CHAPTER IV.

LE NUMÉRO 106.

The school building, hurriedly transformed on the outbreak of war into a hospital, forms three sides of a quadrangle, the fourth side of which is blocked by a high wall, so that in the courtyard thus formed the sun can never shine.

This was the hospital of the French Red Cross--L'Hôpital Auxiliaire du Territoire, No. 106, Union des femmes de France. The accommodation for patients is limited to five rooms, all of which look on to the dismal courtyard. "Salle un," to which I was taken on arrival, the only room at all resembling a hospital ward, is a long lofty room running the whole length of one side of the quadrangle.

Along each side of the room beds of various sorts and sizes were ranged several yards apart. Mine was a large and brand-new double bedstead with large ornamental brass knobs. The sheets were of the finest Cambrai linen. Under several layers of blankets, and surrounded on all sides by hot bricks wrapped in flannel, I soon began to recover from the effects of my journey in the ambulance.

The first thing that struck me about my new quarters was the number of nurses and orderlies, most of whom were local volunteers whose experience of hospitals dated from the German invasion. They were relieved from night work by a number of extra volunteers attached to the hospital, who each took one night a week.

It was now past eight o'clock, the nurses had all left, and the night staff--three youths from the city--had taken off their bowler hats, retaining their coats and mufflers, and sat themselves at a table near the door. At the far end of the ward a tall young German soldier sat working silently at his table far into the night. He belonged to the motor transport, and was suffering from earache--so much I had gathered from the nurses. I speculated that perhaps he was working to pass examinations for a commission; the little lamp burning late, the absorbed attitude of the student, seemed incongruous in such surroundings. In the bed opposite mine lay a badly-wounded German officer, shaded by a screen from the lamp round which the night-watchers sat reading. These were the only two Germans in the hospital. Presently the studious German put aside his books, retired to bed, and the ward was silent. The services of the orderlies did not seem to be required,--one sat for a while aimlessly turning over the leaves of an illustrated paper, then rested his head awhile upon the table, and was at once asleep. From the bed opposite there came a gentle tinkling sound. One of the watchers, a young lad, still a schoolboy, crossed the ward on tiptoe and bent over the wounded man, whose whisper was too feeble to reach my listening ear. The light was turned on, the sleeper resting on the illustrated paper awoke, left the ward, and returned after a few minutes with the night nurse. Now that the screen was moved I could see that the face in the bed opposite was that of a young man, perhaps not more than nineteen; it was the face of a gentleman and a soldier, but drawn, pinched, more yellow than reality in the gaslight, gasping with pain, gasping for morphia. When at last the merciful injection had been given, "Merci, merci," said a strengthened voice; "merci, vous êtes tous si bons pour moi." The screen replaced, the gas turned low, the watchers returned to their table, and all was quiet again till dawn.

Next morning just before ten o'clock the ward was visited by two surgeons, one a German, the other my friend from the Hôpital Civil, Dr Debu. By the dull light of a wet October morning they examined the wounded German officer. From Dr D.'s face I knew the case was hopeless. Still, an operation might save life, if not the leg. When the stretcher-bearers came to carry the young officer away he thanked the nurses for their kindness, speaking perfect French with pathetic accents of real gratitude. He asked that the chocolates, cigarettes, &c., on his table should be distributed among the French soldiers in the ward, and again expressed his thanks, and asked pardon for the trouble he had caused. The operation was unsuccessful. He was taken, such are the coincidences of life and death, to the same bed as I had occupied at the Civil Hospital--numéro sept--where a few days afterwards he died, but not before his mother, in mourning already for two sons, had been called from Germany to his bedside.

No special accommodation was provided for officers at the 106 Hospital. There was a French officer in Salle 5, on the ground floor, and it was arranged that I was to be taken downstairs to his ward.

The worst ward in the hospital was undoubtedly No. 5. The room had formerly been a classroom for junior pupils. Poor little children! how miserable their lessons must have been in that damp sunless schoolroom. On the courtyard side, facing north, the light is obscured by a large wide verandah; on the south side the ground of another small courtyard is five or six feet higher than the level of the room.

Of the Salle cinq I have many pleasant memories, but my first impression of it--a picture which I cannot forget--was sadly depressing. The room is a small one, not more than 36 by 20 feet. One had the impression of entering a basement, almost a cellar. The windows were all shut. Judging from the heavy fetid atmosphere, they had not been opened since the declaration of war.

Except for a small open area in the centre, the whole floor-space was filled with beds, which were ranged all round the room, each one close up against the other. In the corner next the door one bed, standing by itself, was occupied by the French officer, X., a reserve Captain of the Colonial Infantry. My bed was also a corner one. On one side stood a cupboard in which bandages, morphia, and other necessaries were kept.

Salle 5 was not only the worst ward, but it also contained the worst cases. This was probably owing to the fact that the nurse in charge, Mme. Buquet, was the most efficient nurse in the hospital. The number of beds was thirteen. No. 1, known as "le Picard," was a cheery, jovial, hardy little fellow, who had lost a leg. No. 2, Sergt. Blanchard, suffered from a badly suppurating wound in the thigh, and was taken away for an operation to the Civil Hospital, where he died a few days after. No. 3, Chasseur Alpin, shot through the chest about an inch above the heart. A very serious case. No. 6, left arm amputated, right leg and foot shattered. Nos. 8 and 9, very bad gangrenous leg wounds. Both died shortly afterwards.

Under the circumstances it was perhaps only natural that on my arrival into the Salle cinq I was rather depressed. Most of the poor fellows in the ward were in continuous pain, but the only one who made audible complaint was No. 6. This man was a Charentais from Cognac. His wounds, although very terrible, were yet not so bad or so painful as those of many others who suffered in silence. No. 6 never ceased day or night, except when under the influence of morphia, from groaning and whining about his foot; he was known in the ward as "Oh mon pied!" On the afternoon of my arrival No. 6 came near to death--nearer even than he did on the day when a German shell blew off his arm and destroyed most of his right leg. No. 6 was sitting propped up in bed, when suddenly his head fell back, his thin yellow face turned a pasty white, and he lay back apparently a corpse. Fortunately an orderly was in the room at the time, and help was immediately forthcoming. About a dozen nurses crowded round the bed. There was nothing to be done. The doctor was sent for, also the Curé. "The man was dying;" "he was dead." "No, he still breathed." Then some one made an intelligent suggestion. "Look inside the bed." The bedclothes pulled down revealed a dreadful sight, which explained at once what had happened. The whole bed was soaked in blood. A blood-vessel had burst in the wound and the man was bleeding to death. The bleeding was easily stopped by the application of a tourniquet, but it was doubtful if any man could live after the loss of so much blood. Doctor and Curé arrived together as No. 6 was beginning to come round. The tourniquet had been applied just in time.

No windows were left open during the night.

Café au lait came in next morning at 7.30, and was distributed by Pierre, the orderly, a most willing and really excellent fellow. During breakfast one window was opened about three inches. As soon as breakfast was over the window was closed, the breakfast things removed, and the nurse began to prepare for the morning's work.

Mme. Buquet, head nurse of the ward, wife of a well-known French surgeon, was assisted by two volunteers from Cambrai, Mlle. Marie and Mlle. X. The dressing of wounds is quite a simple, straightforward business when the wounds are clean, but it is a very different story when there is gangrenous infection. No. 1, "le Picard," whose bed was just opposite mine, gave no trouble; his stump had nearly healed up and required very little attention. A deal of time was given to No. 3, the Chasseur Alpin; the bullet wound had made a small hole just over the left nipple, and the dressing of it was most painful to watch, as the poor boy evidently suffered great agony, though he never cried out or complained. No. 6 provided what one might call "le pièce de résistance." He began to howl before he was touched, and during the whole time his wounds were being dressed he continued either to shout or groan, or repeat his favourite exclamation, "Oh mon pied, mon pied!" Picard used to jeer at him for making so much fuss. "There is no one in the ward who makes such an infernal row as you do." No. 6 replied that no one in the ward suffered so much pain. This statement met with vigorous opposition from all over the room; even No. 3, who could scarcely breathe, was roused for the first time to husky speech. "Some of us suffer in silence: you should do likewise." In the heated discussion which followed No. 6 forgot for a time all about his bad foot. Poor No. 6 was in a minority of one. He was told that, though we were all very sorry for him, we objected to the continual groaning and shouting, which could do no good, and only disturbed those who suffered far worse pain in silence.

Nos. 8 and 9, the two beds nearest to mine, were the last to be dressed that morning. No. 9, whose bed was so close to mine that there was only just room between for the nurse to stand, was badly shot in the upper part of the thigh. The wound was in such a condition that there was no hope of recovery. A stream of dark-green gangrenous liquid poured out of the wound at the first washing. I covered up my head under the sheets and lit a cigarette, but even so could not escape from the sickening smell.

Owing to the serious condition of most of the wounded, the limited number of surgical instruments, and the cramped space in which the work had to be done, the dressing of wounds went on the whole morning, and was seldom finished before midday. During all this time the windows were kept shut, until just immediately before lunch, when one window was opened--not too wide, lest too much of the foul putrid atmosphere should escape and let in some of the clean air of a fresh autumn morning.

After lunch, M. le Médecin Chef Faméchon and Capt. Viguié came to pay us a visit. The Médecin Chef is a man between sixty and seventy years of age, tall, straight as an arrow, dignified, reserved, almost austere in manner, _au fond_ the kindest and best of men, as I found out later on from personal experience. He was taken prisoner at Arras, and now remained a prisoner in this hospital. Thus do the Germans observe the Geneva Convention.

The Médecin Chef and Captain Viguié shared a small room at the other side of the hospital. Viguié, who had formerly occupied my bed in Salle 5, used to come every morning to visit his old friends. The visits were always an occasion for the exchange of humour between Viguié and myself, in which combats Viguié, possessed of a Parisian quickness of repartee, always came off best. Perhaps it was the case as Mme. Buquet said, that I suffered from "du retard dans la perception." We all used to tease Viguié, and I used to greet him in the morning as "vieux coco." "Dites donc, Monsieur l'Ecossais," was the usual answer; "nous n'avons pas gardé les cochons ensemble." It has taken nearly a year and a half to find the correct answer to this pleasantry--an answer which I could send to my friend in his German prison, only that the Boche might refuse to pass it. "Non, mon ami, mais nous avons été gardé ensemble par les cochons!"

My diary states that "on October 26th I got up in the evening and had dinner at the table. There is great excitement in the hospital on account of large bodies of German troops having passed through the town. This is supposed to be a retirement." This opinion was strengthened by the visit of a simple-minded citizen of Cambrai, who came in with the news that "Metz had fallen." Stupid stories such as these were believed for a time by a great many people. "The smell in my ward is not so strong to-night. I have succeeded in getting a window kept open."

"October 30th. M. Heloire, the Veterinary Surgeon from Caudry, came to see me yesterday." Perhaps it was because he was not wearing the white overall that I did not recognise the tall, erect, grey-bearded man, who stood at the door of the Salle cinq and looked anxiously round the ward. Presently he came over to my bedside and stood looking. Then he spoke some commonplace, but not until he mentioned Caudry did I realise who it was. Labouring under a racial disability, I struggled to express my gratitude, but M. Heloire put an end to my efforts. With tears rolling down his cheeks he embraced me tenderly and thanked the _Bon Dieu_ that I was still alive. "They said at Caudry that you had died on the way to Germany, and so I came to ask the truth as soon as I could get a permit." We talked of many things, and M. Heloire refreshed my memory as to many incidents of my short stay at Caudry which I had forgotten. He told me among other things that when I was carried on a stretcher out of La Maison Camille Wanecq and put into the cart, the villagers standing by, who were not quite sure if my immediate destination was to be the hospital or the churchyard, were overcome with astonishment at my exclaiming, as the stretcher was lifted on to the cart, "En route la marchandise!" "Every day," went on the old man, "for days after you had left, my little granddaughter, who is only eight years old, begged to be taken to the place where grandpère had found the poor wounded officer. One Sunday afternoon, when it was fine, we went for a walk along the road that you must so well remember--the cart road from Caudry to Beaumont. When we reached the place, the ditch by the roadside, where, the morning after the battle, after much searching, I found you lying, my little girl, asking me to show her exactly where you had rested, picked from the spot some of the grass and a few common wild flowers to keep as a souvenir of grandpapa's wounded soldier."

On that same evening, after M. Heloire had gone, I made another friend, M. Vampouille, a Belgian, the proprietor of a small pork-butcher's business, Rue de l'Arbre d'Or, Cambrai. M. Vampouille worked in the hospital during the day when his business would permit, took one night a week in the Salle cinq, and was to me a faithful and devoted friend, to whom I never can hope to express as I would my admiration and deepest gratitude. Vampouille himself would be much astonished to hear me express such sentiments, for the kindness which always took thought and trouble, the tact and common-sense which made his companionship so agreeable, are natural virtues of which he is wholly unconscious.

At the 106 we had no restrictions as to visits; at all hours of the day numbers of people used to visit the wards, many came out of curiosity, and such visits were for me at any rate a penance, chiefly owing to the prevailing mania for shaking hands. At times whole families, dressed all in deep mourning, would drift into the room and stand awkwardly grouped at the foot of my bed. "Allons ma petite Françoise, va dire bonjour à ce brave soldat," and the whole tribe would come, one after the other, to perform the ceremony of "le shake-hand." After this function followed the inevitable question, "Where were you wounded?"

My method of dealing with this question always amused Mme. Buquet.

"Où avez-vous été blessé?"

"A Caudry."

"Oui! mais à quel endroit avez-vous été blessé?"

"A l'entrée du village!"

"Oui, mais dans quelle parti avez-vous été blessé?"

"In the head, that is why I wear these bandages."

"Go, Françoise, say au revoir to the poor wounded soldier."

The function of le shake-hand having been re-enacted by each member of the family, they passed on to the next bed.

I had many friends whose welcome visits helped to break the monotony of hospital life. Mlle. Waxin and Mlle. Debu used sometimes to come and talk to their old "Numéro Sept," and tell me all the latest news. From them I first heard of poor Captain Lloyd, an English officer very seriously wounded, who occupied my old room in the Hôpital Civil. I wrote a short note to Lloyd, expressing my sympathy, and next morning, when Dr Debu made his daily visit to the ward, I asked him to take it back with him.

There must be some special department of the German Staff solely occupied with the task of thinking out new things to make _verboten_. It is incredible, but true, that the Germans had forbidden any intercommunication between wounded and dying soldiers in the different hospitals, and so my correspondence with Lloyd was carried on secretly through the kind offices of Madame Buquet. Owing to her knowledge of German, Mme. Buquet was able to obtain a permit to visit the Hôpital Civil, and every day at 2 P.M., instead of taking her daily walk, she went to visit poor Lloyd, who was feeling rather lonely, and longed, as he said in one of his letters, to talk once more to a fellow-countryman.

It was after dinner on All Saints' Day, November 1, that I made my first attempt to walk without any one's help. I got outside the ward and along to a door which led into the courtyard. The night was clear and still, the wind cold and restless. I stood awhile on the wet gravel of the court, looking up once again at the clouds playing among stars by the light of a rising moon.

"Vous n'êtes pas fou," said a voice from the doorway. "We looked for you everywhere; you will catch your death of cold out there in the dark."

"You cannot understand," I replied, "how good it feels to stand once more on the soil of the earth and look up into the heavens."

Two of the worst cases, Nos. 8 and 9, were taken away during the night to the Civil Hospital for a fruitless operation. In the afternoon, it being La Fête des Morts, Madame Buquet went to the military cemetery. Even the frozen soul of a German staff officer could not forbid the citizens of Cambrai to visit their dead.

In the military cemetery of Cambrai, visited on this day by crowds of mourners, the French and British soldiers are buried together in a common tomb, under a single wooden cross. There are several such tombs in the cemetery, and each to-day is covered with wreaths. A row of long black crosses, with name and regiment painted in white on each, marks the resting-place of the officers. The same order prevails in the German quarter of the churchyard.

In all the surrounding countryside at Caudry, at Le Cateau, in village churchyards, in open fields by country roadsides, beside the plain wooden cross which marks the soldier's grave, some one to-day has laid a wreath and knelt in prayer.

At this time large numbers of troops were constantly passing through the city, coming from the direction of St Quentin and leaving in that of Valenciennes, from which point they proceeded to reinforce actual or impending attacks on Arras and Ypres. According to the universal opinion of Cambrai, the departure of the Germans from the city was to be expected at any moment.

The sound of the cannonade at Arras could be heard quite distinctly, and when the wind was favourable the boom of the big guns seemed nearer than ever. "They were coming nearer," said the citizens of Cambrai with mutual congratulations. The inevitable morning salutation now became, "Bonjour, bonjour; the guns sounded nearer last night and they will soon be here--listen! comme ça roule."

A gentle westerly wind carried to our ears the sound of the distant guns, like an echo of a distant thunderstorm.

One evening, late in November, a still clear night, when the cannonade could be heard more distinctly than usual, Captain Viguié and I stood out in the yard for a long time listening. To the long loud rumble of the German cannon we could hear, after an interval, a faint and more distant answer--an answer that spoke, as it were, in another tongue. It was the French 75!

It was obvious to those who did not yield to vain hopes that the German occupation of Cambrai was being organised on a permanent basis. Very few German soldiers remained billeted in the town. Numbers of them were constantly coming back on short leave from the front, and from them the story of the new trench war gradually became known to us all.

The Military Governor of Cambrai occupied the Town Hall, now known as the Kommandantur. The French préfet having fled the city on the approach of the enemy, a successor was appointed by the Kommandant, and the administration of the city proceeded under German supervision and according to the usual German methods. Edicts were published at regular intervals declaring some new thing to be verboten, and always under penalty of death. Such things as bicycles and sewing-machines were requisitioned and might not be retained under penalty of death. Any person at Cambrai or in the district found, after a certain date, in possession of pigeons of any kind would be condemned to death.

The old Cathedral had belonged for years to the pigeons, who, suspecting no danger, fell an easy prey, and for several days afforded fine game to the German sportsmen. Mlle. Marie, who passed the Cathedral every morning on her way to the hospital, told me that there were still a few survivors who, having learnt the lesson of their comrades' fate, circled high round the Cathedral tower or remained anxiously perched on some lofty gargoyle.

The "Cambrai" pigeons were presented to the Hôpital 106 by the Secretary of the Kommandantur, and thus did not meet with the final indignity of being eaten by the enemy.

A typical illustration of German morality is afforded by an edict which was published in Cambrai towards the end of November. All able-bodied Frenchmen were ordered to present themselves at the Kommandantur on a certain date, and were to be sent to Lille to dig trenches. Only a small number of men presented themselves on the appointed day, and were offered the job of digging trenches at five francs per day. Those who refused would be sent to Germany. Not more than twenty or thirty men accepted the proffered wage, and the remainder were sent to a German prison. Owing to the failure of the citizens to respond in sufficient numbers to this demand, the town of Cambrai was fined a large sum of money.

A declaration, printed in French and German, of which I have seen a copy, was posted all over Cambrai under the heading, "Who is responsible for this Terrible War--ENGLAND." Only the German mind could have produced such an extraordinary document, in which England is accused, among other crimes, of "having abandoned Belgium to her fate." Most of the French population of Cambrai were much entertained by the clumsy anti-British propaganda which emanated from the Kommandantur.

Another large poster appeared in all parts of the town stating that the British had been convicted of using Dumdum bullets. A British rifle, with ammunition, was on show in a shop window in the market-place, and the German soldier in charge explained to those who stopped to look that the hollow thumb-piece of the cut-off of the British rifle had been designed explicitly for the purpose of manufacturing dumdum bullets. By inserting the point of a bullet into the recess and giving the cartridge a rapid jerk, the pointed end broke, leaving a square ragged surface.

In their dealings with the civilian population of Cambrai the Germans showed how they utterly failed to understand the French mind.

Salle cinq vastly enjoyed the visit of a certain German officer who came ostensibly to inspect, but in reality for purposes of propaganda. The man's name is unknown to me. He was always referred to among ourselves as _l'imbécile_. He was so short of stature that the long Prussian cloak reached almost to the ground, and a more fatuous face I have seldom seen on any man. He spoke French fluently but ungrammatically, and with a pronounced German accent. "Ponjour, Matame; here we are all French, is it not? Your so beautiful Paris I so much admire." The "imbecile," having gone round the ward, stood at the bottom of my bed facing the centre of the room, and entered into amiable conversation with Mme. Buquet and the other nurses.

He held forth at some length on the amenities of Cambrai, and expressed delight that the fortunes "of this terrible war" had been the occasion of his meeting and learning to love still more the French people, whom he had always held in such esteem.

"It is not the French who are the real enemies of Germany. If we had not been forced to do so by the treacherous English, never would we have invaded the soil of France. Ah, those English, what barbarians, what uncultured savages, such different types from those I see around me here!"

At this point Mme. Buquet, catching my wink from behind the "imbecile's" back, nearly exploded with laughter, which she, however, managed to turn into a coughing fit, and the Salle cinq listened eagerly for more.

We heard the whole pathetic story of how Germany had been goaded into war. Paris now was safe. The German armies thirsted solely for English blood. When England had been crushed, then France and Germany would fall into each other's arms and all would be forgiven and forgotten.

The "imbecile" departed, satisfied that he had sown good seed. Mme. Buquet, with tears rolling down her cheeks, was too exhausted for laughter. The Salle cinq remained silent for a while, stunned by this wonderful exhibition of stupidity.

Picard, the one-legged soldier, idiomatically expressed the thought of the Salle. "Eh bien, il n'a pas peur celui là," which remark might be translated: "Fools rush in where angels fear to tread."

The Inspecting Officer, who came round every two or three days, was General Oberarzt Schmidt. In addition to this more or less regular visit, there was another doctor named Meyer, who was charged with making up lists of "transportables." Every one naturally wished to put off the evil hour of departure to Germany as long as possible, especially as hopes were still entertained by many that the French troops would drive the Germans out before Christmas. Meyer only paid one visit to the Salle cinq, on which occasion its inhabitants appeared all to be on the point of death!

The list of Salle cinq showed that there were ten French and one British. Meyer stopped at the foot of my bed and turned his cold cod-fish eyes at me. His finger reached for pencil and note-book. Mme. Buquet saved my name from going on his list by declaring that my paralysis was such that I could neither move nor speak. The cod-fish eyes looked hard at me: "Können Sie Deutsch verstehen?" I gazed at him with dropped jaw and vacant eyes, shaking my head very slightly. There were no "transportables" that day from the Salle cinq.

Meyer was cordially detested by the whole hospital staff, by reason of the contemptuous insolence of his manner. His hatred of the English was fanatical. Mme. Buquet once asked him if there was any prospect of an exchange. "Of the French, yes," he replied; "of the English, never!"

General Oberarzt Schmidt, a very different type, was a tall, big-framed, and full-bodied man, large in the belly, bulging at the neck, with a pinky-red face and a large square head, bald on top, fringed with short-cut grey-blond hair. He spoke no English, and only a half-dozen words of French. It would be difficult to find an attractive feature in the face of General Oberarzt Schmidt. The large mouth which droops shapelessly to one side is decorated on the upper lip with a few clipped badly-grown blue-grey bristles. The eyes, small and shifting, are almost colourless. Whatever his true character may have been, to us at the 106 he was always courteous and well-behaved. He used to come to the Salle cinq every week, and often remained to talk to Mme. Buquet, who, owing to her fluent knowledge of German, was able to obtain from Dr Schmidt a certain amount of latitude regarding the question of the "transportables." It was thanks to Mme. Buquet that the two French captains, whose wounds were completely healed, were able to remain at 106 for several weeks after they were fit to travel.

At the Hôpital Civil, the German weekly inspection, when carried out by such men as Grigou, was a merciless visitation, and for those whose names went on the list there was no reprieve. But at the 106 we suffered from no such unreasoning severity. Doctor Schmidt was often induced to postpone the departure of any soldier really unfit for the journey.

"'Tetanus' made the night hideous with groaning and moaning, so that no one could get any sleep." This entry in my diary refers to a young Breton soldier who was isolated in a room opposite the Salle cinq. The word "room" gives a wholly wrong impression of the place where this unfortunate man had to be put. In one corner stood an old and useless bath, in another two broken bedsteads; the rough flooring was littered with rubbish. The walls had never been papered, the plaster still hung in patches, cracked and yellow with damp. A wooden partition half-way up to the ceiling divided the place off from the corridor, and thus the moans of the dying man could be heard distinctly in our room. There was no other accommodation in the hospital wherein a patient, such as this one, could be isolated. Tetanus was very common at Cambrai. We had eight cases at the Hôpital Civil, six of which died. Very little treatment could be given, as there was no anti-tetanus serum to be had. The horror of tetanus is unique, for there is no disease so insidious, so sudden in its effects, and so terrible in its end.

For three days the man lived in a semi-unconscious condition. The first evening we could hear him moaning, a low, steady, pitiful moan. About the middle of the night there was a sudden silence, then a crash, and a sound of struggling. M. Vampouille, who was on duty that night in our ward, rushed across the corridor and, by the light of a match, bent over the man's bed. It was empty! From the middle of the room came again the low moaning sound; the unfortunate man had struggled out of bed in a fit. The stitches of his leg, which was amputated above the knee, had burst, and he lay in a pool of blood. M. Vampouille's further description of the scene is too awful to dwell upon. From that evening of November 4 until the morning of November 7, almost without a stop day and night, there came from that room the most mournful lamentation, loud, deep, and sonorous, though it came through teeth clenched in the rigor of the dreadful disease. Through locked jaws and motionless lips came the sound that expressed the sole thought of his mind. There is no phrase or turn of writing that can express the pitiful, appealing, struggling effort of the dying soldier to articulate this dying call for his mother. For three days and three nights, first strong and loud, then weaker and weaker, his constant call was "Maman, Maman," expressed in this awful moaning. On the third day I went in to see him. A nurse was attempting to force some warm milk between his teeth, but with no success. It was better to let him die in peace. He did not look more than nineteen. Sweat ran in trickles down the pale face wrinkled in agony. His thick black hair fell low down over clammy forehead and temple. The blue-grey eyes stared fixed and sightless. The moaning was now low and weak, but one could hear that the call was still for "Maman, Maman." Early next morning I woke while it was still dark, sat up in bed and listened. From somewhere in the hospital there came a swishing, gurgling sound very like the whistling noise of a turbine engine. Still half asleep, I sat wondering what kind of engine it could be. When day dawned the swishing, whistling noise had ceased, and the suffering of the poor Breton boy was over. Mme. Buquet was very late in coming to the ward that morning. She told me that the last few minutes before the end were quite peaceful. M. le Vicaire-Général administered the Last Sacraments, and Captain Viguié spoke in the dying man's ear the only earthly consolation that remained: "Mon garçon, tu meurs pour la France."

In many respects life in the Salle cinq now began to be much easier. As a result of my insistent propaganda in favour of fresh air, I obtained some small concessions, and succeeded in obtaining a number of adherents to the policy of the open window. The worst cases in the ward had been taken away; those that were left gradually got better, and even No. 6 in the corner began to improve. In the afternoon I played bridge with the French captain and some other friends who used to pay me regular visits, or discussed the gossip and news of the town with Vampouille. First of all there was that most excellent M. Herbin, a big, strong, hearty man, certainly well past fifty, with honest brown eyes that looked you straight in the face, showing that his heart was in the right place, as the saying is. My friend was a man of few words. "Allons, mon pauvre vieux, ça va bien hein! la santé?" "Très bien, mon cher ami." "Tant mieux. Tant mieux." And the Boches? We used to talk of them.

Cambrai was like a city stricken by the plague. Most of the shops had their shutters up. No one went abroad for pleasure, one stayed at home these days; and the "place publique," with its German military band which played every day at 4 o'clock, the café where one used to take the evening "Pernod"--such places were now the haunt of the Boche.

M. Herbin owned a draper's shop, his speciality was ready-made clothes, and his business was practically at an end. At the time there was very little cash in circulation at Cambrai. Notes for 1, 2, and 5 francs were issued by the Town and the Chamber of Commerce, with an inscription stating that "this note will be cashed by the Chamber of Commerce 100 days after the signature of peace." The German usually paid for everything with "bons de réquisition." These vouchers were guaranteed by the German Government only when stamped by the Kommandantur.

During the first few weeks of the German occupation officers and men made a practice of entering shops, taking whatever suited their fancy, and then, by way of payment, offering the helpless tradesman a scrap of paper covered with unintelligible hieroglyphics. These scraps of paper were absolutely worthless. It was the German idea of humour thus to rob the unfortunate tradesman by presenting him in return for his merchandise with a written statement certifying "the bearer of this is a silly fool." A still more Germanic humour found its expression in coarse vulgar filth. When the bewildered shopkeepers brought their promises to pay to the Kommandantur for verification they were greeted with jeering laughter. German humour finds its happiest element in all that concerns the lowest functions of the body, and doubtless the story of such vulgar jests at the expense of a helpless enemy were repeated with much gusto by the elegant fraus of the Fatherland.

Among other visitors whom I was always glad to see were M. et Mme. Ray. The latter used to come to the Salle twice a week during the afternoons, so that Mme. Buquet could get off duty. Mme. Ray was an incorrigible optimist. Every movement of German troops, whether entering or leaving Cambrai, she always referred to as a retirement. Whenever the wind changed and the sound of guns was more distinctly heard--the French were advancing. On Christmas day, she used to tell me, we will be "in France." I rather think that these opinions were expressed for the purpose of cheering up the Salle cinq, for Mme. Ray was too sensible a woman in other matters to be in reality so lacking in judgment in this particular case.

M. Vampouille came every afternoon, except when detained by his business, which at this time consisted chiefly in killing pigs to make sausages for the German soldiers--sausages which they had to pay for in hard cash, as Vampouille always refused to deal in vouchers. My kind friend never came to see me without a "surprise," a little parcel which he brought in his pocket--a slice of "pâté," or ham, or "saucisson à l'aile," and many other tit-bits.

During these days there was a great scarcity of decent tobacco, although there was plenty of what was called "Belgian tobacco." It is difficult to suggest what this stuff might have been. It was sold in large square parcels, covered with blue paper, labelled "Tabac Belge," and cost one franc for a very large-sized packet. Once a week a woman came into the hospital yard bearing on her back a large basketful of tobacco, cigars, and matches with which she had travelled on foot from Belgium. The cigars only cost three sous for two. I never made any attempt to smoke them, but once out of curiosity I dissected one and made a strange discovery. The outside leaf was cabbage, stained dark-brown; it came off quite easily and disclosed a second and a third cabbage leaf of a light yellow colour. Inside these three layers of cabbage leaf was a hard rolled cylinder which, as it would not unroll, I cut into two pieces with a sharp knife. The cylinder was filled with small shavings and dust, whether from fag-ends of cigarettes or merely from street sweepings, it was impossible to tell. I have seen a soldier achieve the wonderful feat of smoking one of these cigars to its hot and bitter end. This was Picard, the one-legged man of Salle cinq--Picard, who smoked all day and most of the night, quite indifferent as to the substance he put into his clay pipe as long as it would produce smoke.

M. Vampouille succeeded where many other friends had failed. He found a supply of "English Tobacco." A patriotic marchande de tabac had buried the most valuable part of her stock in a back garden rather than let the Boches have the advantage. There were three four-ounce tins of Craven Mixture and three boxes of cigars "Bock." It was indeed a luxury to smoke real tobacco and real cigars.

"First flakes of snow. Result, windows shut tight day and night. Next day a stove was put into the middle of the room, which is now so stuffy that one can hardly breathe even with the windows open. To-day, November 16, I began to walk with two sticks."

My good friends, the two French officers, had at last to go, and it was a very sad day for us all. The list of transportables, a short one, included five or six French soldiers. They made a very sad picture as they limped painfully out into the yard and were helped up to a seat in the ambulance, each one carrying on his back a large bundle containing socks, a shirt, and as much meat and bread as could be taken by a wounded man on such a journey. Mme. Buquet went down to the station with the two captains. We were glad to hear that they were given good berths in a hospital train, and thus were able to make the long three days' journey in comparative comfort--a good fortune which in those days was invariably denied to British officers, even when very severely wounded.

On 25th November I got away from the ward and the fruitless struggle for fresh air by taking Captain Viguié's bed in the tiny little room shared with le Médecin Chef. The room was long and narrow--perhaps 20 feet by 5,--with only just room for two beds, the washing-stand, and a small table where the doctor and I used to sit and play piquet--a game at which I had neither skill nor luck, for when our games came to an end the doctor had scored over 5000 points to the good! A welcome interruption to our card-playing was the visit of Mme. de Rudnickna, a charming Polish lady who was nurse at the Hôpital Notre Dame, where she for many months nursed two British officers--Major Johnson and Lieut. Foljambe, both very seriously wounded. She saved Lieut. Foljambe's life by careful nursing, when the doctors had given up hope, and she did everything that could be done to make easier the slow decline of Major Johnson, who, mortally wounded in the spine, lived till the first day of 1915. Mme. de Rudnickna came two or three times a week with a delicious "Chausson au pommes," and sometimes a bottle of Vin d'Oporto to liven up the grey, dull winter afternoons. One day she brought me a copy of 'The Times' for November 19th, the first English newspaper I had seen since August 12th.

In a much-thumbed copy of the 'Figaro,' dated October 25th--a copy which, it was said, had been dropped from an aeroplane, and which we secretly circulated from ward to ward--we read the story of Ypres, vague reports of which we had heard from German soldiers, who were told by their chiefs, and firmly believed, that the objective now before them was first Calais and then London. We heard that, once Calais had fallen--and who could doubt that it would fall?--the famous big guns that had done such deeds at Liége and Antwerp would batter down the defences of Dover and sweep a passage across the Channel for the German troop-ships. It was Bismarck, I think, who, looking over London from the top of St Paul's, exclaimed regretfully, "Was für Plünder!" On this "Plünder" the mind of the German was now fixed; and soldiers billeted in the town talked grandly of the punishment to be inflicted on England for having treacherously hatched a cowardly plot for the destruction of the German Empire.

The bulletin of war news, posted up each morning outside the Kommandantur, boasted each day of the capture of countless Russian and French prisoners. One day in November the Cathedral bells were rung to celebrate the victory of German arms in the East. All such official displays of cheerfulness could not hide from our observant notice that all was not well with the German armies. The glorious victories always took place at the other end of Europe.

But nothing was published officially about the military situation on the Western front. German soldiers back from the trenches of Arras spoke bitterly of their failure to capture the French positions. Rumour said that the German casualties between Arras and Ypres amounted to over 100,000 killed. Arras was known to us as "Le Tombeau des Allemands." Reports from Valenciennes told of crowded hospitals, train-loads of wounded, and train-loads of dead. Somewhere behind the line of battle, not very far from Cambrai, there are large brick-fields. Here it was that a crematorium was built. A tale was told of trains that passed in the night, of open trucks in which men, limp and with nodding heads, stood upright, packed in close array. By the light of some dim country station lamp the corpses in their blue-grey uniform had been seen and recognised, though hidden by blood and earth, fresh from the field on which they had fallen. Even for the Boches this was too horrible an end, to travel in such manner to the grave, strung together like bundles of asparagus.

At times it would seem as if Martin Luther was right when he wrote in 1527 that the Germans are "a heathenish, nay utterly bestial, nation." But I do not hold with the judgment of this first apostle of frightfulness. The German nation consists of the High Command, with its hordes of obedient slave-drivers, and the rest of the nation, which in the inner chambers of the High Command is referred to as the mob--die Menge. The High Command is certainly heathenish, and may be looked upon as utterly bestial, in view of the fact that they have replaced the elementary principles of honour by some sort of jungle law of their own making.

But there are still symptoms of humanity left in the mob, something of human sympathy and of the brotherhood of man, which even at Cambrai made itself felt on rare occasions. Such an occasion was a visit to the Salle cinq of Herr Arntz. It was at the time when I was confined to bed, as much by the fear of Germany as by the paralysis, and on one of the darkest days of November. Mme. Buquet sat by my bedside, as she often used to do of an afternoon when the day's work was over, and spoke of a German who had called at the hospital a few days before, asking for her by name. He had stood out in the corridor waiting for her to come, bare headed, closely cropped, in the uniform of a private soldier, and not until he spoke did she recognise a friend. They had not met for three years, and the place of their parting--the Black Forest in the spring-time. Herr Arntz, then a young student in chemistry on his holiday tour, had now passed his degree as Doctor der Chemie. In spite of weak eyesight and the wearing of blue spectacles, he had been called up shortly after the outbreak of war, and was doing railway duty at Cambrai. So much and more had Mme. Buquet told me of her friend on that afternoon when he came again to see her.

It was cold, dark, and inhospitable in the corridor, and she brought him into the Salle cinq, where the gas lamps, which had just been lit, gave the room a touch of homely comfort. Perhaps it was the Numéro 6 who had called for morphia, or some other wounded man who required attention, so that Mme. Buquet left her friend sitting alone not very far from my bedside. I cherish no friendly feeling towards any Boche, yet there was something about this one which commanded my attention. This was not the manner of our usual German visitors--to sit there quietly and as if ashamed.

I started conversation with a hybrid sentence in French and German, which encouraged Herr Arntz to draw up his chair closer to my bed. There was nothing remarkable in the subject of our conversation. His attitude towards the war was that of a fatalist towards an earthquake; he showed a real sympathy for my state of health and the effect of my wound, choosing strange and almost unintelligible phrases in his efforts to speak the French tongue.

"Ah, mais 'le cerf' il n'est pas touché," then you will get well. That was good. And to me when I would speak of der Krieg, "let us forget it for a moment." How could this quiet gentleman and I, lying sick, be at war? Was it indeed wrong, as many said at the 106, thus to converse with a Boche? Should I have refused my hand at parting? My friend, so I must call him for his kindness, lies in an honourable grave somewhere along the long battle line. A year later, promoted from guarding railway stations, blue spectacles and all, he "fell at the head of his company." One of the mob--die Menge.

_St Andrew's Day._--Captain Lloyd is very much worse. Mme. Buquet goes to see him every day at 2 P.M., carrying a note from me and a custard pudding made by Mme. Tondeur. There was never a more motherly soul than Mme. Tondeur. And there never was a cook so excellent and yet so good-tempered, so pestered with visitors in the kitchen, yet always smiling and with a kind word for each one. Wounded men able to hobble out of the Salle cinq, or down from the other wards upstairs, loved to sit in a corner of her kitchen and peel potatoes or wash dishes and listen to the day's gossip. What with nurses and orderlies, stray visitors from the town, soldiers on crutches, all congregating in the kitchen, which might have been the H.Q. of the hospital, it was indeed a wonder that Mme. Tondeur could produce such an excellent dinner.

When M. Vampouille, of his own idea and specially to please me, cured a piece of bacon à l'anglaise, Mme. Tondeur and I put our heads together over the cooking of bacon and eggs. The simple barbarity of English cooking is always puzzling to French people. My dish, which started on the range as bacon and eggs, arrived on the table as an omelette au jambon.

What a sordid thing is a boiled potato in comparison with "des pommes frites"! We had fried potatoes one day a week, on which occasion all available hands were turned on to the work of peeling and slicing, no unskilled labour, when wastage is not to be endured. For every ward there was a large dish piled high, golden, crisp, and scalding hot and appetising--good to take with one's fingers like fine pastry, very different from the soppy, flaccid, colourless British imitation.

Every morning Mme. Tondeur prepared the custard pudding in a small dish, which was then wrapped up in a napkin ready to be carried by Mme. Buquet to our poor friend at the Hôpital Civil. "Ah, mon Lieutenant," she used to say, "what a joy it is to do something to help, even if so little. I also have a son in the trenches, and I pray le bon Dieu to send him back to me, even with a leg or an arm less I would not complain. Si seulement je le savais comme vous!"

Here in England, far from the presence of war, it is impossible to realise the suffering of these unfortunate people in the North of France who have never been allowed to get news from the trenches, who will not know of the death of husband or son for months and years after. No correspondence is allowed even with neutral countries. Though the land under German occupation is a place of misery and desolation, it has one redeeming feature--there are no pseudo-conscientious objectors. German invasion and occupation of Britain would not be too high a price to pay for the extirpation of this national dry-rot.

One who has lived long months among these despairing people writes to say how hard it is for those outside the German zone to realise the misery of invasion. "Old men and little children work in the fields with neither horses nor oxen nor ploughs. In many places German soldiers plough and sow, desecrating the soil of France.... And when in France I hear it said that the war is without end, that the strain is too great, I think of those who live in the invaded districts, those who are exiled from France under the enemy yoke and yet do not despair, but wait with patient confidence for the hour of deliverance; perhaps they have some right to say the strain is hard to bear."

I do not envy the man, be he ploughman, starred tradesman, or merely possessed of a sickly conscience, who can apply for leave to stay at home, while old men and little children till the fields of Northern France without horses, oxen, or ploughs, under the hard rule of the Hun.

We were a sad party on that St Andrew's Day at the Hôpital 106. Mme. Buquet came in the afternoon rather later than usual to the little room, where the old Colonel and I sat playing piquet, bringing sad news from the Civil Hospital. Poor Captain Lloyd was not expected to live more than a few hours.

We sat silently while the twilight melted into darkness. When a friend is dying those that watch and busy themselves with small services can find therein some small consolation. But we, weighed down in mind, powerless to influence in any degree the inevitable order of fate, found the pattern of the universe a hard reading.

To die is unimportant and common to all, the only important thing is the manner of our leaving. Captain Lloyd, my friend whom I have never seen, showed how the spirit of a man can rise above the saddest catastrophe of war and throw a gleam of light on the apparently hopeless and senseless maze of human misery.

Mme. Buquet used to come every afternoon straight back to my room after her visit to the Hôpital Civil, and her report to me never varied. "He never speaks of himself, but asks insistently for news of you." His eyes lit up on hearing that I could walk with crutches. "Do tell him to be careful and not try too much;" and to-day, and on this sad St Andrew's Day, his last words to Mme. Buquet showed the full measure of unselfish thoughtfulness: "Do not let him worry, do not let him know how weak I am."

It was quite dark when M. Vampouille came in. He would not suffer the darkness even after hearing the sad story, but lit the gas and kept a cheery manner. "It is something to know," said he, "that there are 'de si braves gens de par ce monde.'"

St Andrew's Feast was not forgotten that evening. Monsieur Vampouille had brought me a scarce and much-valued delicacy which was prepared with special care by Mme. Tondeur and served up at dinner as a savoury. There was no escape from the six large healthy snails sitting in their shells enthroned on pieces of toast soaked in oil and vinegar mixed with chopped onions and garlic.

From Mme. Buquet there was a flower-pot with some early primroses and a note, "To the Scotch Lieutenant on St Andrew's Feast Day."

These gracious incidents, as R. L. Stevenson remarked, are distinctive of the French people, and "make the ordinary moments of life ornamental."

Also I had almost conquered my insular prejudice against the eating of snails, which are really quite succulent when served with such a sauce.