; it is rather an amateur show, but every one does what they can for us. I got a bullet across my scalp, but it is nearly healed now, and I am up and about. I expect ---- Btt. must be in the country by now somewhere, but I don't know.

I hope this finds you in good spirits. I think we may hope to be relieved soon.

Best luck.--Yours ever,

A. A. D.

A nurse from Cambrai is here who has kindly volunteered to take this back with her.

* * * * *

The nurse told me that she was returning to Caudry next day and would take back an answer. She also added that my friend hoped to escape.

Next morning I was able to scrawl two or three lines, holding a pencil in the right hand and pushing it along with the left.

Major D. succeeded in getting away from Caudry, and after many adventures crossed safely over the Dutch frontier.

During the first month of my stay in the hospital, with a French surgeon, French nurses, and French soldier orderlies, there was little to remind me of the fact that I was a prisoner of war.

No one in the hospital believed that the Germans would remain at Cambrai for more than a few weeks. The arrival of the French troops was expected and hoped for from day to day. Optimists declared that in a week the city would be delivered, and only the most pessimistic put off the joyful day to the end of September. The prevailing belief that the Germans would soon be driven out of the country was strengthened by the vague reports of disaster to the German arms which were current in Cambrai after the battle of the Marne.

At this time every story, however improbable, found ardent believers. French and British troops were seen hovering on the outskirts if not at the very gates of the city. It was even asserted that somebody had seen Japanese troops! 200,000 of whom had landed at Marseilles some few days before! The suppression of all newspapers left the universal craving for news unsatisfied, and the daily paper was replaced by short type-written notes which were secretly passed from hand to hand. I remember the contents of one of these compositions which was handed me by a visitor with great parade of secrecy and importance.

It was composed of brief short sentences: "Cambrai the last town in German occupation. Germans retiring all along the line. Maubeuge re-occupied by French and British troops. Revolution in Berlin. Streets in flames. Death of Empress."

All such absurd stories probably emanated from a German source and represent some obscure form of German humour.

The most exciting incident which took place at Cambrai in September was the visit of two aeroplanes, either French or English, which flew over the town just out of rifle range.

The aviators were greeted with a tremendous fusillade, which was started by the sentry on the church tower close to my window. For nearly ten minutes rifles, machine-guns, and artillery kept up a steady fire. The nurses who had rushed out to see the aeroplanes soon came running back, as bullets were falling on the hospital roof.

The sequel of this first air raid was long a subject of discussion. The Germans allege that bombs were dropped by the aviators. The French declare that German guns fired at them from outside the town, and that the shells fell and exploded in the town.

The casualties were 7 civilians and 15 Germans killed, and a number of wounded. Seven horses were killed on the Place du Marché.

When the firing ceased a poor woman and her little child of three years old were brought into the hospital very severely wounded. The mother's leg had to be amputated, and the poor little baby had one of its arms taken off.

Although the German authorities blamed the British, it is hardly likely that bombs were dropped on Cambrai in September 1914, and there can be little doubt that the damage was caused by German shells.

During the first two or three weeks of my stay at the hospital I saw very little of either the surgeon or the two nurses, with whom afterwards I came to be on terms of great friendship. At that time the number of wounded was so great that the nurses had not a single minute to spare.

The hospital was overflowing with the wounded soldiers; many died within a few hours of arriving, and many more died in the operating-room. The number of severe cases was so great that it was impossible that all should receive the needful attention in time. Dr Debu spent twenty-four hours at a stretch in the operating-room.

More and more wounded kept arriving, until every bed was occupied and wounded men were lying in the corridors, and many were turned away from the door because there was no room.

From the 27th of August to the first days of September, the increasing number of deaths in the hospital made it more and more difficult to make arrangements for removing the bodies to the cemetery. It was therefore suggested that graves should be dug in the hospital garden opposite my window.

The graves were actually dug, but were too shallow and could not be used. The open trenches remained empty for some weeks, until some of the wounded soldiers took on the job of filling in the earth.

Two nurses had charge of the ward and rooms on our floor--Mlle. Waxin, one of the hospital permanent staff, and Mlle. Debu, the surgeon's daughter.

Mlle. Waxin had also charge of the operating-room; she was as clever as a surgeon and as strict as a gendarme with her patients. Rather under the average height, her figure inclined, but very slightly, to plumpness. Very dark eyes that could sparkle and also look severe. A young, round, rosy, but very determined face. A typical French girl.

Mlle. Debu, although without hospital training and with no previous experience of nursing, volunteered from the first day of the invasion to help in her father's hospital. Mlle. Debu showed the true spirit of France. She was only nineteen. Never for a moment did she lose courage. From the very start she worked with the skill and endurance of a trained nurse, and her face, ever quick to smile, never betrayed, even for a moment, the fatigues and worries of the day.

When the rays of the morning sun lit up the top of the glass door it was time for breakfast, and punctually to the minute Mlle. Debu appeared with a cup of chocolate which she made for me herself. "Bonjour, Monsieur le numéro sept," the brown eyes twinkled and the dimple smiled at the daily jest.

The days passed very slowly. I was too weak to read, and even the occasional visit from a wounded French or British soldier was more than my head could bear. Every afternoon, at about five o'clock, a body of German infantry marched past the hospital, singing the Wacht am Rhein in part-song, an unpleasant daily reminder of the conqueror's presence.

In the room opposite there was a German officer who spent most of the day walking up and down the corridor whistling a hackneyed and out-of-date waltz tune. He always whistled the same tune, and it got on my nerves. The nurse told me that there was nothing the matter with him except an alleged pimple on his foot. This officer must have been a delicate specimen of German militarism. He was known in the hospital as "Parapluie," owing to the fact that when setting out one evening to dine in town he borrowed an umbrella to protect his uniform from the rain.

A regular plague of flies was one of the minor discomforts which had to be endured during the day. Mlle. Debu stuck a piece of fly-paper to the gas chandelier which hung in the middle of the room, but only a few dozen flies fell victims to greed and curiosity, and the others seemed to take warning from the sad example. At meal-times there were always crowds of these uninvited guests, who, from the contempt with which they treated me, were evidently quite aware that I was unable to drive them away. One fly, rather bigger than the others (Alphonse I called him), was very persistent in his endeavours to land on my nose. When tired of this game he would leave me for a while and circle round and round the fly-paper, always about to land, and yet always suspicious of danger. The career of Alphonse was cut short by a method of attack which is probably considered by the insect kingdom as contrary to the rules of civilised warfare. One afternoon Madame la Directrice brought up a box of powder which she said was guaranteed to destroy all the flies in the room in half an hour. The windows were shut, and the powder was sprinkled all over the room and all over my bed. In about ten minutes it was impossible to breathe. The powder got into my eyes and lungs, and I had to ring and ask for the windows to be opened. But the flies had succumbed, and poor Alphonse was swept up off the floor next morning along with at least a hundred of his companions.

I gathered a great deal of information about what was going on in the hospital from watching the glazed window in the door.

One morning I said to Mlle. Debu when she brought in breakfast, "Who was it died in the ward last night?"

The nurses always tried to hide from me the large number of deaths that took place in the early days, but I knew all about it from studying the glazed window through which the outlines of passers-by could faintly be distinguished. One man followed at a short distance by another meant a stretcher was being carried past. It is not hard to guess what is the burden of stretchers which are carried out of the ward when the dawn is just breaking. At this hour the hospital is at its quietest. But in the garden the sparrows twitter and chirrup that it will soon be time to get up. An early and hungry blackbird will sometimes whistle one or two impatient notes to hasten the coming of day. When the new daylight enters my room with its fresh, clean morning air, the first picture shown on the glass door is that of two men marching, with an interval between. They wear slippers and make no noise. And many months after the name of the burden they carry on the stretcher will appear on the Roll of Honour--"Previously reported missing--now reported died of wounds as a prisoner of war."

It is usually about eight o'clock that the surgeon's visit takes place. First there is the rattle and jingle of bottles all along the corridor, which heralds the advance of the portable dressing-table. This table runs on rubber wheels, and is fitted with an ingenious basin in which the surgeon can wash his hands under a tap which is turned on by pressing a lever with the foot. Sometimes, when the door of my room has been left ajar, I can see as they pass the surgeons in their white overalls followed by the nurses and orderlies. There are one or two very serious cases which have to be dressed by the surgeons, but the visit is chiefly an inspection. Cases where the balance lies between amputation and death have to be submitted to the sure judgment of Dr Debu.

During the early days there was a long waiting list for the operating-room, as there was scarcely time even to deal with those who were in immediate danger of death.

In the majority of the cases brought in the wounds had not been dressed for several days. Men had remained three or four days at the place where they had been struck down. Others were put into farmhouses with broken legs or arms, and left unattended for a fortnight. Others again--and they were very numerous--had been brought into Cambrai by the Germans and deposited in some temporary ambulance-shed, and left with scarcely any medical attention, their wounds dressed perhaps once a week. When such poor sufferers as these arrived at last at the hospital, it was as a rule too late for anything but amputation, and often too late even for that.

One evening, about the 10th of September, a German officer arrived at the hospital with an order that all wounded Germans should be at once taken to the station. There was at this time, in one of the rooms adjoining mine, a German officer who had been shot in the bladder. Mlle. Waxin had charge of the case, and, thanks to her careful nursing, there seemed to be some chance of his recovery. When the order came to move all Germans, Mlle. Waxin protested that if this officer were moved he would die. But the Germans refused to listen to her, and took their officer off to the station. That same evening the poor fellow was taken back from the station, and died in the hospital within an hour of his return. Next day a large number of French and British wounded were taken away to Germany.

The vacant beds were at once filled with cases brought in for operation from the various temporary hospitals. Among the new arrivals were several British officers, two of whom, Irvine in the King's Own and Halls in the Hampshire Regiment, were put in the room opposite mine. Halls had been shot through both ankles, but after a few days managed to hobble across the corridor to pay me a visit. A French officer, wounded in the knee, used sometimes to come and see me, but I have forgotten his name.

It was on a Sunday that the sad announcement was made that my two newly-found friends were to be taken away to Germany. Halls said it was such bad luck to be carried away just as the French were about to enter the town!

The French soldier-orderlies all left the hospital at the same time as Halls and Irvine, and the duty of looking after my room fell to an individual named François. Cheerfulness was his only virtue; laziness and dirt were his principal and more obvious vices. François was a young fellow of nineteen, formerly a bargee working on a neighbouring canal. Owing to an accident which happened about a year before war broke out, his leg had to be taken off, and he was afterwards kept on in the hospital to act as handyman. In spite of his wooden leg he was wonderfully active, and when aroused was capable of doing a lot of work. François invariably wore a very large and very dirty cap, tilted right on to the back of his thick, black, curly hair. The cap and the fag-end of a cigarette sticking to his under lip were permanent fixtures. His breath smelt of garlic and sour wine. The only person in the hospital to whose orders he paid the least attention was Mlle. Waxin, and it was only under her severe eye that François made any use of broom or duster.

On fine afternoons during the last week of September I was taken out on to the Terrace on a stretcher. Irvine was also lifted out in a chair, and looked very thin and pale. Like most of us in the hospital, he had been wounded on the 26th August; the wound was a very severe one, the bullet having actually hit the edge of his identity disc. Two other subalterns in the Manchester Regiment were both lying out on stretchers, and we had a talk with Captain Beresford of the Worcesters, who was already so far recovered from a bullet in the lung that he was able to walk. Several wounded French and British soldiers were also taken out to enjoy the sun.

One of the Frenchmen I at once recognised to be a Curé. His figure was more suited to the soutane than to the uniform of a Pioupiou, and a very pronounced accent betrayed the fact that he belonged to the Auvergne country. His comrades were evidently in the way of teasing him about his accent, and a great discussion was going on (with much winking at me by the other soldiers). In what part of France was the best French spoken? M. le Curé addressed me as an impartial witness: "N'est pas, mon capitaine, nous autres dans le midi de la France nous parlons plus grrammaticalemaing que les habitans du Nord--nous avons un peu _d'assent_ mais nous parlons grrammaticalemaing." My verdict being in M. le Curé's favour, he entered into animated conversation, delighted, he said, to meet "_enfaing_" some one who could explain to him a question in which he was much interested but of which he understood nothing: "Qu'est que ce que le 'homme-roulle'?" It was time to go in, so we parted, and my inability to answer his question remained undiscovered. I never saw the Curé again, and was told he had been taken off to Germany.

Among the lesser discomforts of the early days in the Civil Hospital was the ordeal of being washed, which I only went through twice in the first three weeks. The nurses could not think of washing patients, as they had not time to dress all the wounds that required urgent attention, and therefore the washing was done by François, and it was a sort of job to which he was evidently quite unaccustomed.

The impossibility of getting any sleep, the pain from lying in one position, and the irritation of repeated mustard plasters (which were brought up and applied by François), soon became relatively unimportant in the presence of a new trouble. One evening something in my head began to throb. It felt like the steady regular beat of a pulse deep inside. When Mlle. Waxin came to see me that night I told her about it. Of course, as all good nurses do, she said it was nothing, but she would speak to the surgeon. Next morning Dr Debu, after examination, declared that an abscess had formed in the wound owing to the presence of a bone splinter. This would necessitate a small operation.

My first acquaintance with the movable dressing-table, which carried a fearsome collection of surgical weapons, took place at nine o'clock that evening. Mlle. Waxin started the proceedings with a shaving-brush. After lathering the top of my head, she then shaved the hair off all round the wound, and I was ready for the surgeon's visit. When Dr Debu came in, he said it would be better if I could manage to do without an anæsthetic. "How long are you going to be?" I asked.

"Not more than a minute."

The apprehension was worse than the reality. A quick movement of the lancet laid open the abscess and disclosed the jagged splintered edge of the skull. With a pair of pincers the surgeon broke off one or two pieces of bone about the size of a tooth, then jammed in a piece of lint soaked in iodine. The whole affair lasted two minutes. From now onwards my head had to be dressed every day, and a piece of lint nearly a foot long was pushed in every morning to keep the wound open, and any splinters that could be found were snipped off with the pincers.

Now that the pressure of work in the hospital was somewhat relieved, my two nurses would sometimes come and sit in my room, and I was cheered with a regular afternoon visit from some of the nurses from neighbouring hospitals. Mlle. L'Etoile and her friends used to bring me books, boxes of the sweets known as "Bétises de Cambrai," peaches, nectarines, grapes, and long, fat, juicy "poires Duchesse," the largest and sweetest pears I have ever tasted. Afternoon tea "avec le numéro sept" was a cheerful and often noisy meal. It was such a relief to forget for a moment the presence of the Boche and to hear the sound of laughter.

In addition to my friends who were regular visitors, we had occasional visits from curious but well-meaning strangers. Some people find it impossible when visiting hospitals to get beyond the everlasting phrase, "Where were you wounded?"

The limit of conversational inanity was reached by one of these casual visitors, a stout blonde dame. Our conversation ran as follows:--

"Bonjour, bonjour; vous êtes un officier anglais, n'est-ce pas?"

"Mais oui, Madame!"

"Où avez-vous été blessé?"

"A la tête...."

"Vous restez couché comme ça toute la journée?"

"C'est que j'ai la jambe paralysée."

"Et vous n'avez pas eu de blessure à la jambe?"

"Rien du tout."

"Alors vous étiez donc paralysé avant la guerre!!!"

"Ce qui prouve," as one of my nurses said, "que toutes les bétises de Cambrai ne sont pas dans les boîtes à bonbons."

It was about this time that a visit was paid to the hospital by Mgr. l'Archevêque de Cambrai, who went round all the wards with kind words of consolation for each one. The Archbishop hesitated on the threshold of my room, and was about to pass on, fearing no doubt to disturb me, and perhaps foreseeing the probable difficulties of conversation.

"Entrez donc, Monseigneur," I said; "Veuillez prendre la peine de vous asseoir."

The Archbishop was quite taken aback, and I could see Mlle. Waxin behind was convulsed with inward mirth. She said to me afterwards, "Où êtes vous allé chercher de si grandes phrases?"

His lordship came and sat by my bedside for a few moments. He is a man of great personality and charm, who gives an impression of strength and tact.

After the Archbishop had gone, Mlle. Waxin told me that the vacant bed in my room was to be occupied by a British officer. This turned out to be Wilkinson in the Manchester Regiment. The manner of his arrival next morning was somewhat peculiar. The door opened slowly, and a large, very tall man, dressed like a nigger minstrel in black-and-white striped pyjamas, and covered with bandages, hopped across the room on the left leg; with three vigorous hops he was sitting on the bed. His right foot was bandaged, also one of his hands. Nothing could be seen of his face but a nose and one eye.

"Thank goodness there is some one to talk to," was what the strange figure said. Then followed the necessary mutual explanations.

The only method of movement possible to Wilkinson was hopping, at which he had become quite an expert. Shrapnel bullets had lodged themselves all over his body, fortunately avoiding vital spots. The worst of his wounds was a fractured jaw, which gave him a great deal of pain, and made chewing of food impossible.

When Mlle. Waxin came in to dress my wound, some of the other nurses sometimes came out of curiosity, as the working of the brain was quite visible. The pushing in of long pieces of lint and the removal of splinters, which took place every morning, was quite painless, and only took a few minutes. But it usually took the two nurses half an hour to dress the various wounds of the new arrival, and on the first morning Dr Debu extracted a bullet from just under the skin below the small of the patient's back.

Shortly after Wilkinson's arrival a most tragic event took place in the adjoining ward.

In some mysterious manner the electric bells ceased to ring every evening about nine o'clock. This was a very serious matter, especially as the night nurse that particular week--Mme. Z--was very slack about her duties, and never went round the hospital during the night to see if all was well. The disturbance started about eleven o'clock, with a dull thud as of a body falling, followed by shouting and rattling of the iron tables on the floor of the ward. The noise, heard through closed doors, was sufficient to wake Wilkinson. The shouting ceased for a moment, only to start afresh with new vigour. Wilkinson took two hops across the room and opened the door; the tables still rattled, and the calls for help continued. A French soldier, with one arm in a sling, clothed in nothing but a nightshirt, came walking gingerly down the corridor in his bare feet. When he saw our door open, he came in to tell us all about it. A soldier who was badly wounded in the head had suddenly become delirious, torn off his bandages, and fallen out of bed. There was no one in the ward able to help the poor fellow, who lay moaning on the floor in a state too awful for description. The bells did not ring, and there was nothing to be done except shout. The French soldier went along the corridor to the head of the staircase to call for the night watcher. After quite a long time some one downstairs woke up to the fact that there was something wrong. The night nurse appeared, followed by the night porter. They lifted the dying man on to the bed, bandaged up his poor head, and gave him a strong injection of morphia. One of the French soldiers told me some time after that the poor fellow died quite noiselessly in the middle of the night, but I knew early that morning when a stretcher passed the glass door that the tragedy was over.

Mlle. Waxin used often to tell me about the different cases under her charge.

I was never able to get the name of one of her favourites whom she called her "petit anglais." This was a young Irish boy badly shot in the stomach. Dr Debu told me that he might live for several months, but that there was no hope of recovery. The dressing of his wounds was nearly always done by Mlle. Waxin, under whose gentle hand he never complained of the awful agony from which morphia was the only relief. Although the ward in which he lay was on the ground floor, we could sometimes hear the screams of agony upstairs, screams which no one but Mlle. Waxin could silence. "C'est mon petit anglais qui m'appelle," she used to say.

It is remarkable that no matter how badly a soldier is wounded, even when he can neither eat nor drink, he will be soothed by a cigarette. The Frenchman above mentioned, unable to eat, unable to speak, and scarcely conscious, his brain bleeding from a great hole in the skull, was yet able the day before he died to smoke a cigarette. "Le petit anglais," who was never free from pain, found his greatest joy in the few cigarettes that Mlle. Waxin, in spite of the shortage of tobacco, brought to his beside every morning. It was very hard to get any tobacco in Cambrai until late in October, when the Germans allowed it to be imported from Belgium.

One of the nurses who was able to speak English used sometimes to come and see me, and one day she brought me the following note from a soldier in my own regiment who was in one of the wards downstairs:--

No. 0000, Pte. N. N., B Co., 1st ---- Highlanders.

DEAR SIR,--I was sorry to hear that you had been one of the unlucky ones, along with myself, to be put aside and away from the regiment. I hope that you will pull through all right. I am getting on, but it is my legs that are all the hinder. It was a very bad place I was wounded in the stoumick. Now, dear sir, I hope that you won't think me forward in asking you for a favour. If you would let me have the advance of 2s. so that I could get some tobacco, as I have lost everything.

N. N.

This man recovered, and was exchanged many months afterwards.

Another young Irishman, who was a great favourite, had been badly wounded in the foot. It was found necessary to take the foot off, and after the operation, when Mlle. Waxin went to console him, she found him lying with his face to the wall, silently weeping.

"I was going to scold him for being such a baby," she said to me afterwards, "but when the English-speaking sister explained to me the reason of the tears, I felt like crying myself."

"It is not the pain, sister, that troubles me," he said to them, "but you see with a wooden leg I can never go back again to the old regiment."

On 9th Oct. we had a very strict inspection of the hospital, and a great number of the remaining British wounded were put down on the list of "transportables." The French nurses always sent off the British wounded dressed in French uniform, as it was a fact notorious at Cambrai that the Germans robbed British wounded of their uniform. In many cases German soldiers took greatcoats away from wounded men and gave a five-mark piece in exchange. The ill-treatment which was specially shown to British soldiers on the journey to Germany was the principal reason why the French, whenever they could get a chance, disguised our wounded soldiers in French uniforms. The fact that, in the early days of the war, British prisoners were invariably treated worse than the French cannot be denied, and will be amply proved from the evidence of returned prisoners, and from other sources of information at present unavailable. It is the truth that nearly all British soldiers taken prisoners and sent to Germany during the first months of the war were made the object of special contempt, neglect, or cruelty. Such conduct undoubtedly constitutes a departure "from laws of humanity, and from the dictates of the public conscience," which are supposed to govern the conduct of civilised nations.[1] To ill-treat or insult a wounded and helpless enemy is the most despicable offence a soldier can commit. Men who do these things dishonour the name of soldier.

[1] See Convention concerning the Laws and Customs of War on Land: The Hague, 1907, p. 47.

The meaning of war without chivalry was first brought home to the inhabitants of Cambrai when they saw the way the victorious Germans treated the unfortunate wounded who had been brought into the town from the neighbouring battlefields. During the first week of September hundreds of wounded, French and English, were sent to Germany packed in cattle trucks, with no medical attendance, no food, no water. It was only natural that in our hospital both nurses and patients should dread the days when German officials came round searching for cases that could be considered "transportable." The inspections which took place on the 9th and 11th of October were carried out with great severity. My companion Wilkinson was taken away, and many were put down on the list who were quite unfit to travel.

Great consternation was created in the hospital on the evening of the 11th, when an order arrived that the whole male staff of the hospital was to report forthwith at the Kommandantur. This was the end of the Civil Hospital as a French hospital. The doctors (except Debu), orderlies, and assistants were marched off to the Kommandantur at seven o'clock that evening, and spent the whole night in a cold unfurnished room without food or drink. Next morning the whole party, with two exceptions, were told that they were prisoners, and had to leave at once for Germany. The two exceptions were one of the surgeons, who was able to make up a plausible story, and François, whose wooden leg saved him from a German prison. Next morning the hospital was taken over by the Germans, and French orderlies were replaced by German soldiers.

The operating-room was shared between the French and German surgeons. Dr Debu operated in the morning on the French and British, and in the afternoon the room was occupied by German surgeons, the chief of whom was Professor Fessler, a celebrated authority on gunshot wounds. The French nurses at Cambrai told me that they found the German surgeons were, as a rule, quite indifferent and careless in causing pain to the wounded, of which fact the following incident from my note-book is an example.

"_Oct. 16th._--Dreadful screams from downstairs, lasting two or three minutes. Mlle. Waxin tells me it is only the German surgeon starting to operate before the ether had taken effect."

An exception must be made of Professor Fessler, who was always most humane in the operating-room. Professor Fessler once said to Mlle. Waxin, "If the men who are responsible for war could be made to realise the horror of the operating-room, war would always be avoided." A dying Frenchman was brought in one afternoon in the hope that instant operation might save his life. Professor Fessler performed the operation at once, working with the utmost care, as Mlle. Waxin told me, to avoid giving the poor sufferer unnecessary agony.

The numbers of German patients in the hospital increased day by day, which we took as a hopeful indication that the Germans were not having things all their own way. We had several German officers about this time, and I used to hear about them from Mlle. Waxin. One of them, who was very seriously wounded, insisted upon being dressed by the French nurse, and would not allow the Schwester to touch him. The officer in the room next mine was dying of chest wounds complicated by pneumonia. During the night, through the thin partition, I could follow every sound of his death agony--the groaning, whistling laboured breathing, the whispering of nurses, the low steady tones of prayer, and then silence.

A very different death scene took place in the hospital a few days later. A German officer was brought in badly shot in the stomach. After his operation he was told that food or drink during the first twenty-four hours would be fatal. He ordered his servant to fetch him a bottle of champagne, drank half of it down and died within five minutes. A bestial and truly Hunnish death.

Now that the Germans had installed themselves in the hospital, there was an end to the pleasant afternoons on the sunny terrace. I was no longer lifted out of bed to sit in a chair, nor was I able even to sit up in bed lest some German should see me and mark my name down as "transportable." The hospital gate was now guarded by a sentry, and no visitors could enter without a written permit from the German authorities, who imposed their authority throughout the whole hospital, without meeting any effective resistance until they encountered Mlle. Waxin. German authority said that a German Schwester would, in future, assist the French nurse in the operating-room. Mlle. Waxin declaring that she would allow no one to interfere with her work, locked the room up and put the keys in her pocket. German authority, after threatening imprisonment, exile, and other dreadful punishments, had to climb down. It would have been easy to take the keys or to force the door, but the services of Mlle. Waxin were indispensable, and it was obviously impossible to compel her to work against her will. So the German Schwester was dismissed. The morning after this matter had been settled another storm arose, when Mlle. Waxin's father came to pay his daily visit and was stopped by the sentry. The determined young girl went to the German Head Surgeon and declared that she refused to work in the hospital unless her father was allowed to visit her at any time of the day or night without hindrance.

After the first few days the friction between the French and German hospital staff began to grow less. The German nurses, although good at sweeping and cleaning, had little or no training at Red Cross work, and were very glad to leave the dressing of complicated injuries to Mlle. Waxin or Mlle. Debu. The night orderlies were stolid, silent, very willing and obliging. The German surgeons from all accounts behaved with tact and courtesy.

This comparatively peaceful state of affairs was upset by the visit of an extremely ugly, very cross and disagreeable individual, with a grey ragged beard, whom we christened "le père grigou." His chief business at Cambrai was to compile lists of "transportables." Grigou, a personage of high rank, was the senior medical officer at Cambrai. To our great horror he made the Hôpital Civil his headquarters, and on the day of arrival paid a surprise visit to my room. But not quite a surprise visit, for Mlle. Waxin had wind of his coming and had made all preparations. She bound an extra bandage round my head, took my pillow away, and drew the window curtains. When Grigou arrived I was lying flat on my back in semi-darkness, breathing heavily. My eyes, bloodshot from ten minutes' hard rubbing, looked vacantly up at the ceiling. As Grigou bent over the bed I heaved a long tremulous sigh. Grigou consulted with his colleague, and the verdict was that it was doubtful if I would live till next morning! My name was of course put down on the list of "non-transportable." If Grigou, who visited our floor every day, had seen me, or any German had reported that I had been seen sitting up in bed, our harmless trick would have resulted in my immediate departure for Germany, and my nurses would have got into serious trouble, so I had to live up to my supposed dying condition. Grigou did not remain with us more than a few days, but even when he had left the nurses did not dare to take me out on a stretcher or even to put me into a chair.

At this time the other bed in my room was occupied by a soldier of the Middlesex Regiment. His case was an example of the terrible results which came from delay in attending to shell wounds. After lying out two days he was taken to Cambrai, and remained for more than a week in a German ambulance with little or no attention. A German surgeon opened his leg without using an anæsthetic. Perhaps there was none to be had. As a result of this the poor fellow's nerve was completely shattered. When he came under Dr Debu's care it was hoped that his leg might be saved, and a further opening was made just below the knee. The dressing of this man's wounds was a sight not easily forgotten. When the nurses entered the room with the dressing-table he begged them to leave him to die. While the bandage was being unrolled he sat with chattering teeth, his face twitching with nervous apprehension; the leg was dreadful to look at, the flesh just above and below the knee lay folded back, raw and discoloured, with rubber tubing protruding from both sides of the calf. It was a hopeless case, and the attempt to save his leg had to be given up. After the amputation he suffered far less pain, but never recovered his self-control. On 20th October he was taken away to Madame Brunet's Convalescent Hospital, reserved for amputated cases, where he died just before Christmas.

It had been decided by the German authorities that beds in the Hôpital Civil were to be reserved solely for cases requiring operation. Dr Debu therefore found that it was no longer possible for me to stay, and arranged for my being sent to another hospital.

On the 21st October I was taken away from my kind friends, and for the first time carried by Germans on a German stretcher. Outside the hospital a motor ambulance was waiting. The night was dark, wet, and very cold. My leg was soon numbed with cold, as the ambulance did not start for nearly a quarter of an hour. Through the open end I could see a flickering street lamp which threw glinting reflections on the wet cobble-stones.

A martial step, with the clink of spurs, woke echoes down the silent street; a German officer passed, came into view for an instant under the lamp, then clanked away into darkness.

The ambulance driver and another soldier, who had been conversing together in low tones, stood rigidly to attention until the sound of the officer's steps had died away in the distance. Then the French soldier for whom we were waiting was carried down and placed in the ambulance beside me, the door was closed, shutting out the cold air and the dripping street. "Eh bien, mon lieutenant," said a voice from the stretcher, "nous voila partis! My father was taken prisoner in 1870, and voila, I am now also a prisoner, but that is nothing--_on les aura_, cette fois ci, on les aura ces sales têtes d'alboches!"