The First Canadians in France - The Chronicle of a Military Hospital in the War Zone

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Title: The First Canadians in France - The Chronicle of a Military Hospital in the War Zone
Author: Bell, F. McKelvey
Language: English
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[Illustration: "HE IS A MAN AFTER MY OWN HEART!" EXCLAIMED MADAME
COUILLARD]

THE
FIRST CANADIANS
IN FRANCE

THE CHRONICLE OF A MILITARY
HOSPITAL IN THE WAR ZONE

F. McKELVEY BELL

ILLUSTRATED BY
CHRISTOPHER FULLEYLOVE

MCCLELLAND, GOODCHILD & STEWART
PUBLISHERS :: :: :: :: :: TORONTO

PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

SURGEON-GENERAL GUY CARLETON JONES, C.M.G.

AND TO

THE CANADIAN MEDICAL SERVICES OVERSEAS

THESE PAGES ARE DEDICATED

The wise and skillful guidance of the former and the efficient
fulfilment of onerous duties by all have given to the Canadian
Medical Service a status second to none in the Empire: The sick
and wounded soldier has been made to feel that a Military Hospital
may be not only a highly scientific institution—but a Home.

*PREFACE*

In glancing through these pages, now that they are written, I realise
that insufficient stress has been laid upon the heroism and
self-sacrifice of the non-commissioned officers and men of the Army
Medical Corps—the boys who, in the dull monotony of hospital life,
denied the exhilaration and stimulus of the firing line, are, alas, too
often forgotten. All honour to them that in spite of this handicap they
give of their best, and give it whole-heartedly to their stricken
comrades.

The pill of fact herein is but thinly coated with the sugar of fiction,
but if the reader can get a picture, however indefinite, of military
hospital life in France, these pages will not have been written
altogether in vain.

F. McK B.

*ILLUSTRATIONS*

"He Is a Man After My Own Heart!" exclaimed Madame Couillard (See page
166) . . . . . . _Frontispiece_

The Song Was Sad—But We Laughed and Laughed Until We Wept Again

René Had Risen in the Excitement of His Description

"How Can You?" She Cried Involuntarily, "How Can a Little Lad Like You
Bear to Kill Men with a Bayonet?"

German Wounded

*THE FIRST CANADIANS IN FRANCE*

*CHAPTER I*

We were a heterogeneous lot—no one could deny that—all the way down from
big Bill Barker, the heavyweight hostler, to little Huxford, the
featherweight hustler.

No commanding officer, while sober, would have chosen us _en masse_.
But we weren’t chosen—we just arrived, piece by piece; and the Hammer of
Time, with many a nasty knock, has welded us.

One by one, from the farthest corners of the Dominion, the magic magnet
of the war drew us to the plains of Valcartier, and one by one it
dropped us side by side. Why some came or why they are still here God
knows! Man may merely conjecture.

Divers forces helped to speed us from our homes: love of adventure, loss
of a sweetheart, family quarrels, the wander-spirit, and, among many
other sentiments—patriotism. But only one force held us together: our
Colonel! Without him, as an entity, we ceased to exist. His
broad-minded generosity and liberal forbearance closed many an angry
breach. His love of us finds its analogy only in the love of a father
for his prodigal son.

Long after we reached France, when the dull monotony of daily routine
had somewhat sobered us, one early morning the sweet but disturbing note
of the bugle sounding the _reveille_ brought me back from dreams of
home. I lay drowsily listening to its insistent voice. The door of my
room opened softly, and the orderly stole in.

He was a red-cheeked, full-lipped country lad, scarce seventeen years of
age. He knelt down before the fireplace and meditatively raked the
ashes from its recess. He was a slow lad; slow in speech, slower in
action, and his big dreamy blue eyes belied his military bearing.

I turned over in bed to get a better view of him.

"What freak of fancy brought you so far from home, Wilson?" I queried.

"Dunno, zur," he drawled. "Not much fun hustlin’ coals in the mornin’
nur pullin’ teeth in the afternoon." For Wilson, among his
multitudinous duties, was dental orderly too.

"There’s such an air of farm and field about you, Wilson, that
sometimes, at short range, I imagine I get a whiff of new-mown hay."

He sat up on his haunches, balancing the shovel upon his outstretched
hand. The pool of memory was stirred. A hazy thought was struggling to
the surface. He looked dreamily toward me for a moment before he
replied.

"I wuz born an’ raised in the country, zur," he said. "When the war
broke out I wuz pickin’ apples on dad’s farm. I didn’t like my job.
Gee! I wish’t I’d stayed an’ picked ’em now."

How we ever taught Wilson to say "Sir," or even his corruption of the
word, must remain forever shrouded in mystery; but it was accomplished
at last, just like many other great works of art.

The Canadian spirit of democracy resents any semblance of a confession
of inferiority, and the sergeant-major’s troubles were like unto those
of Job. Military discipline commenced in earnest when the ship left the
harbour at Quebec, and has hung over us like a brooding robin ever
since.

It was an eventful morning to us (and to England) when our fleet of
thirty ocean liners, with its freight of thirty-three thousand soldiers,
steamed slowly into the harbour at Plymouth and dropped anchor.

For two glorious October weeks we had bedecked the Atlantic. His
Majesty’s fleet night and day had guarded us with an ever-increasing
care. I can still look over the starboard rail and see the black smoke
of the _Gloria_ prowling along in the south, and, afar off in the north,
the _Queen Mary_ watching our hazardous course. The jaunty little
_Charybdis_ minced perkily ahead.

There were other battleships, too, which picked us up from time to time;
and the _Monmouth_, on the last voyage she was destined to make, steamed
through our lines one day. The brave fellows, who were so soon to meet
a watery grave, lined up upon her deck, giving us three resounding
cheers as she passed by, and we echoed them with a will.

Captain Reggy, our dapper mess secretary, was pacing the hurricane deck
one day. From time to time his gaze turned wistfully across the waves
to the other two lines of ships steaming peacefully along side by side.
Something weighty was on his mind. Occasionally he glanced up to the
military signalling officer on the bridge, and with inexplicable
interest watched his movements with the flags.

"I say," Reggy called up to him, "can you get a message across to the
_Franconia_?"

"She’s third ship in the third line—a little difficult, I should say,"
the signaller replied.

"But it _can_ be done, can’t it?" Reggy coaxed.

"Yes, if it’s very important."

"It’s most important, I want to send a message to one of the nurses."

The signalling lieutenant leaned both elbows upon the rail and looked
down in grinning amazement upon his intrepid interlocutor.

"What the d——l! I say, you’re the sort of man we need at the front—one
with plenty of nerve!"

"Be a sport and send it over!" Reggy coaxed.

"All right—I’ll take a chance."

"Ask for Nursing Sister Marlow. Give her Captain Reggy’s compliments
and best wishes, and will she join him on board for dinner this evening,
seven o’clock!"

There was a flutter of flags for several seconds, while the ridiculous
message passed across from ship to ship. Reggy waited anxiously for a
reply.

In less than ten minutes from across the deep came this very lucid
answer: "Nursing Sister Marlow’s compliments to Captain Reggy. Regrets
must decline kind invitation to dinner. _Mal de mer_ has rendered her
_hors de combat_. Many thanks."

On the last day of our journey the speedy torpedo boat destroyers rushed
out to meet us and whirled round and round us hour by hour as we entered
the English Channel. Soon the welcome shores of England loomed through
the haze, and the sight sent a thrill through all our hearts.

We had scarce dropped anchor when, from the training ship close by, a
yawl pulled quickly toward us, "manned" by a dozen or more lads from a
training ship. They rowed with the quick neat stroke of trained
athletes, and as the boat came alongside ours they shipped their oars
and raised their boyish voices in a welcoming cheer. We leaned over the
side of our ship and returned their greeting with a stentorian
heartiness that startled the sleeping town.

Showers of small coin and cigarettes were dropped into their boat, and
the way in which they fought for position, scrambling over or under one
another, upsetting this one or knocking down that, showed that these
lads were quite capable of upholding all the old fighting traditions of
the British Navy. A tug-boat soon steamed alongside, too, and down the
accommodation-ladder scrambled those of us who were lucky enough to have
permission to go ashore.

"Come along, Reggy," I shouted. But Reggy shook his head sorrowfully,
and his handsome face was clouded.

"Just my rotten luck to be orderly officer on a day like this!" he
replied. "To-day I guard the ship, but to-morrow—oh, to-morrow!" Reggy
held out both hands in mock appeal to the shore: "Me for the red paint
and city lights!"

Progress up the streets of Devonport was slow. Thousands of troops
already landed were marching to the time of "The Maple Leaf Forever,"
and every foot of pavement or sidewalk was packed with struggling but
enthusiastic humanity shouting itself hoarse in delirious welcome.

We were on the upper deck of a tram-car, leaning over the throng, and
eagerly looking for the faces of friends in the ranks of a passing
battalion. They swung along to the music of their band—a clean-cut,
well-set-up, manly lot, who marched with the firm independent step of
the free born. Suddenly our colonel discovered a familiar face among the
khaki-clad below. There is no military precedent for what he did; years
of training fell away on the instant. He leaned from the car and
shouted:

"Hello, ’Foghorn’! What cheer?"

"Foghorn" looked up. His right arm was somewhat hampered, from a
military point of view, by reason of being about the waist of a pretty
girl, who accommodatingly marched along with the battalion in general,
and "Foghorn" in particular.

"Hello, Jack," he bellowed in a voice which easily accounted for his
nickname. "Lots of cheer. Can’t salute. One arm busy! Other is glass
arm from saluting the brass hats. See you later. Good luck!"

And thus our cosmopolitan and ultra-democratic battalion passed on.

Some one has said that the Englishman is temperamentally cold. It can’t
be proved by Devonport or Plymouth. His temperature in both towns
registered ninety-eight degrees in the shadiest and most secluded spots.
And the women and children! Banish all thought of British frigidity!
The Canadians in England never discovered it.

The passion of the Devonport children for souvenirs in the shape of
pennies and buttons became so violent in a few hours that our small coin
was likely to become extinct and our buttons merely things that used to
be. Every time a soldier appeared upon the street he was instantly
surrounded by a bevy of insistent and persistent mendicants.

Once we sought refuge in a cooling spot where glasses tinkle and the
beer foams high—and children might not follow there. The pretty barmaid
smiled. The second in command twirled his long moustache and fixed the
maiden with his martial eye.

"What will you have, sir?" she inquired sweetly.

The senior major was always gallant to a pretty girl. He drew himself
up to his full six feet, two, and saluted. A mellow line from "Omar
Khayyám" dropped from his thirsty lips:

_"A jug of wine, a loaf of bread, and thou_
_Beside me singing in the wilderness."_

How much further he might have gone one cannot say. The girl held up a
reproving finger and exclaimed:

"Ah, I see it is black coffee the gentleman requires."

But the major’s poetic spirit was aroused. "Avaunt coffee," he cried.

_"Shall I distress my ruddy soul_
_With dusky dregs from coffee urn?_
_Far sweeter, sweet, to quench its fire_
_With wine for which the ’innards’ yearn._

A glass of beer, please."

The adjutant leaned over toward me and hazarded, in a hoarse whisper:

"I presume they have no ice."

The barmaid’s red cheeks dimpled and two straight rows of pearly teeth
shone upon him, as she answered for me:

"Your presumption is ill-founded, young man. We have plenty of ice with
which to temper the hot young blood of the Canadians."

The adjutant looked helplessly up, bereft of repartee; then
apostrophised the ceiling:

"And these are the stupid Englishwomen we have been led to expect!"

Our education was going on apace.

A few moments later we emerged and discovered ourselves in a veritable
whirlpool of young monetary gluttons.

"Penny, sir! penny! penny!" they shouted in staccato chorus. Our supply
of pennies had long since been depleted. An idea struck me.

"See here," I said in serious tone. "We’re only a lot of poor soldiers
going to the war. We can’t always be giving away pennies. We need
pennies worse than you do."

A sudden hush fell upon the little circle. Some looked abashed, others
curiously uncertain, a few sympathetic. The silence lasted a full
minute. We all stood still looking at one another.

"Can any little boy or girl in this crowd give a poor soldier a penny to
help him along to the war?" I asked quietly.

Again silence. Finally a little ragged tot of about eight years of age,
carrying a baby in her arms, turned to her companions and said: "Here,
hold the baby for me and I’ll give the poor fellow a penny." She dived
deep in the pocket of her frock, brought out a penny, ha’penny (her
total wealth) and held it out to me.

Lieutenant Moe stepped forward. "Look here, major," he said sternly,
"do you mean to say you’ll take that money from a youngster?"

"I do," I replied, without a smile.

"I won’t permit it," he cried.

Here was an embarrassing situation. I couldn’t explain to him without
confessing to the child as well. I wished to gauge how much patriotism
beat in those little hearts, what sacrifice they were prepared to make
for their country; and here was one measuring up to the highest ideals,
I daren’t either withdraw or explain.

"I must have the pennies, Moe, and I am going to take them," I replied
firmly. "Stand aside, please!"

Military discipline came to the rescue. Moe saluted stiffly and stepped
back. The little girl gravely handed over the pennies and took back her
baby.

"Any others?" I asked.

Some of the children declared they had none; a few looked sheepish and
hung their heads. I slipped a sixpence into the hand of the little
lady.

"Well, I’ll be damned!" exclaimed Moe. "Here’s another penny for you,"
and he handed the bewildered child half a crown.

A shout of surprise and dismay went up from the other children, who
realised too late that they had failed in the test.

"The drinks are certainly on me!" Moe cried. "About turn!"

Sometimes when I feel that the world is sordid and mean I go to my trunk
and look at those two coins, and I know that somewhere, in a frail
little body, beats a generous heart, and I feel that after all part of
the world is worth while.

*CHAPTER II*

Reggy was on shore at last. He said he felt much better walking alone
up street—more as if he owned the town!

It’s a strange sensation stepping on solid ground after weeks on
shipboard. There is a lack of harmony between oneself and the ground.
You rock—the ground stands still; you stand still—the ground rocks, like
an angry sergeant.

The senior major was on the corner, holding an animated conversation
with a beautifully gowned young lady, to whom he bid a hasty adieu as
Reggy hove in sight.

"Corking girl, that," said Reggy mischievously.

"Where?" demanded the major, looking about.

"The young lady to whom you just avoided introducing me."

"It’s rather a remarkable coincidence," said the major, avoiding
controversy, "that I should run across a relation in this far-away
place!"

"Very!" Reggy replied drily. "Family’s fond of travel, I take it."

A tall, well-knit young subaltern elbowed his way through the crowd and
joined the pair. Reggy greeted him:

"Better come and have dinner with your brother and me, Tom. I feel he
needs good company and a chaperon or two!"

The trio entered the rotunda of the _Royal_.

A distinguished looking gentleman and a prepossessing lady of middle age
stood chatting together. Their voices were agitated, and the three
officers could not avoid overhearing snatches of the conversation.

"He is on the _Cassandra_, and in this medley of ships no one seems to
know where his is anchored," the man was saying.

"Dear me," sighed the lady. "To think that our boy should be so near
and that we should not be able to see him! It’s dreadful!"

"But we must find him," the man declared reassuringly. "Surely there is
some way of reaching the ship?"

"They tell me no one is allowed on board; and when the battalion
disembarks they will be marched away. What shall we do?" she cried in
great distress.

Reggy’s impulsive heart was touched. He approached them and
respectfully saluted.

"A thousand pardons, sir," he said, "for breaking in upon a private
conversation, but I couldn’t help overhearing your words. Can I be of
any assistance to you?"

"It is very kind of you, indeed," the man answered in a rich voice of
unusual gentility. "Perhaps you can help us. My son is aboard the
_Cassandra_. We haven’t seen him since he went to Canada four years
ago. He is only a Tommy, so cannot come ashore, and it seems impossible
to get into communication with him."

"What luck!" Reggy exclaimed. "His ship and ours are anchored side by
side; so close, in fact, that we have a connecting gang-way."

"Oh, do you think we could get out to him?" the mother asked anxiously.
"We have no permit to visit the ships."

"If you can get authority to enter the dockyards, I’ll see what I can do
to get you aboard to-morrow noon," Reggy answered. "I’ll meet you at
the quay."

"God bless you!" exclaimed the lady, with tears in her eyes.

The following day, true to his word, Reggy, with a written permit in his
pocket, ushered Mr. and Mrs. Hargreaves aboard the ship.

"You will stay and lunch with me," said Reggy. "I’ll get your boy
across, and we’ll all lunch together."

"But I was under the impression that Tommies were not allowed to dine
with officers," protested Mr. Hargreaves.

"The deuce! I’d forgotten all about that," Reggy exclaimed, as he
scratched his head perplexedly. "Ah, I have it," he ejaculated a moment
later; "he shall be an officer during the meal. I’ll lend him a tunic.
No one else on board will know."

"But I don’t wish you to get yourself into trouble," Mr. Hargreaves
remonstrated.

Reggy laughed.

"I love such trouble," he cried, "and the risk fascinates me. I’ll be
back in a moment." And he dashed off in his impetuous way.

In a short time he returned, bringing with him a handsome but much
embarrassed youth, wearing a captain’s uniform. But the sight which met
his eyes banished all thought of clothes.

"Mother! Father!" he cried; and in a moment was clasped in his mother’s
arms, while tears of joy she didn’t strive to hide rolled down her
cheeks. The old gentleman turned his head aside to hide his own
emotion, and Reggy, feeling _de trop_, slipped quietly away.

A few days later our ship was dragged slowly into dock by two small but
powerful tug-boats. The boys who had been caged on board for a full
week in sight of but unable to reach the land shouted and danced for
joy. The noise of the donkey engine pulling our equipment out of the
hold was to us the sweetest sound on land or sea.

We were almost the last ship to dock, and a thousand boys were
impatiently awaiting their turn to step on English soil. Machine guns,
boxes of rifles and ammunition, great cases of food and wagons came
hurtling through the hatchway, vomited from the depths below. With
great speed and regularity they were deposited on the quay, while heavy
motor lorries, piled high with freight, creaked from dock to train.

From across the quay, and in awesome proximity, the great guns of the
battle cruisers _Tiger_ and _Benbow_ yawned at us. As far as one might
look heavily armoured men-of-war, ready to sail or in process of
construction, met the eye, and the deafening crash of the trip-hammer
stormed the ear. Britain may well be proud of her navy. Its size and
might are far beyond our ken. Patiently, in peaceful harbour, or on sea,
she lies in wait and longs for Germany’s inevitable hour.

The hospitality of the citizens of Devonport and Plymouth will long
remain a pleasant recollection. First impressions linger and our first
impressions there still stir up delightful memories.

"Now, then, look sharp there! Stow them adoos an’ get aboard!"

It was the raucous voice of Sergeant Honk which thus assailed his
unwilling flock. The boys were bidding a lengthy farewell to the local
beauties, who had patriotically followed them to the train.

The sergeant was hot and dusty, and beaded drops of sweat dripped from
his unwashed chin. His hat was cocked over one eye, in very unmilitary
style. The Tommies, under the stimulating influence of two or more
draughts of "bitter" purchased at a nearby bar, were inclined to be
jocose.

"’Ave _another_ drink, ’Onk!" cried one, thrusting a grimy head from the
train window and mimicking Honk’s cockney accent. This subtle allusion
to previous libations aroused the sergeant’s ire.

"Oo said that?" he shouted wrathfully, as he turned quickly about.
"Blimey if yer ain’t got no more disc’pline than a ’erd uv Alberta
steers! If I ’ears any more sauce like that some one ’ull be up for
’office’ in th’ mornin’!"

The culprit had withdrawn his head in time, and peace prevailed for
moment.

"What’s that baggage fatigue doin’?" he cried a moment later. "D’ye
think y’er at a picnic—eatin’ oranges? Load them tents!"

The orange-eating "fatigue," looking very hot and fatigued indeed, fell
reluctantly to work.

Sergeant Honk was not beautiful to look upon—his best friends conceded
this. His nose was bent and red. He had one fixed and one revolving
eye, and when the former had transfixed you, the latter wandered
aimlessly about, seeking I know not what. He was so knock-kneed that
his feet could never meet. I think it was the sergeant-major in Punch
who complained that "it was impossible to make him look ’smart,’ for
when his knees stood at attention his feet would stand at ease."

To see Honk salute with one stiff hand pointing heavenward and his
unruly feet ten inches apart has been known to bring a wan sweet smile
to the face of blasé generals; but subalterns, more prone to mirth, have
sometimes laughed outright.

Some one had thrown a banana peel upon the station platform. Honk
stepped backward upon its slippery face. He didn’t fall, but his queer
legs opened and shut with a scissor-like snap that wrenched his dignity
in twain.

"Fruit’s the curse of the army," he muttered.

Somehow we got aboard at last—officers, non-commissioned officers and
men. The crowd cheered a lusty farewell, and amidst much waving of
pocket handkerchiefs and hats, Plymouth faded away, and the second stage
of our journey began.

It was midnight when we pulled into Lavington station. There is no
village there—merely a tavern of doubtful mien. Rain was falling in a
steady drizzle as we emerged upon the platform and stood shivering in
the bleak east wind. The transport officer, who had been awaiting our
arrival, approached the colonel and saluted.

"Rather a nasty night, sir," he observed courteously.

"Bad night for a march," the colonel replied. "My men are tired, too.
Hope we haven’t got far to go?"

"Not very, sir; a matter of eight or nine miles only."

The colonel glanced at him sharply, thinking the information was given
in satirical vein; but the Englishman’s face was inscrutable.

"Nine miles!" he exclaimed. "That may be an easy march for seasoned
troops, but my men have been three weeks on shipboard."

"Sorry, sir, but that’s the shortest route."

"Thanks; we’ll camp right here." The colonel was emphatic.

"In the rain?" the Englishman inquired in some surprise.

"Yes. What of it?"

"Nothing, sir; but it seems unusual, that’s all."

"We’re unusual people," the colonel answered dryly. "Quartermaster, get
out the rubber sheets and blankets. The station platform will be our
bed."

The transport officer saluted and retired.

The adjutant was weary and sleepy. He had vainly tried a stimulating
Scotch or two to rouse his lagging spirit.

"Fall in, men," he shouted. "’Shun! Right dress. Quartermaster, issue
the blankets, please."

The quartermaster was disposed to argue the point. The blankets would
all be wet and muddy, and damaged with coal cinders; but he was finally
overruled.

The adjutant turned to look at the men. Their line had wabbled and
showed strange gyrations.

"_Will_ you men stand in line?" he cried. "How do any of you ever expect
to succeed in life if you can’t learn to stand in a straight line?"
With which unanswerable argument and much pleased with his midnight
philosophy, he relapsed into his customary genial smile.

At last the blankets were distributed, and in an hour the station
platform and bridge over the tracks looked like the deck of an emigrant
steamer. Wherever the eye reached, the dimly-lighted platform showed
rows of sleeping men, rolled up and looking very like sacks of potatoes
lying together.

Five of us officers turned into the expressman’s hut, and in the dark
fell into whatever corner was available. Reggy and I occupied either
side of an unlighted stove, and throughout the jumpy watches of the
night bruised our shins against its inhospitable legs.

Dawn was breaking, and breaking darkly, too, as the dim shadow of the
expressman came stumbling across the platform through rows of growling
men. At last he reached his office, and, all unconscious of our
presence, stepped within. He stepped upon the sleeping form of the
adjutant, and the form emitted a mighty roar. The expressman staggered
back in amazement, giving vent to this weird epigram:

"Every bloomin’ ’ole a sleepin’ ’ole!"

"You’ll ’ave to get up," he cried indignantly when he had recovered from
his astonishment. "This ain’t a bloomin’ boardin’-’ouse!"

"Could you return in half an hour?" Reggy queried in drowsy tones, but
without opening his eyes.

"No. I couldn’t return in ’alf an hour," he mocked peevishly.

"Run away like a good fellow, and bring some shaving water—-have it
hot!" Reggy commanded.

"Oh, I’ll make it ’ot for you all right, if you don’t let me into my
office," he retorted angrily.

Might is not always right, so we reluctantly rose. We had had three
hours of fitful sleep—not too much for our first night’s soldiering. Hot
coffee, cheese and biscuits were soon served by our cooks, and we
prepared for our first march on English sod.

No one who made that march from Lavington to West Down North will ever
forget it. Napoleon’s march to Moscow was mere child’s play compared
with it. Reggy said both his corns were shrieking for Blue Jays and
when Bill Barker removed his socks (skin and all) it marked an epoch in
his life, for both his feet were clean.

Every fifteen minutes it rained. At first we thought this mere
playfulness on the part of the weather; but when it kept right on for
weeks on end, we knew it to be distemper. By day it was a steady
drizzle, but at night the weather did its proudest feats. Sometimes it
was a cloudburst; anon an ordinary shower that splashed in angry little
squirts through the canvas, and fell upon our beds.

And the mud! We stood in mud. We walked in mud. We slept in mud. The
sky looked muddy, too. Once, and only once, the moon peeped out—it had
splashes of mud on its face!

Reggy loved sleep. It was his one passion. Not the sweet beauty sleep
of youth, but the deep snoring slumber of the full-blown man. But, oh,
those cruel "Orderly Officer" days, when one must rise at dawn! Reggy
thought so, too.

Six a.m. The bugle blew "Parade." Reggy arose. I opened one eye in
time to see a bedraggled figure in blue pyjamas stagger across the
sloppy floor. His eyes were heavy with sleep, and his wetted forelock
fell in a Napoleonic curve. The murky dawn was breaking.

Outside the tent we could hear the sergeant-major’s rubber boots flop,
flop, across the muddy road.

"Fall in, men! Fall in!" His tones, diluted with the rain, came
filtering through the tent. It was inspection hour.

Reggy fumbled at the flap of the tent, untied the cord, and through the
hole thus made thrust his sleep-laden head.

"Parade, ’shun!" shouted the sergeant-major (a sly bit of satire on his
part). The warning wasn’t needed. The sight of Reggy’s dishevelled
countenance was enough; Bill Barker himself "shunned." Somewhere from
the depths of Reggy’s head a sleepy muffled voice emitted this succinct
command:

"Serg’nt-major; dish-mish th’ parade."

"Right turn! Dis-miss!" With a shout of joy the boys scampered off to
their tents.

A moment later Reggy tumbled into bed again, and soon was fast asleep.
And within two hours, at breakfast, he was saying, with virtuous
resignation: "How I envied you lucky devils sleeping-in this morning! I
was up at six o’clock inspecting the parade." And the halo of
near-truth hovered gently about his head.

Thus passed three weeks of rain and mud. In spite of ourselves we had
begun to look like soldiers. How we ever developed into the finest
hospital unit in the forces none of us to this day knows—and none but
ourselves suspects it yet. We had, and have still, one outstanding
feature—a sort of native modesty. Whatever in this chronicle savours of
egotism is merely the love of truth which cannot be suppressed.

And then, one eventful day, the surgeon-general came to inspect us. He
seemed pleased with us. Presently he passed into the colonel’s tent,
and they had a long and secret conference together. Finally the pair
emerged again.

"What about your horses?" the general queried.

The horses had been our greatest worry. They came on a different boat,
and the two best were missing or stolen. Once Sergeant Honk discovered
them in the lines of another unit, but was indiscreet enough to proclaim
his belief to the sergeant-major of that unit. When we hurried down to
get them they were gone. No one there had ever heard of a horse of the
colour or design which we described. We were discouraged, and in our
despair turned to the senior major, who was a great horseman and knew
the tricks of the soldier horse-thief.

"Don’t get excited," he said reassuringly. "They’ve only hidden away the
horses in a tent, after you chumps recognised them. To-morrow, when they
are not suspicious, I’ll go down and get them."

And on the morrow _mirabile dictu_ he secured them both.

So the colonel answered: "The horses are here, and ready, sir."

Ready for what? There was a tenseness in the air—a sense of mystery
that could not be explained. We listened again, but could only catch
scraps of the conversation, such as "Transport officer," "Nine a.m."
"Don’t take the mess tent or any tents but hospital marquees."

Something was brewing and brewing very fast. At length the colonel
saluted, and the general left.

"What news, Colonel?", we cried breathlessly, as soon as discretion
allowed. And he let fall these magic words:

"We are under orders to move. We shall be the first Canadians in
France!"

*CHAPTER III*

It was exactly 10 p.m. as Bill Barker and Huxford, with the heavy team
and wagon, drove up to the colonel’s tent.

"Do you think you can find your way to Southampton in the dark?" the
colonel asked Barker somewhat anxiously.

"Yes, sir. I’ve never been lost in my life—sober." The afterthought
was delivered with a reminiscent grin.

"Remember, no ’booze’ until the horses are safely in the town; and a
glass of beer will be quite enough even then," the colonel admonished
him.

"Never fear, sir," Bill replied, as he saluted. With a last long look
at the camp he said: "Good-night, sir," and the horses started down the
muddy road.

Why we should still have any affection for that camp in which none of us
ever wore a dry stitch of clothes or knew a moment’s comfort, is merely
another illustration of the perversity of human nature. Like Bill
Sikes’ dog, our love is stronger than our common sense. For a moment we
stood watching the team pass down through the lines toward the unknown
south, and then we turned in to sleep.

At 3 a.m. our camp was all astir, and the dull yellow glow of candles
and lanterns shining through the tents dotted the plain. Here and there
brighter lights flitted to and fro, as the men proceeded rapidly with
the work of packing up.

And what a medley of goods there was! Blankets and rubber sheets were
folded neatly into their canvas covers; stoves and pots and pans were
crated; boxes of cheese, jam and bully-beef, together with bags of bread
were carried out of the tents into the open. At one side stood large
boxes of medicines, beds, mattresses, portable folding tables and
chairs, and a hundred other varieties of hospital necessaries, all
packed and ready for transport.

By 9 a.m. the motor lorries commenced to arrive. How the boys worked
that morning! The pile of forty tons of goods which represented our
home, and soon would be the home of many others, sick and wounded,
melted away before their united effort.

We had come to Salisbury Plain in the rain; it was but fitting that we
should leave in a similar downpour. We did!

The soldier is a strange creature; a migratory animal whose chief
delight in life is moving. Put him in one place for months, be it ever
so cheery and comfortable—he frets like a restless steed; but give him
the rein, permit him to go, he cares not whither—he is happy. It may be
from sunshine to shadow; it may be from château to trench; it may be
from heaven to hell—he cares not if he but moves, and, moving, he will
whistle or sing his delight.

The road was lined with envious Tommies who came to see us start.

"Yer colonel muster had _some_ pull with Kitch’ner t’ git ye away so
soon," said one of the envious to Tim, the colonel’s batman.

Tim was quite the most unique of all our motley tribe. He was born in
Ireland, educated (or rather remained uneducated) in the Southern
States, and for the past ten years had lived in Canada. He was a
faithful servant, true to his master and to all his friends. Like many
another "original," he was permitted to take liberties which shocked all
sense of military discipline, as well as every other sense; but he
amused us and was forgiven. He was a prize fighter, too, of no mean
ability, and carried the scars of many a hard-fought battle. No other
being in the world used a dialect like Tim’s. It was a language all his
own, and negroid in character.

"Pull wit’ Kitch’ner!" he replied disdainfully. "Wit George hisself, ye
means. D’ye s’pose my kernel hobnobs wit’ anyt’ing lessen royalty? De
king sent fer him, an’ he goed to Lunnon a’ purpose."

"’Wot is yer Majesty’s command?’ sez de kernel.

"’Kernel,’ sez he, ’when I seed yer men on p’rade las’ Sunday, I turned
to Lord Kitch’ner an’ sez: "Kitch’ner, it ain’t right t’ keep men as
good as dat in England; dere place is at de front!"’"

"You was sure needed there," Tim’s vis-à-vis interjected sarcastically;
"good thick-headed fellers t’ stop a bullet."

Tim ignored the remark, and continued:

"So he sez, ’Kernel, yer unit ’ull be de first t’ leave fer France, an’
good luck t’ ye!’ Wit dat de kernel comed back, an’ now we’re goin’ to
see de Pea-jammers."

"Wot’s them?" the other growlingly inquired.

"Don’t ye know wot Pea-jammers is yet? Ye muster bin eddicated in night
school. Pea-jammers is Frenchmen."

By what process of exclusion Tim had arrived at this strange decision
with reference to the French, none but himself knew; and he never by any
chance alluded to them otherwise.

"All in, men!" shouted the sergeant-major, and each man scrambled to his
allotted place.

To look at the rough exterior of our men one would not suppose that
music lurked within their breasts—nothing more unlikely seemed probable;
and yet, listen to the vibrant harmony of their chorus as they sit upon
their bags and boxes! It rolls in melodious waves over the camp, and
crowds of soldiers come running toward the road to listen. Oh, you may
be sure they had their good points, those lads of ours—so many good
points, too!

The lorries started, and the boys lifted their voices to the strains of
"Good-bye, Dolly, I Must Leave You." The little crowd which lined the
road on either side raised their caps and gave three cheers in kindly
token of farewell. As we looked back upon those stalwart soldier-boys,
many a wistful glance was cast toward us, and many a longing eye
followed the trail of our caravan.

Night had fallen before our train puffed noisily into the railway sheds
at Southampton. How hungry we were! And the sight of the crowded buffet
and its odour of steaming coffee gave us a thrill of expectant delight.

There are times in life when it takes so little to please or interest
one. In the ornate grandeur of a metropolitan hotel such coffee and
cake as we received that night would have called forth a clamour of
protest; but in the rough interior of a dockyard shed no palatial
surroundings mar the simple pleasures of the soul. What delicious
cheese our quartermaster produced out of a mud-covered box, and how
splendidly crisp the hard-tack, as we crunched it with hungry teeth!
Seated on our bags and boxes, we feasted as none but hungry soldiers
can, and the murky coffee turned into nectar as it touched our lips.

Through the big doorway, too, the eye could feast on the towering side
of the ship which was so soon to take us to our great adventure, as she
lay snuggled against the quay. But as we rested there, another train
pulled into the sheds and stopped. The doors were opened from within,
and we were surprised to see hundreds of great horses step quietly and
solemnly out upon the platform. There was a marvellous dignity about
those tall, magnificent animals, with their arched necks and glossy
coats. They drew up upon the platform in long rows like soldiers.
There was no neighing, no kicking or baulkiness. They seemed to be
impressed with the seriousness of the mission upon which they were sent.
A little later, as they passed up the ship’s gangway, and were marched
aboard, no regiment ever stepped upon the deck with finer show of
discipline.

Our saddle horses were already aboard; but what had become of Barker and
the team?

"Where’s Barker?" the colonel suddenly demanded. No one present knew;
but, as if in answer to his question, little Huxford came running down
the platform. By the look of distress upon his face we knew something
serious had happened.

"What is it, Huxford?" cried the colonel, as Huxford approached.

"Barker’s been arrested, sir, by the military police, and the team are
in the detention camp, four miles from here," he gasped.

"Drunk, I suppose?" the colonel queried angrily.

"Well, sir, he _had_ had a drink or two, but not till after we got to
town," Huxford answered reluctantly.

"I might have guessed as much," said the colonel with some bitterness.
"It’s useless to depend upon a man who drinks. Here, Fraser," he called
to Captain Fraser, "take a taxi and make the camp as quickly as
possible. The boat sails in two hours. Don’t fail to bring both Barker
and the horses—although, Lord knows, Barker would be no great loss."

It was characteristic of the colonel that no matter what scrapes we got
into, no matter what trouble or humiliation we caused him, he never
forsook us. More than once in the days that were to follow he saved
some reckless youth from being taken out at early dawn and shot; not
because he did not feel that the punishment was deserved but because his
big, kindly heart enwrapped every one of his wayward soldier-boys with a
father’s love.

An English regiment was embarking upon the same ship with us. The
donkey engine was busy again hauling their accoutrement and ours aboard.
Great cases swung aloft in monotonous yet wonderful array. Sometimes a
wagon was hoisted into the air; again a motor truck was lifted with
apparent ease, swayed to and fro for a moment high above our heads, and
then descended to the depths below. By midnight the ship was loaded,
but Barker and the team with Huxford and Captain Fraser had not
returned.

The transport officer addressed the senior major.

"I’m sorry," he said, "but I can’t hold the ship more than ten minutes
longer. If your men don’t arrive by that time they’ll have to remain
behind."

The colonel had gone to meet the train on which the nursing sisters were
to arrive. They were coming from London to join us, and were to cross
upon the same boat. But the colonel returned alone.

He was a tall, well-built, handsome man, and his winning smile was most
contagious. It took a great deal to ruffle his genial good nature, and
his blue-grey eyes were seldom darkened by a frown, but this was a night
of unusual worry.

He called out to Captain Burnham:

"Have your luggage brought ashore, Burnham. You and I will remain
behind to chaperon the nurses. They can’t possibly make the boat."

"What’s the trouble, sir?" Burnham inquired, as he descended upon the
quay. "Was their train late?"

The colonel laughed a trifle impatiently.

"No; the train was quite on time, but I have been having a new
experience. I under-estimated the baggage of thirty-five women, that’s
all. It’s astounding! I don’t know how many trunks each nurse has, but
the _tout ensemble_ makes Barnum’s circus train look foolish. I
ventured to remark that we were only going to the war, not touring
Europe, but this precipitated such a shower of reproach upon my innocent
head that I made no further protest. I was never able to oust one woman
in an argument. Imagine, then, where I stood with thirty-five! The
trunks, every one of them, will cross with us to-morrow, and if they
wish to bring Peter Robinson’s whole shop, you won’t hear a murmur from
me!"

At this moment the sound of horses’ hoofs coming at the gallop broke
upon our ears; and Captain Fraser, himself driving the team, with Barker
and Huxford clinging to the seat for support, dashed upon the quay. As
the horses pulled up, Barker descended and stood sheepishly awaiting the
inevitable.

"Barker, I’m ashamed of you," the colonel said in a tone of stern
reproach. "You have been the first to bring disgrace upon our unit, and
I hope you will be the last. In future Huxford will have charge of the
team. I shall have something further to say when we reach France. Get
aboard!"

Barker dropped his eyes during this speech.

"I’m sorry, sir, I—I didn’t mean to disgrace you, sir!" With these
words he saluted and shuffled humbly and contritely aboard.

It was many a long day before Barker tasted liquor again. The colonel’s
words burned with a dull glow in his heart, and kindled a spark of
manhood there.

Crossing the Channel in those days was not as comparatively safe as it
is to-day. Under the water, always prowling about, lurked the German
submarines. Every day reports of their dastardly deeds came to hand.
Being torpedoed was not the sort of end which one might wish. There was
no honour or glory in such a death, and besides, the water looked dreary
and cold. In spite of oneself the thought of being blown suddenly into
the air recurred occasionally to mind. It was not that we had any real
fear, for any form of death was part of the game of hazard on which we
had embarked. But we stood for some time upon the deck and peered
inquisitively into the darkness as we steamed rapidly out into the
Channel.

What was the dull glow at some distance ahead? Perhaps a ship—it was
impossible to say. We looked astern, and there in the darkness we could
just discern a ghostly shape which followed in our wake, and, hour by
hour, ahead or behind, these two mysterious phantoms followed or led our
every turn.

Dawn was breaking; the hazy shapes became more real. Slowly the
daylight pierced the mist, and there revealed to our astonished gaze,
were two sturdy little torpedo boat destroyers. It was a part of that
marvellous British navy which never sleeps by night or day.

What a sense of security those two destroyers gave us! The mist closed
round us again, and hid them from our view, but ever and anon the roar
of our siren broke the silence and presently, close by, a sharp
answering blast told us that our guardians were near. By and by the fog
closed round about us so densely that further progress was unsafe, and
so the engines were stopped, and for another day and night we remained
at sea.

*CHAPTER IV*

During the day and a half that we stood out in the Channel fog,
wondering whether we should ever reach land, or whether a stray German
submarine would send us to a higher sphere, we had plenty of time to
look about the ship. She was an India liner which had been pressed into
service as a troop ship; and the Hindu stewards looked after our many
wants as only the Oriental can.

What a far-reaching cosmopolitanism emanates from that little land of
Britain! Here were English officers giving orders to the Hindus in
their own mysterious tongue; and the deference with which these men
obeyed helped us to realise Britain’s greatness. To conquer a country,
tame it, civilise it—sometimes by force—and still retain the love and
respect of its inhabitants, is a power given to but few peoples; yet
Britons possess it to the full.

On Sunday morning—a bright warm day in early November—our ship steamed
slowly into the port of Le Havre. We lingered a few minutes near a high
stone quay. Close beside us was a Belgian hospital ship, its white and
green paint and big red crosses contrasting strangely with our own dull
grey. We could see the nurses and medical officers on board ministering
to their patients with tender care and solicitude.

We were steaming slowly through a narrow channel between block after
block of wharves, where ships unnumbered piled their ocean freight.
Finally we emerged into a great basin filled with craft, both large and
small, some of which were dismantled. Across the bay a splendid ocean
liner reared her four smokeless funnels toward the sky; she was one of
that great fleet of passenger ships, so recently the pride of France,
now thrust aside by the stern demands of ruthless war.

At length we docked, and as we stood leaning over the rail, some little
children came running down the quay to greet us.

"_Messieurs! Messieurs! Bon jour!_" they cried; and then for the first
time we realised that we were in a foreign land.

_France, la belle France_! How often have we dreamed of you in better
days! Bright, vivacious France, whose wit and laughter sparkled like
champagne, whose joy was ever rampant! How soon your smiles and tears
were to intermingle with our own!

But the soldiers on board had not yet learned to speak in French, and
they responded in our own dull tongue: "Good-day, little girls. Hello,
little boys," and they dropped silver coins and pennies on the quay.

The French children had already learned a word or two of English, and
they had also discovered that the Tommy understood two very useful
French words. Not to be outdone in courtesy, they flung them up to us
in piping chorus: "Good-night, cigarette, souvenir!"

How many thousand times we have since heard this same greeting! It has
become the children’s formula, and as a gracious concession to our
ignorance of French has met its just reward—in pennies.

Dusk fell before we had completed the unloading of our equipment and had
it all stowed away in the _hangar_. Then we formed up and, with a
French boy-scout as guide, started our march toward camp.

The senior major, on his splendid black horse, led the van; the men,
contrary to military custom, carrying a Union Jack, followed, and
Captain Reggy and I, mounted, brought up the rear.

The first half-mile of our march was uneventful, as there were few
people in the streets of the _basse ville_; but as we passed farther up
into the city the sidewalks became crowded with spectators. At first
the French mistook us for English soldiers on the march, the sight of
whom, while an almost hourly occurrence, was still a matter of keen
interest. But as the crowd, becoming larger and larger, and pushing one
another off the sidewalks into the road, caught a glimpse of our
shoulder badges marked "Canada," the word was passed from mouth to mouth
with lightning-like rapidity, and the excitement became intense.

They broke forth into the wildest cheering and shouted again and again,
"_Les Canadiens! Vive le Canada!_" until the clamour was deafening.
Men, women and children surrounded us in thousands, laughing, singing
and talking, shaking the soldiers by the hand, embracing and even
kissing them in the excess of their welcome.

That the boys weren’t always kissed on account of their irresistible
beauty may be gathered from this little conversation which took place
_en passant_:

"_Mon Dieu!_" exclaimed one of the girls to her nearest neighbour, "why
did you kiss that ugly face?"

"Because," was the reply, "he looked so lonely—he seemed to need it
most."

They marched up the street with us, arm in arm, all who could get near
enough, and threw a thousand questions at us in one unintelligible
clatter of French. It was a welcome to stir the blood of the coldest,
and from that moment we took France to our hearts, as she had taken us,
and held her fast.

What did the landing of a mere handful of Canadians mean to France?
There weren’t enough of us to be of much importance, compared with the
thousands of other British troops which landed daily. But the French,
with their keen sense of appreciation, recognised at once that the
advent of this little Canadian band had a broad significance; it meant
that in her great struggle for the cause of liberty and humanity France
was to be supported not only by Britain but by the far-flung elements of
the Empire. It meant encouragement; it meant success!

And as they shouted "_Vive le Canada_" we echoed with a will, "_Vive la
France_." We sang, too, "God Save the King," and "_La Marseillaise_."
A few who knew English joined in the first, but "_La Marseillaise_"
starting by courtesy with us, swelled in a moment into a mighty anthem
which swept the city like a storm. Later, when we followed with "The
Maple Leaf," a respectful silence fell upon the throng. With quick
intuition they knew it was a song of home, with which they sympathised,
but which they could not understand. And as the melody concluded we
could hear them whispering one to another: "_Quelle est cette chanson?_"
And we answered in our broken French, "It is a song of our native land,
far, far from here."

It was my good fortune during this strange march to ride upon the side
close to the curb, while Reggy, in comparative obscurity, rode opposite.
Frequently, too, it was my privilege to return the greetings of the
dainty French girls who lined the walk and waved their handkerchiefs
high above the heads of the crowd in the road.

At last Reggy, trotting along in the shadow, could contain himself no
longer. He burst out:

"Hang it all, major! Just my bally luck again; you’re always closer to
the girls than I."

"But not closer to their hearts, Reggy dear," I interjected soothingly.

"Small consolation, that, in the present situation," Reggy was
grumbling, when he was suddenly interrupted by a pretty black-eyed girl
who, running alongside his horse, caught him by the hand and forthwith
begged a kiss. I believe—or, rather, I hope—Reggy blushed. I should
always like to think that at that precise moment Reggy’s sense of
modesty came to his rescue. If it did, however, it vanished again with
alarming rapidity.

"Here’s an embarrassing situation," he cried dolefully.

"Very trying, indeed, to have a pretty girl demand a kiss," I laughed.

"Confound it!" he returned. "That’s not the trouble; but I’m not
horseman enough to lean over and get it."

There, you see, Reggy in one fell moment had destroyed all my illusions
about him. Here was I worrying over his distress and presumed
embarrassment, while he, hopeless young scamp that he was, showed actual
regret because he couldn’t fall from grace.

"I would suggest that you dismount," I answered, in a spirit of sarcasm.

For a moment I believe this insane thought obsessed him, and then his
latent sense of military discipline and dignity saved him. He turned
regretfully to the young lady, and pressing her hand warmly—very warmly,
I thought—broke forth in schoolboy French:

"_Merci, cherie! Mille fois, mille fois_. Another time will have to
do."

"_Est-ce-que vous parlez Français, monsieur?_" she demanded sweetly.

"Rather rough on your French, Reggy," I teased, "asking you, after that
brilliant sortie, if you really speak the language."

Reggy appeared hurt.

"Look at you," he cried, "riding along like a bloated monarch, scooping
in the obeisance of the whole kingdom, and because I command the
attention—and, I trust, respect—of only one of your subjects, you’re
jealous. Out upon you—for shame!"

All good things come to an end at last. For half an hour we had been
princes or kings, drinking in the nectar of adulation in mighty gulps.
It turned our heads and made us dizzy, and this feeling of elation
lasted long after we had left the crowd behind, and the faint cry of
_Vive les Canadiens_ followed us into the darker streets. We toiled
slowly over the cobble stones, up the steep hill, and finally into camp.

The camp commandant came to meet us a few minutes after we arrived. He
was a fine-looking specimen of British officer—tall, athletic, with
iron-grey hair and keen blue eyes. He smiled as he greeted us.

"Good evening, gentlemen," he said, as the senior major approached and
saluted. "Where have you all come from?"

"Originally from Canada, sir," the major replied, "but recently from
Salisbury Plains."

"How interesting," he cried in a tone of delighted surprise. "I had no
idea the Canadians were coming to France so soon."

"Weren’t you expecting us, sir?" the major ventured.

The commandant laughed good-humouredly. We seemed to amuse him.

"Well, not exactly," he replied; "but you are quite welcome. Take those
three rows of tents, draw your rations and make yourselves at home. One
of these days orders will come along for you."

One of these days! Well, well! Was he actually addressing us in that
careless and flippant manner, we who had just taken France by storm?
Alas! we were not so important after all. For a full hour we had looked
upon ourselves as the whole war, and the rest of the British army as a
mere background to our glory. And now we were told that "one of these
days!" It was really too bad. But still, he was kindly and courteous,
and behind those smiling eyes lurked a great sympathy, I am sure, for
our little band.

We looked about us and then we understood. There were miles of tents.
Regiments of soldiers were marching in and regiments were marching
out—the Highland "kilties" with their sporrans swaying to and fro in
stirring unison. We heaved a sigh. It was all too true. We were only
one small cog in the great machine!

But the senior major was elated with a strange and inexplicable emotion.
After the commandant had bidden us good-night, he paced back and forth,
with his hands behind his back and his head in the air. He raised his
feet high as he walked, and clicked his spurs with the firmness of his
tread. Something was effervescing in his mind, and soon would blow his
mental cork out. What was it? He twirled his moustaches from time to
time and smiled a crafty smile. At last it popped:

"Gentlemen," he said, "that’s one thing which no one can ever take from
me!"

"What?" we cried breathlessly.

"That _I_ was the first officer who ever led a Canadian unit into
France!"

Oh, the supreme egotism and self-love of old bachelorhood! We turned
away without a word, in time to hear little Huxford’s piping voice in
ungrammatical query.

"Did ye had a good time to-night, Bill?"

And Bill’s reply echoed the sentiments of all our hearts.

"Did I?" he cried exultantly. "_Some_ class!"

*CHAPTER V*

How it stormed that night! Thunder, lightning, rain and wind combined
in one uproarious elemental war. It seemed as if no tent on earth could
stand the strain. Once I peeped outside, and in the flashes saw vistas
of tents rolling like great white-crested waves on an operatic sea.
From time to time the cracking of poles and the dull swish of canvas,
blending with the smothered oaths of men beneath, told us that some tent
had fallen.

Reggy slept as peacefully as a new-born babe. Tucked into his canvas
sleeping-bag and with a woollen toque pulled well down over his ears, he
was oblivious to the storm, and in the faint glimmer of our
candle-lantern looked like an Eskimo at rest.

Peg after peg jerked out of the ground, and our tent commenced to rock
to and fro in a drunken frenzy. Would the guard never come to tighten
the guys? They seemed to have forgotten us. Warmly ensconced in my
blankets and half asleep in spite of the noise, I lay and from time to
time idly wondered how much longer the tent would stand.

Sometimes I dozed and dreamed of getting up to fix it, and saw myself
crawling about in wet pyjamas in the wind and rain. The thought awoke
me; the tent was flapping still. Reggy, as the junior, was in duty
bound to right it; but if the storm couldn’t wake him, what could mere
man do? I dozed again and awoke just in time to see the canvas give one
last wild gyration. Then it crashed down upon us.

"Hi! What the d——l are you doing now?"

It was the sleep-saturated voice of Reggy in angry, smothered tones
beneath the wreck. For answer to his question, a gust of wind lifted the
canvas from his face, and a spurt of rain, with the force of a garden
hose, struck him.

"O Lord!" he howled. "The bally tent’s blown down!" Reggy’s
perspicacity, while sluggish, was accurate.

"Get up, you lazy blighter, and lend a hand!" I shouted between blasts
of wind and rain which soaked me through and through.

"Ugh! You wouldn’t ask a chap to get up in a storm like this," he cried
appealingly.

I didn’t. I merely took the lower end of his sleeping-bag and emptied
it, as one would a sack of potatoes, onto the floor. Reggy emerged like
a rumpled blue-bird.

"Rotten trick, I call that," he grumbled, as he scrambled to his feet.

Luckily by this time the guard arrived to help us, and after a long
tussle with the ropes, the tent was pitched once more, and we crawled
back to bed.

The morning sun rose clear and bright and smiled as if it had no
memories of the night before. Wherever one might look tents lay in
heaps upon the ground, but not a breath of wind stirred the fresh cool
air. Fainter and more faint from the distance came the weird strain of
the bagpipes—a Highland regiment was passing down the hill, starting on
that long journey whence all might not return.

Our men had breakfasted and were already at work raising the fallen
tents. The adjutant emerged from his abode wearing a weary smile—he
hadn’t slept much.

"’What of the night?’" he cried. "The storm has given me an appetite.
Where’s breakfast? I’m as hungry as an R.M.C. cadet."

Where indeed was breakfast? As yet we had no "mess"; our goods were
still unpacked.

"There’s a soldiers’ buffet managed by ladies in the cottage yonder,"
said Fraser, pointing to a brick house on the crest of the hill. Trust
Fraser to know where grub abounds! "Perhaps I can persuade the little
lady of the place..."

"You’ll need help," Reggy interpolated hastily. "Some one with
persuasive powers. I’ll go along."

Reggy’s eagerness to go suggested other distractions than foraging. We
said we would accompany him—lest he forget. We entered a long room at
the rear of the house, which had been a carpenter’s shop before the war.
It was furnished with two long tables, benches, and a large number of
kitchen chairs. The carpenter’s tools hung unused upon the wall. At the
farther end of the room several young women and one of maturer years
were rapidly cutting up bread and meat for sandwiches, buttering
appetising French rolls and placing them all in large baskets. It
looked enough to feed a multitude.

We approached the table. One young woman looked up, apparently more
from courtesy than with any special interest in our arrival, and said:
"Good morning!"

It was true then; they _were_ English-women. They were as cool—and
refreshing—as the air outside. Reggy saluted gravely.

"May we have something to eat, please?" he inquired hesitatingly.

The young woman looked up again, with a surprised smile. "But you are
not Tommies," she replied.

"No; merely officers, and very hungry ones at that."

She looked a trifle perplexed. "We don’t serve officers here," she
asserted. "You see, this buffet is meant for Tommies only."

Bless their hearts! Here at least was one place where the officer was
discounted, and Tommy was king. We had been fêted and pampered to such
an extent that we had lost sight of the true proportion of things. Here
were women who realised that Tommy is quite as important as his officer,
that he is a man and as such has rights. We honoured the young women
who could thus devote themselves to the men who really needed their help
most. But this elevating thought did not appease our hunger in the
least. We still wanted something to eat, and the dainty food before us
failed to modify our internal cravings.

"Couldn’t we have just one bun?" Reggy coaxed.

The young woman smilingly shook her head. "It’s against our rules," she
replied.

Reggy looked distressed. We imitated his look with such success that
another young woman, who seemed to be the one in authority, came forward
and volunteered:

"If you will step into the house, gentlemen, I shall see what the
_concierge_ can do for you there."

That we didn’t fall upon her neck in sheer thankfulness speaks well for
our self-control. We kept sufficient restraint upon ourselves, however,
to merely murmur our gratitude in becoming words. We explained that we
had just arrived, and that our mess was not yet open.

"Well, well," she laughed. "Of course, we can’t let you starve, but you
really mustn’t eat in here."

If the angels in heaven look anything like that sweet young woman as she
appeared to us at that moment—well, it’s a great incentive to lead a
good life, that’s all.

We were ushered into a quaint French dining-room, furnished with
hand-carved mahogany. That a carpenter should have such exquisite taste
surprised us. We were yet to learn that the artistic sense is a keynote
of French character. The owner of the cottage was away at the war; he
was one of the poilus who were then, and are still, upholding the
martial traditions of a noble fighting race. His wife spread a dainty
table for us, and we breakfasted for the first time in France.

Our menu consisted of small mackerel, rolls and coffee! How prosaic it
sounds in English! We shall always remember that _petit dejeuner_ in
French: _Petits maqueraux, petits pains et café-au-lait._ What music
there is in such a language! The food itself loses its identity and is
transformed into the sustenance of the gods!

Days passed by, but there was no word from our colonel, and no orders
came for us to move. Had they all forgotten us? Had we by mischance
taken the wrong boat and landed in the wrong part of France? What had
become of our colonel and the rest of our unit? These thoughts
perplexed and worried us. But one day, as we were lunching, a messenger
suddenly appeared at the tent door and asked for the senior major.

"Telegram for you, sir," he said.

The major slowly unfolded it, read it as slowly, refolded it and placed
it in his pocket without a word. Could it be from the colonel? If so,
where was he? The major continued his meal. At last Fraser could bear
the suspense no longer.

"Was that a message from the colonel?" he inquired anxiously.

"It was," the major replied.

One might have heard the proverbial pin drop—the strain was so intense.
Would he never go on? Were we to hear nothing further?

Fraser ventured again: "What does he say?"

The senior major got up and left the tent without a word.

Even after all these months it pains me to record the bitter
disappointment of that moment. All men have their peculiarities—Some
are afflicted more than others. We may forgive, but we cannot always
forget. And yet he had his good points, too; he wasn’t quite all bad.
Perhaps Fraser’s question was injudicious; perhaps he hadn’t been
deferential enough to his senior officer. At any rate it was two days
later when we first heard the news. The adjutant, who had been taken
into the major’s confidence, whispered the message to us:

"The colonel is at Boulogne, and orders will be sent us in a few days to
join him. I have been told not to tell you, but I must relieve your
anxiety. Keep it secret!"

How we loved him for his thoughtfulness! The tension was broken. We
were once more happy and content.

Three days later the order came to move. We were to entrain at midnight,
and all day long we were busy packing. By nine everything was ready.
The motor lorries were loaded, and we started our march toward the
train. It was a pitch-black night and rain swept the streets in
chilling torrents.

One of the horses of our team had a chafed back and could not be
harnessed, so that my horse was selected to take his place. The wagon
was piled high with the kit-bags of the men, and from this elevation one
of the orderlies held the halter of the sick horse, which followed
behind. We started down the steep hill from the camp, horses and men
alike slipping upon the wet and greasy cobblestones.

Suddenly a slight explosion startled the led horse. He reared upon his
hind legs, jerked the halter from the hand of the orderly and bolted
down the hill into the darkness. Who would dare follow him? To ride
down that incline at any rate faster than a walk was sheer recklessness.
Surely no horse or man who attempted to do so would return alive. But
Huxford, putting spurs to his horse, plunged down the hill at breakneck
speed, a shower of sparks flying out on either side as the horse’s steel
shoes struck the stones.

"Good God!" cried Barker; "he’ll never come back—he’s a dead man!"

"Why didn’t he let the horse go?" cried the senior major anxiously.
"Now we’ve lost two horses and a man. He doesn’t know the city or where
we are going, and even if he gets through alive, he’ll never find us
again."

"How could he expect to overtake a run-away horse in a strange city on a
night like this? It’s madness!" exclaimed the adjutant.

"He was a fine lad," said the quartermaster sadly, as though Huxford
were already dead. "Seems such a pity to lose him. I didn’t think he
had the courage to do it."

But war shatters preconceived ideas. No one can tell which men are
brave until the crisis comes. Those who seem strongest fail; those who
seem weakest succeed.

A gloom had been cast over us all. We despaired of seeing Huxford
again—except perhaps to find his mangled body somewhere at the foot of
that long hill. When we reached the bottom he wasn’t there, and we went
on despondently for a mile or more, knowing the hopelessness of trying
to find him; when suddenly, as we turned a corner, he appeared, still on
horseback and leading the runaway. A cheer from the boys greeted him.

"Well done, Huxford!" cried the senior major. "We never expected to see
you again!"

"I couldn’t let him go, sir, ’cause th’ colonel giv’ th’ horses into my
charge, an’ he _had_ to be caught."

May we all fulfil our duty as faithfully as this lad!

The queer little French train, with its cars marked eight
_chevaux_—forty _hommes_ (8 horses—40 men) was waiting at the station
when we arrived. The transport officer had told the senior major not to
leave until he had received his papers, but to get the men and horses
aboard.

Shortly before midnight all were entrained. The equipment and horses
were loaded, but there was no sign of either engine or conductor. We
unrolled our sleeping-bags, placed them upon the seats in the
compartment coach and fell asleep. At four a.m. we were awakened by an
angry discussion taking place on the train platform. One voice was
French, evidently that of the train conductor; the other was
unmistakably that of the senior major. He was talking very loudly:

"I tell you, you can’t move this train one inch until I get my papers."

The reply was in French:

"_Comprend pas, monsieur!_" Evidently he was about to signal the
engineer to start.

"Stop! I command you to stop!" shouted the major again.

The Frenchman understood the action, if he failed to understand the
words. "_Il faut partir tout de suite, monsieur_," he replied with
respectful firmness, and then, placing the bugle to his lips, he blew a
signal to the engineer and the train started.

The major sprang from the platform just in time to catch his coach. He
had not received the papers, and had had an unintelligible wordy duel in
which he had been vanquished. He was boiling with rage.

"If I had my way," he stormed, "there would be only _one_ language in
the world!"

We were off once more. We had but a faint idea of where we were going,
but we were on our way.

*CHAPTER VI*

When we awoke the sun was high in the heavens, and through the train
windows we could see the steep banks of the Seine as we wound along that
picturesque river toward Rouen. From time to time we passed small
villages, the red tile of their roofs contrasting prettily with the
snow-white of the walls. Some houses were decorated with bright blue or
green, and as they swept by the window in kaleidoscopic array, the scene
was one of manifold variety.

The French love a dash of colour; it is manifest everywhere—in their
clothes, their houses and their military uniforms. In the larger cities
where civilisation is over-developed, and humanity is more effete, the
bright colours have given place to pale and delicate shades—an
indication of that transformation of life which we call art. But in
these little country villages, a thousand years or more behind the
times, Dame Nature still holds sway, and the primary colours riot in
their rugged strength. Centuries from now these rural hamlets, grown to
greater size, losing their primitive audacity, will fade as well; and
looking back will marvel at the boldness of their youth.

Every quarter-mile along the track a lone sentinel, in sky-blue coat and
scarlet cap, guarded our path. With fixed _baionette_ he stood hour by
hour, watchful and keen. He had a little thatched sentry-box into which
he might retire when it rained, and through the small round windows
watch on either side.

As we pulled into the railway station at Rouen, we could see resourceful
"Tommy" cooking his breakfast on a little charcoal stove. "Tommy" is
always at home, no matter where we find him—whether it be on the
battlefields of France or Belgium, or on the rock-bound shores of
Gallipoli.

Our men descended from their coaches, lugged out their bags of bread,
their cheese and jam and "bully-beef." The sergeant-cook meted out each
share, and they soon were at their morning meal.

A few hours later Reggy and I were seated at luncheon in the _Hotel de
la Poste_. The _salle a manger_ was filled with English, French and
Belgian officers, and their wives or friends, and to the casual observer
the place was as gay as in times of peace. But in spite of the bright
colours of the uniforms, in spite of the "chic" Parisian hats and pretty
faces of the ladies, one felt over all an atmosphere subdued and
serious.

It is true wine sparkled upon almost every table, but in France this
doesn’t necessarily mean gaiety. Every Frenchman drinks wine, but it is
very rare indeed to see one drunk. Wine, like water at home, is used as
a beverage—not as an intoxicant.

Imbued with the spirit of the time and place, Reggy and I called for a
bottle of old _Chambertin_, and under its mellowing influence, care and
the war were soon forgotten.

Of course we visited the Cathedral, and listened to the old sexton
pouring incomprehensible data into our stupid ears for half an hour
while we examined the rare stained windows and the carved oak door.
When we returned to the train, the senior major and the transport
officer were deep in conversation: "But where are your papers?" the
R.T.O. was asking.

"We haven’t any," the major replied. "That French conductor wouldn’t
hold the train until they arrived. Can’t we go on without them?"

"Where are you going?"

"We presume to Boulogne—the rest of the unit is there, but we have no
orders. When does the train leave, please?"

"There’ll be one at 3 p.m., and if you wish to take that, get your men
aboard."

We might have been touring France—he was so nonchalant, and there was
such an absence of "red-tape." Imagine in these hyper-martial days
being told to "take the 3 p.m. train if we wished!" Nowadays it is not
a matter of volition; units go where and when they are commanded, and a
definite system has replaced haphazard. But the old way had its good
points—it still let one believe he was in part his own master.

Having a sense of duty and, moreover, being anxious to reach our
destination—wherever that might be—we entrained once more and travelled
all the balance of that day and night.

Promptly at 3 p.m. Reggy fell asleep, and didn’t wake once, not even to
eat, until the following morning at six o’clock, when with a crash he
was thrown off his couch to the floor of the train. Thus rudely
startled, but not quite wide awake, he ejaculated:

"Torpedoed, by Gad!"

We didn’t take time to wake Reggy and explain the situation, but sprang
to our feet and threw open the door of the train. What had happened?
We were at Boulogne; our train had collided with another in the railway
yards, but fortunately only one coach was crushed and no one hurt. We
descended to the tracks and found other coaches on other trains in a
similar condition.

It was not difficult to understand the cause. The German spy leaves
nothing undone, and was very careful to attend to such details as
changing the railway switches to the wrong tracks. By now the spies
have been almost completely weeded out; but in those days they were very
active.

How thorough was their system was well illustrated when, later on, the
Western Cavalry entered the trenches. A wooden horse rose instantly
above the German trench, bearing this legend: "Western Cavalry, come
over and get your horses!" Our boys promptly shot the offending animal
full of holes. It fell; but in a moment was raised again with bandages
about its neck and leg!

Despite the early morning hour, in a railway car a few yards from us,
several young Englishwomen were busy serving hot cocoa and rolls to the
hungry soldiers. The interior of the coach had been transformed into a
kitchen and travelling buffet. Every man in uniform was welcome to
enter and partake free of charge. We took advantage of this practical
hospitality and, much refreshed, returned to our own train.

At another platform a regiment of Ghurkas were engaged loading their
equipment. One came across to our engine and drawing some hot water
from the boiler, washed his teeth and mouth with infinite care.

The Ghurka is so like the Jap in appearance that when, later, we saw a
body of these brave little chaps, with their turned-up Stetson hats,
marching along the street, for a moment we actually mistook them for our
Oriental allies. It was only when we observed their short broad swords
(kukris) that we realised it could be none other than these famous men
from India.

The colonel was at the station to meet us. How glad we were to see his
genial face once more!

"Your billets are all arranged," he said. "The officers will stay at the
_Louvre_ and the non-commissioned officers and men at the _Jean d’arc_
theâtre."

The men were lined-up and, now that the unit was once more complete,
formed quite an imposing sight. In those days medical units wore the
red shoulder straps; the privilege of retaining these coloured straps
has been granted only to members of the First Contingent.

The men marched across _Le Pont Marguet_, up the main thoroughfare,
along the _Rue Victor Hugo_, crossing the market place, and in a narrow
street not far from the market found the little theâtre. It made a
perfect billet, the main hall serving as a mess room, and the gallery as
an excellent dormitory.

The quartermaster, Reggy, and I were billeted in one large room at the
_Louvre_. Our window overlooked the basin and across the quay we could
see the fish-wives unloading the herring boats as they arrived in
dozens. With their queer wooden shoes (sabots) they clack-clacked
across the cobblestones; their large baskets, overflowing with fish,
strapped to their backs. Among all the varied odours of that odorous
city, that of fish rises supreme. It saluted our nostrils when we
marched in the streets, and was wafted in at our windows when the
thoughtless breeze ventured our way.

We could see too, the Channel boats arriving at the dock, bringing
battalion after battalion of troops. These rapidly entrained, and were
whisked away in the shrill-whistling little French trains toward the
battlefront.

Sometimes convoys of London ’busses, now bereft of their advertisements
and painted dull grey, filled with "Tommies" destined for the "big
show," passed by the door and rolled away into the far beyond.

The second morning of our stay at Boulogne Reggy awoke feeling that he
really must have a bath. Why he should consider himself different from
all the other people in France, is a matter I am not prepared to
discuss. A bath, in France, is a luxury, so to speak, and is indulged
in at infrequent intervals—on fête days or some other such auspicious
occasion.

He rang the bell to summon the maid. In a few moments a tousled blonde
head-of-hair, surmounted by a scrap of old lace, was thrust inside the
door.

"_Monsieur?_" it enquired.

Reggy prided himself upon his French—he had taken a high place in
college in this particular subject, but, as he remarked deprecatingly,
his French seemed a bit too refined for the lower classes, who couldn’t
grasp its subtleties.

"_Je veux un bain_," he said.

He was startled by the ease with which she understood. Could it be that
he looked—but, no, he appeared as clean as the rest of us. At any rate,
she responded at once in French:

"_Oui, monsieur_. I’ll bring it in to you." She withdrew her head and
closed the door.

"What the deuce," cried Reggy, as he sat up quickly in bed. "She’ll
_bring in_ the bath! Does she take me for a canary?"

"A canary doesn’t make such a dickens of a row as you do," growled the
quartermaster, "looking for a bath at six a.m."

I tried to console him by reminding him that it was much better to have
Reggy sweet and clean than in his present state, but he said it made
small difference to him as he had a cold in his head anyway. Reggy, as
an interested third party, began to look upon our controversy as
somewhat personal, and was about to interfere when a rap at the door cut
short further argument.

Two chambermaids entered the room, carrying between them a tin pan about
two feet in diameter and six inches in depth. It contained about a
gallon of hot water. They placed it beside his bed.

"_Voici, monsieur!_" cried she of the golden locks.

Reggy leaned over the side of the bed and looked down at it.

"_Sacré sabre de bois;_" he exclaimed. "It isn’t a drink I want—it’s a
bath—’bain’—to wash—’laver’ ye know!"

He made motions with his hands in excellent imitation of a gentleman
performing his morning ablutions. They nodded approvingly, and laughed:

"_Oui, monsieur_—it _is_ the bath."

"Well, I’ll be d——" But before Reggy could conclude the two maids had
smilingly withdrawn.

Reggy explored the room in his pyjamas and emptied our three water
pitchers into the pan.

"Now I’ll at least be able to get my feet wet," he grumbled. "Where’s
the soap?" he exclaimed a moment later. "There isn’t a bally cake of
soap in the room."

It was true. This is one of the petty annoyances of French hotels.
Soap is never in the room and must be purchased as an extra, always at
the most inopportune moment. After half an hour’s delay Reggy succeeded
in buying a cake from the porter, and his bath proceeded without further
mishap. He then tumbled into bed again and fell asleep.

The maids shortly returned to carry out the bath, but when they saw how
Reggy had exhausted all the water in the room they held up their hands
in undisguised astonishment.

"Monsieur is extravagant," they exclaimed, "to waste so much water!"
Fortunately "Monsieur" was fast asleep, so the remark passed unnoticed.

Later we approached the _concierge_, and asked here if there were not a
proper bath-tub in the place. She laughed. _Les Anglais_ were so much
like ducks—they wanted to be _always_ in the water.

"But I will soon have it well for you," she declaimed with pride. "I am
having two bath tubs placed in the cellar, and then you may play in the
water all the day."

At the time we looked upon this as her little joke, but when, weeks
later, one early morning we noticed a tall _Anglais_ walking through the
hotel "lounge" in his pyjamas, with bath towel thrown across his arm, we
realised that she had spoken truth. The bath tubs were really and truly
in the cellar.

It was ten days before we succeeded in locating the building which we
wanted for our hospital. All the suitable places in Boulogne were long
since commandeered. Every large building, including all the best
hotels, had been turned into hospitals, so that we were forced to go far
afield. Finally, twenty-two miles from the city, we found a summer
hotel exactly suited to our needs. It was in a pine forest, and close
to the sea shore, an ideal spot for a hospital.

During these ten days the talent of our corps conceived the idea of
holding a concert in the _Jean d’arc_ hall.

At this time all theatres, music halls, and even "movies" in France were
closed, and music was tabooed. France was taking the war seriously.
She was mourning her dead and the loss of her lands. The sword had been
thrust deeply into her bosom, and the wound was by no means healed. The
streets were filled with widows, and their long black veils symbolised
the depth of the nation’s grief.

Let those who will admire the light-heartedness of Britain—Britain wears
no mourning for her heroes dead. In Britain it is _bourgeois_ to be
despondent. We keep up an appearance of gaiety even when our hearts are
heaviest. But France is too natural, too frank for such deception.
What she feels, she shows upon the surface. At first our apparent
indifference to our losses and hers was a source of irritation. France
resented it; but now she knows us better. We are not indifferent—it is
merely an attitude. The two nations now understand one another, and in
that understanding lies the foundation of a firmer friendship.

With success and confidence in the future, France has risen out of the
"slough of despond." She has recovered a portion of her old-time
light-heartedness. We thought her effervescent, artificial and
unstable; we have found her steadfast, true and unshakable. She has
manifested throughout this desperate struggle a grim and immutable
determination that has been the marvel of her allies and the despair of
her enemies.

Realising the temporary distaste for amusement in France, our little
concert was intended to be private and confined solely to our own unit.
But a few of the new-found French friends of the boys waived their
objections to entertainment, and as a special favour volunteered to
come.

It was a strange and moving sight to see a Canadian audience in that
far-off land, gravely seated in their chairs in the little hall, waiting
for the curtain to rise. Our staff of Nursing Sisters honoured the boys
with their presence, and every officer and man was there. Thirty or
forty of the native population, in black, a little doubtful of the
propriety of their action, were scattered through the khaki-clad.

The boys outdid themselves that night. How well they sang those songs
of home! We were carried back thousands of miles across the deep to our
dear old Canada, and many an eye was wet with tears which dare not fall.

But reminiscence fled when Sergeant Honk assumed the stage. Some one
had told Honk he could sing, and—subtle flatterer—he had been believed.
With the first wild squeaky note we were back, pell-mell in France. The
notes rose and fell—but mostly fell; stumbling over and over one another
in their vain endeavour to escape from Honk. Some maintained he sang by
ear. Perhaps he did—he didn’t sing by mouth and chords long lost to
human ken came whistling through his nose. The song was sad—but we
laughed and laughed until we wept again.

[Illustration: THE SONG WAS SAD—BUT WE LAUGHED AND LAUGHED UNTIL WE WEPT
AGAIN]

At the end of the first verse he seemed a little bewildered by the
effect, but he had no advantage over us in that respect. At the end of
the second verse, seeing his hearers in danger of apoplexy, he
hesitated, and turning to Taylor, the pianist, muttered in an aside:

"They downt understand h’English, them bloakes—this ayn’t a funny
song—blimed if I downt quit right ’ere, and serve ’em jolly well right
too!"

And under a perfect storm of applause and cries of protest, Honk
departed as he had come—anglewise.

Tim and his brother then had a boxing-bout; and Cameron, who acted as
Tim’s second, drew shrieks of joy from his French admirers, between
rounds, as he filled his mouth with water and blew it like a penny
shower into the perspiring breathless face of Tim.

"A wee drap watter refraishes ye, Tim," he declared argumentatively
after one of these showers.

"Doze Pea-jammers tinks it’s funny," Tim puffed. "Let dem have a good
time—dey ain’t see’d nuthin’ much lately—-an’ a good laff ’ull help dem
digest dere ’patty de frog-grass!"

*CHAPTER VII*

It was my fate, or fortune, to be in charge of the advance party which
was detailed to prepare for the opening of our hospital.

Captain Burnham and I, with about forty N.C.O.s and men, and with two
days’ rations, left Boulogne one cold November afternoon, a few days
after the concert. After a slow train journey of three hours’ duration,
we were deposited at the railway station of a fishing village on the
coast.

If Boulogne prides itself on its odour of dead fish, this little place
must be an everlasting thorn in its side; for all the smells of that
maladorous city fade into insignificance before the concentrated
"incense" of the back streets of Etaples. We didn’t linger
unnecessarily in the village, but pushed on at the "quick-march" and,
crossing the bridge, were soon on the broad paved road which runs
through _Le Touquet_ forest.

It was just dusk, and snow had fallen to the depth of about two inches;
the most we saw in two winters during our stay in that part of France.
It was a crisp, cold evening, and the swinging pace of our march did
much to keep us warm.

From time to time we passed large summer residences and artistic villas
partly hidden in the woods, but all the doors were closed, and all the
windows were dark. Not a human being passed us on the road, and the
noise of our shoes crunching through the crusted snow was the only sound
which broke the solemn stillness of the air.

Our men too seemed oppressed with the weird solitude of the forest and
seldom spoke above a whisper.

"Seems as though the world were dead," said Burnham, after we had walked
nearly two miles in silence.

"Yes," I replied, "it gives one a creepy feeling passing through this
long dark avenue of pines. The houses too look as if the inhabitants
had fled and that no one had the courage to return."

"I understand the _Bosches_ were through quite close to here," Burnham
remarked, "in their first mad dash for Paris, and that some German
soldiers were killed near the outskirts of this wood."

"By the gruesomeness of it I can imagine they were _all_ killed," I
replied.

By this time we had turned at right angles to our former path and
entered another long avenue of trees. The white walls of an isolated
mansion stood out in the distance against the black-green of the forest
and the fading purple of the evening sky. The grounds about it were
enclosed by a high pointed iron fence; it looked a veritable prison.

After tramping another mile we emerged into an open space between the
trees and the rolling sand dunes of the coast, and saw before us a large
limestone building, three stories in height and almost surrounded with
broad, glass-enclosed balconies. The tracks of a disused tramway ran to
the gate, and the rust upon the rails spoke more forcibly than ever of
desolation and desertion.

We passed through the stone gateway and crossed the snow-covered lawn.
Everything was as dark and dreary as the grave. Surely no one was
within! We mounted the steps and rang the bell. Its peal reverberated
strangely through the empty halls. After a few moments, however, a
light appeared and a solitary man entered the rotunda; he turned the
electric switch, flooding the room with a bright light. He came to the
door, unlocked it, and rolled it back slowly upon its wheels.

"Gut evening, zhentlemen," he said in English, but with a peculiar
Franco-German accent difficult to diagnose. "It iss fery kolt, iss it
not?"

We acknowledged the fact.

"You are vrom the Canadian Hospital?" he queried.

"You were evidently expecting us," I replied. "We are the advance party
from that hospital."

He pushed the door wide for us to enter. We didn’t debate the propriety
of accepting the hospitality of a German, but marched in at once.

"Your dinner vill be retty in a leedle vhile. I vill haf Alvred ligh’d
you the grate, und you soon fery comfortable vill be."

"Show me to the kitchen first," I asked him, "and let me see what
arrangements you have for supper for the men. When they are made
comfortable it will be plenty of time for our dinner."

He piloted us into a large room with red tile floor. There was good
accommodation for the men, and the kitchen ranges were close by. They
had their cooks and rations with them, and as soon as we had chosen
their sleeping quarters and had seen that everything was satisfactory we
returned for our own dinner.

In a commodious room, just off the rotunda, a roaring coal fire was
blazing on the hearth. Big easy-chairs had been conveniently placed for
us, and Burnham and I fell into them and stretched our tired feet toward
the fender upon the rich red Turkish rug. The table was spread close
by, and we noticed the fine linen, the sparkling cut glass, crested
silver and _Limoge_ china. The scent of delicious French cooking was
wafted to us past the heavy silken hangings of the door. Presently our
German host appeared once more:

"Vat vine vill the zhentlemen have mit zehr dinner?" he enquired
politely.

Burnham threw himself back into his seat and laughed aloud. "Holy
smoke!" he chuckled, "and we are at the war!"

"What wines have you?" I enquired tentatively.

"Anyzing you wish to name, zir," he responded with a certain show of
pride.

I thought I would put him to the test. "Bring us a bottle of ’Ayala,’
’04 vintage," I commanded.

"Mit pleasure, zir." And he bowed and retired to get it.

Burnham slapped his knee and burst out: "Am I awake or dreaming? We
walk four miles through a stark forest on a winter night, enter a
deserted hostel, are received by a German spy and fêted like the Lord
Mayor. I expect to fall out of the balloon any minute and hit the earth
with a nasty bump!"

"I’m a little dazed myself," I admitted, "but it’s all a part of the
soldier-game. Some other day we’ll find the cards reversed, and have to
play it just the same."

Our host, however, was not a German, although that was his native
tongue. He came from that little-known country of Luxembourg, which,
sandwiched in between France and her Teutonic enemy, has still
maintained a weak and unavailing neutrality. Being too small and
unprotected to resist, the German army marched unmolested across it in
the early days of war.

"Alvred," who was a French-Swiss, and spoke more languages than I can
well remember, waited upon us at table. We were just finishing an
excellent five-course dinner with a tiny glass of _coin-treau_, when the
sound of a motor-car stopping at the door aroused us from our dream of
heavenly isolation.

As we stepped into the hall, the door opened, and in walked the colonel,
the senior major and the quartermaster, who had followed us from
Boulogne by road.

"Well, how do you like our new hospital?" the colonel demanded with a
satisfied smile.

"We love it," Burnham exclaimed. "It is weird, romantic and altogether
_comme il faut_."

I suggested that a liqueur and a cigar might not be unacceptable after
their long drive. The colonel smiled appreciatively as he replied:

"We _are_ a bit chilly after our journey; I think a little drink will do
us good. What do you say, Major Baldwin?" This question was addressed
to the senior major, who, with the others, had now entered our dining
room.

The artistic surroundings drove the major into poetry at once. He
exclaimed:

"’Ah! my beloved, fill the cup that clears
To-day of past regrets and future fears.’"

"Splendid!" cried Burnham enthusiastically. "Now, let’s have ’Gunga
Din’—you do it so well! How does it go? ’You’re a better drink than I
am, Gordon Gin!’"

"No, no!" said the major deprecatingly. "You mustn’t abuse Kipling—it’s
too early in the evening."

Whether the major intended abusing that famous author at a later hour,
or merely reciting from him, we didn’t enquire. We talked until late,
formulating our plans for the morrow and for many days to come. We made
a tour of inspection about the building. The colonel unfolded his plans
as we walked along the halls.

"This suite," he said, as we came to the end of the hall, "will make a
splendid pair of operating rooms, an anæsthetic and a sterilising room.
The fifth will do for a dressing room for the surgeons, and in the sixth
Reggy will have full sway—that will be his eye and ear reformatory. On
the left we’ll install our X-ray plant, so that all surgical work may be
done in this one wing."

"What about the hotel furnishings," I enquired, "are they to remain in
places?"

"Everything must go, except what is absolutely necessary to the comfort
or care of patients," he replied. "It seems a pity, but we are here not
only to cure patients, but to protect the Government from needless
expense. In the morning set the men to work dismantling the entire
building."

We walked along to the opposite end of the hall.

"Here’s a fine room," exclaimed Major Baldwin, as he peeped into the
dainty boudoir which I had chosen as a bedroom. "Who sleeps in this
luxurious state?"

"I do—for to-night," I replied.

"I want that room for myself," he declared. "It looks like the best in
the place."

How is it we always want that which the other fellow has? Its value
seems enhanced by its inaccessibility.

"It shall be yours to-morrow night," I replied to this covetous request.
It was no deprivation to give it up as there were fifty other rooms,
which the Major had not seen, more richly decorated and more attractive
than mine. This little room was cosy and prettily furnished in
bird’s-eye maple. It boasted an Axminster rug, a brass bed, and the
glow from the open fire lent it a charm which had captivated Major
Baldwin’s eye.

There were other suites of rooms, with private baths attached, and hot
and cold running water. The floors were covered with costly Persian
rugs, and the furniture was of hand-carved olive wood or mahogany.
Private balconies overlooked the golf course and the forest. Every
detail bespoke wealth and luxury combined with the most modern
contrivances for comfort.

The colonel was amused at us: "Pick out whatever rooms you like," he
said, "and enjoy yourselves while you may, for in three days’ time no
one but patients will live in this building. The men will sleep in the
Golf-club house, the nurses in one of these deserted villas, and we
shall have another villa for ourselves."

We discovered that our hospital building was owned by an English
company; hence the great number of bathrooms—thirty-four in all. The
halls and glass enclosed balconies were steam heated throughout, and
each room had its old-fashioned open fireplace to combat the chill of
winter days.

At midnight the colonel and his party left us and commenced their return
journey to Boulogne. Burnham and I climbed the stairs to my bedroom,
our footsteps echoing loudly through the untenanted halls. We sat and
chatted for an hour before the fire. I was getting very sleepy—we had
dined well—and as I looked at Burnham his form seemed to dwindle to
smaller and smaller proportions until he looked like a pigmy from
Lilliput. I amused myself awhile watching this strange phenomenon. By
and by his diminutive size provoked me to remark:

"Do you know, Burnham, although an hour ago when you entered the room, I
mistook you for a full-grown man, I can now see that in reality you are
only about ten inches tall—yet your every feature is perfect."

"Much obliged for the compliment implied in your last clause," he
laughed; "you corroborate suspicions which I have long entertained that
I’m a handsome dog whose beauty has remained unappreciated. It’s a
strange coincidence, but I am labouring under the opposite delusion, and
although an hour ago you waddled into the room—just an ordinary fat man;
now I view you as a Colossus."

I rather approved his regarding me as a Colossus, but saw that I must at
once frown upon that "waddling" idea. It’s an impression I can’t afford
to let go abroad.

"Come, let’s to bed," I cried, "and sleep ’will knit your ravelled
sleeve of care’—I really think your wide-awake impressions are the
worst!"

We arose at six and under our direction the men commenced the work of
disrobing the hotel. The stern necessities of war permit no sentiment.
Everything had to go: The beautiful paintings, the silken hangings, the
Oriental rugs, the artistic statuary, were all rapidly removed and
packed away for safety. The card and dining rooms and lounges were
stripped of their carpets, and before night its former guests would
scarce have recognised the place. Sanitation is the first and paramount
law of a Military Hospital; carpets and unnecessary furniture are a
source of danger, for such a variety of diseases follow the troops that
special care must be given to every possibility for infection and its
prevention.

By five that evening the colonel, the matron and the nursing sisters
arrived, and a few hours later came the balance of our officers and men.
Motor lorries and ambulances toiled through the gates, laden with our
equipment. Hundreds of boxes, crates of iron beds, bales of mattresses
and blankets, folding bedside tables, bags of tents and poles, were
brought to the door in an apparently endless stream. As fast as the
lorries arrived the men unloaded them, piling boxes and bales under the
balconies for protection.

Huxford and the team did their share too, bringing up loads of food from
the train for the men and for prospective patients.

The senior major was pale and tired; he had been up since dawn and had
worked hard. Nothing had been forgotten, and the transport of men and
accoutrement had been accomplished systematically and well. He was a
good soldier, true to his duty, stern and unflinching, and he never
asked others to work without being willing to do more than his own
share. Tired as he was, he would neither rest nor eat until the last
box was unloaded, and the last lorrie had left the grounds—and the men
shared his deprivation.

It was almost nine p.m. as Tim and Barker, staggering under the weight
of a tremendous case, came across the driveway and dumped the last box
to the ground. Tim sat breathless for a moment upon it, then looked
wearily up at Barker, with his head on one side as was his custom when
he soliloquised.

"Dat’s a heavy load t’get offen an empty stummick," he gasped. "I can’t
lif annuder poun’ until I gets a slab o’ roas’ beef under me belt. I’m
dat hungry I could lick de sweat off a bake-shop window."

"I smell supper cookin’ now," said Barker. "Did ye see th’ ranges? Some
cookery, I kin tell ye—they kin roast a whole cow at one time!"

"An’ I kin eat dat same cow jus’ as fas’ as dey kin roast it," Tim
declared. "I’m dat weak from starvation dat a drink uv holy water ’ud
make me drunk!"

About nine-thirty p.m. the men fell upon their supper like a pack of
hungry wolves.

"Gee!—Don’t food taste good—when ye’re hungry," drawled Wilson, with his
mouth full.

"Dat’s right," Tim replied. "Glad t’ see ye’re perkin’ up an’ takin’ a
little notice agin. I fought youse and Huxford wuz about all in."

"Where’d you get the onion?" Wilson queried.

"I foun’ dis in d’ hotel garbage," said Tim, as he took a large bite out
of a Spanish specimen, "an’ I wuz jus’ t’inkin’ wat a diff’rence there
is ’tween an onion and a cake. Hav ye noticed it yerself?"

"I hevn’t eat cake in so long I don’t s’pose I could tell ’em apart
now," Wilson replied.

"Well, dey say ye can’t eat yer cake an’ hev it too; but wit an onion
it’s different—wen ye eat it, it’s like castin’ yer bread upon de
troubled waters—it’ll always come back t’ ye."

Cameron looked up as if he were about to correct this scriptural
misquotation. It seemed to harass his religious sense. He opened his
mouth to speak, but it was too full for utterance, and he had to content
himself with a reproachful look at Tim.

Ten o’clock found everybody sleepy and exhausted. The boys didn’t
trouble to go to their quarters, but, crawling into any available
corner, threw themselves down upon bundles or empty beds, and soon were
fast asleep. The sergeant-major was too tired to care, and for one
night at least discipline was happily forgotten.

In the morning early we were at it again, tooth and nail. If some of
our friends at home, who think the trained nurse is too proud to work,
could have only seen those splendid girls on their first day in the new
hospital, they would still be lost in wonder. They washed woodwork and
windows, helped to put up unruly beds, swept the floors and did a
hundred other menial labours—menial only because in our artificial life
we call them so—cheerfully and speedily.

If some day, by chance, one of our nursing sisters reads these lines,
and blushes at the recollection of her work that day, let her remember
that by that very labour, in our eyes, she was glorified. We shall
always remember with pride those brave girls who were not afraid, when
duty called, to "stoop and conquer."

The following evening I was despatched to Boulogne to interview the
A.D.M.S. regarding our hospital. I was met at the office door by the
D.A.D.M.S., who was one of that breed of cock-sure officer—now _merci a
Dieu_ almost extinct.

"Hello," he cried brusquely. "Is your hospital ready for patients?"

"We should prefer another day or two of preparation, sir," I replied.

"How long have you been out there now?" he demanded.

"Two days, sir."

"What! At the end of two days you mean to tell me you’re not ready!
You’re very slow."

It was the first time we had been accused of sluggishness. It was
undeserved, and I resented it accordingly. I replied—not too politely,
I fear:

"You will please remember we had to dismantle and remove the carpets and
furniture of a large hotel, take stock of the fixtures and house-clean
the building before commencing the setting up of our hospital equipment.
We are ready for two hundred patients now—but we prefer another day or
two to make everything complete."

"I’ll send you two hundred patients to-night," he cried. "Be prepared
for them."

The A.D.M.S., a typical English gentleman of the old school, interfered.
He called his deputy aside and said to him:

"You mustn’t rush patients into a new hospital in this manner. Give
them a few days’ grace." He turned to me and continued: "You will
receive a trainload of patients three days from now. That will give you
plenty of time. Kindly inform your commanding officer to this effect."

Some men brush one’s fur the wrong way, and others smooth it back again.
I had been so rumpled by the D.A.D.M.S. that every bristle of my not too
gentle nature was standing on end—it was not only what he said, but the
manner of the saying; yet the A.D.M.S., with one gentle, kindly stroke
of common sense, had soothed and made me human once again. I felt my
wrath slipping quietly away, and I basked for a moment in the sunshine
of a genial personality. I gratefully murmured:

"Thank you, sir. I shall tell him."

"I trust your hospital will soon prove itself a credit to your staff and
to Canada. Good night, and good luck," he said, as he shook me warmly
by the hand.

It was midnight of the third day after this interview. The orderly on
duty in the hall was suddenly startled by the sharp ring of the
telephone bell. He sprang to his feet and put the strange French
receiver to his ear.

"Yes, this is the Canadian Hospital," he answered; and a distant voice
gave this message:

"A train-load of three hundred wounded will arrive at the station at two
a.m. Be ready for them!"

*CHAPTER VIII*

At last the time for action had come. Three hundred wounded would
arrive in two hours; one-fifth the number would throw the average city
hospital into confusion. Nurses and officers hurried from their villas
to the hospital. The cooks and orderlies were already on duty, and the
hospital presented a scene of bustling but systematic activity.

Our ten wards, each named after a province of our beloved Dominion, were
soon ready for the reception of patients, and the deft hands of the
nursing sisters added the final touch of extra preparation.

The colonel’s motor car throbbed in waiting at the door, and ambulance
after ambulance, with its quota of stretcher-bearers, whirled away into
the darkness of the forest on the road to the station. It was a clear,
cold nights. The ground was hardened by the frost, and the pale
quarter-moon cast a faint chill light over the trees.

Reggy and I clambered into the colonel’s car as it started, and in a
moment we were moving swiftly through the gaunt, trembling shadows of
the wood. As we approached the turning of the road we could see in the
distance the flashing headlights of other motors from the English
hospital, as they too sped toward the train.

When we reached the station a constant stream of vehicles was pouring
through the gates, and as fast as each car or ambulance arrived, it was
backed into the waiting line. Every few yards carbide jets spluttered in
the wind, adding their fitful glare to the strangeness of the scene.

After about an hour’s wait the shrill whistle of the incoming French
train warned us that our vigil was nearly over. In a few minutes the
coaches, each with its big red cross, came clanking slowly into the
station yard. Car after car passed by: one, two, three,—ten,—twenty; it
was a tremendous train. At last it stopped, the doors opened and we had
our first glimpse of the brave boys who had held the line.

Dozens of Scots and English battalions were represented, but there were
no Canadians save ourselves as yet in France. Some of the boys could
stand or walk, and they clambered slowly and painfully down the steep
steps and stood in little wondering groups. God knows they looked
tired, and their clothes were still covered with the dried mud from the
trenches; for during a battle speed and the necessities of the moment
are the important things—the refinements of civilisation must await time
and opportunity. Many were smoking cigarettes; some had bandages about
their head or hands or feet; some had their arms in slings; but from
none was there the slightest groan or sound of complaint. They waited
with soldierly but pathetic patience until we were ready to take care of
them.

One tall young man who was standing apart from the others and whose face
was unusually pale, approached me and saluted. His right hand was
thrust into the bosom of his coat, with his left he nervously drew a
cigarette from his pocket.

"Would you mind helping me light this, sir?" he asked respectfully. "I
can’t protect the match from the wind."

As I assisted him I enquired: "Have you had your right hand wounded? I
see you keep it in your coat."

"It’s not exactly that, sir," he replied, with a faint smile. "I have
no right hand—had it blown off this morning." He drew the bandaged
stump from his breast as he spoke and held it up for inspection.

"But you must be suffering frightfully!" I exclaimed in pity, surprised
at his coolness.

"It does give me ’Gip’ now and again. I can bear it better when I
smoke," and he pulled tremulously at his cigarette.

I helped the brave fellow into one of the waiting motors and turned to
see what I could do for the others. There were dozens with bandaged
feet who limped slowly toward the ambulances.

"What has happened to you chaps?" I enquired, as I came to a group of
six, all apparently suffering from the same condition, and who could
scarcely walk.

"Trench feet, sir," they answered readily.

At the time this was a new disease to me, but we soon saw all too much
of it. It corresponds quite closely to what in Canada is known as
"chilblain," but is much more painful, and is in some ways equivalent to
"frost-bite." It is caused by prolonged immersion in ice-cold water or
liquid mud. In those days too, the trenches were not as well built as
they are to-day, or the ground was lower and more boggy. Men were
subjected to great privations, and suffered untold hardships. "Trench
foot" has now almost entirely disappeared, and conditions in the
trenches are altogether better.

"Were you standing long in the water?" I asked them.

"We’ve been in it night and day since Sunday," they replied—-and this
was Friday!

"Was the water deep?" I asked.

"The mud was up to the waist," one answered; "an’ poor Bill Goggins
stepped in a ’ole in the trench an’ were drowned afore we could get to
’im."

Another spoke up: "A lad from my platoon got into a part of the trench
that were like a quicksand, on’y ’e went down so fast—like as if there
was a suction from, below. We seen ’im goin’, an’ ’e called fer ’elp,
but w’en we got to ’im ’e were down to ’is chin, an’ we couldn’t pull
’im back."

"Good heavens!" I exclaimed in horror. "Was he drowned too?"

"’E were that, sir," he replied. "It were jolly ’ard to see ’im go, an’
us right there!" and there were tears in the good fellow’s eyes as he
spoke.

"Climb into the motor, boys," I said. "We’ll try to make up a little
for the hell you’ve all been through."

There were others who had been severely wounded; some with broken arms
or legs; some shot through the head or chest. It was wonderful to see
the gentleness and kindness of our own rough lads as they lifted them
tenderly from bed to stretcher, and carried them from the train to the
waiting ambulances.

I stepped inside the train for a moment. It was a marvel of a hospital
on wheels. It had comfortable spring beds and mattresses, and soft
woollen blankets. There were kitchens, a dispensary, an emergency
operating room and even bathrooms. A staff of medical officers, nurses
and trained orderlies did all which human power can do to make the men
comfortable during a trying journey. Every man had had his supper, and
his wounds had been dressed _en route_ as scientifically and carefully
as if he had been in a "Base Hospital."

The ambulances rolled slowly away from the train with their precious
loads, the drivers cautiously picking their way along the smoothest
parts of the road; for to the man with a broken leg or arm the slightest
jolt causes pain.

We saw the boys again at the entrance to the hospital, lying in rows on
stretchers, or standing patiently in line, waiting until their names and
numbers were duly recorded. Each one, as this procedure was completed,
was given a little card on which the name of his ward and the number of
his bed was written. He was then conducted or carried to his allotted
place.

How tired they looked as they sat wearily upon the edge of their beds,
waiting for the orderlies to come and assist them to undress! But even
here they were able to smile and crack their little jokes from bed to
bed.

As soon as they were undressed, they were given a refreshing bath, in
which they revelled after their weeks of dirty work and mud. After the
bath came clean, warm pyjamas, a cup of hot cocoa or soup, a slice of
bread and butter, and last, but to the soldier never least, a cigarette.

To him the cigarette is the panacea for all ills. I have seen men die
with a cigarette between their lips—the last favour they had requested
on earth. If the soldier is in pain, he smokes for comfort; if he is
restless he smokes for solace; when he receives good news, he smokes for
joy; if the news is bad, he smokes for consolation; if he is well—he
smokes; when he is ill—he smokes. But good news or bad, sick or well,
he _always_ smokes.

As I entered the ward a Highlander, not yet undressed, was sitting upon
the side of his bed puffing contentedly at his cigarette. His tunic was
still spattered with dried blood.

"Are you badly wounded?" I asked him.

"Not verra badly, sir," he returned, as he stood at attention.

"But you have a lot of blood on your tunic," I said, pointing to his
right side and hip.

"It’s not a’ mine, sir," he replied as he grinned from ear to ear—"it’s
a souvenir from a _Bosche_, but he did make a sma’ hole in ma thigh wi’
his bayonet."

"And what happened to him?"

He laughed outright this time. "He’s got ma bayonet an’ ma rifle too,"
he cried. "Oh, man, but it was a gran’ ficht!"

"Is he dead?" I asked.

"Dead?" he exclaimed. "I hae his top-hat wi’ me noo;" and he held up a
Prussian helmet to our admiring gaze.

I congratulated him and passed on; but I had little time just then for
chatting. All the wounds had to be unbandaged, washed and freshly
dressed, and although we worked rapidly, the nurses undoing the bandages
and attending to the minor cases, while I did the more serious ones
myself, it was broad daylight before we had finished. The morning sun,
stealing gently over the trees, found patients and doctors alike ready
for a few hours’ sleep.

A similar scene had been enacted in every other ward. It was nearly six
a.m. as the other officers and myself, with the exception of the
unfortunate orderly officer, started down the road toward the villa.
Our billet was about a quarter-mile away, but our "mess" was in the
hospital building. I crawled into bed at last, very, very weary, and in
a few moments was lost to the world.

It was Tim who finally roused me from this heavy sleep. He was standing
at the foot of my bed with his head on one side in his customary
bird-like attitude. His stiff black forelock hung straight over his
brow. I was just conscious enough to hear him saying:

"Wake up, maje!"

Before strangers, or before brother officers, Tim was always respectful
to us. He was a trained soldier, and, when occasion demanded, could be,
and was, very regimental. But in the privacy of our home (of which he
was in charge) Tim treated us like children whose pranks might be
tolerated but must not be encouraged.

"What’s the trouble, Tim?" I enquired sleepily.

"It’s time to git up," he complained. "D’ye s’pose ye’re goin’ t’ sleep
all day, jes’ because ye loss ye’re beauty sleep las’ night? Dis is
war—dis is!"

"What’s the hour?" I asked.

"It’s ten o’clock," he replied, "an’ dat Cap’ Reggy’s in de nex’
room—chloroformed agin; wit his knees drawed up an’ his mout’ open
ventilatin’ his brain. Dey ain’t a Pullman in de whole worl’ dat’s as
good a sleeper as dat gent."

By this time I was fully awake, as Tim intended I should be. I turned
over on my side and addressed him:

"Run downstairs now, Tim, and make me a good hot cup of coffee, and a
slice of toast with fried mushrooms on top."

Tim stared at me a moment in open-mouthed amazement. We weren’t
supposed to eat at the villa, but Tim was a good cook and those he
favoured with his "friendship" might coax a cup of tea before rising.

"Fried mushrooms," he repeated, as he went toward the door, shaking his
head slowly from side to side. "Fried—mush—rooms! Gees, an’ dey calls
dis _active_ service!"

But in spite of this show of pessimism, he returned shortly with the
breakfast as ordered.

When we reached the hospital that morning everything was as neat and
clean as though nothing had happened the night before. No adequate
description can be given of the trained nurse at the front. She is one
of the marvels of the war. Patient, industrious, cheerful,
self-sacrificing and brave, she has robbed war of much of its horrors.
She has made the wounded soldier feel that a sister’s care, a mother’s
love and a clever woman’s skill follow him wherever he goes. Her smile
has cheered his lagging day; her gentle touch has soothed his pain and
the warm sympathy of her kindly heart has made the foreign land a home.
Under stress of work and nervous strain, ever forgetful of self, always
thoughtful for others, no truer or nobler band of gentle women ever left
the shores of Canada.

The patients had had a refreshing sleep and a good breakfast and were
now snugly tucked in their clean sheets and warm blankets, looking very
happy and contented. Even those who were badly wounded had partly
forgotten their troubles. Some had souvenirs—German rifle bullets or
bits of shell which had been extracted at the Clearing Hospital farther
up the line, and these they exhibited with great pride to their fellow
patients. The German helmet was always an object of interest. The
slanting cut in the glossy leather of one spoke better than words of a
bayonet thrust which had gone home. Each little bedside table had a few
priceless trinkets, bought with blood, and brought with great difficulty
and care from the battlefield.

It was our custom to postpone surgical operations, except urgent ones to
save life, for one or two days, in order to give the tired soldiers a
chance to get a much-needed rest—a simple expedient whereby many lives
were saved. The patients were grateful for this little reprieve, and
showed their gratitude by recovering more rapidly.

But sometimes it was necessary to operate at once. That morning I found
a poor chap who had been shot through the brain with a rifle bullet.
The missile had entered the temple and emerged at the back of the skull,
fracturing the bone both at the point of entry and exit. His heavy
breathing and stupor told us the case called for immediate relief. In
the operating room pieces of the skull were removed, the depressed bone
lifted, and in about an hour the patient was taken back to his ward. We
had little hope of his recovery.

The following day, when I entered the hospital, his bed was empty. I
thought: "Poor fellow! He has died in the night and no one has sent me
word." I turned with a feeling of disappointment to the man in the next
bed and asked:

"What has become of your neighbour?"

"Oh," he replied, "he’s just gone out to the wash room. He’ll be back
in a few minutes. He stole out of the ward while the nursing sister was
in the other room."

While we were talking he walked in, got quietly into bed and reached for
a cigarette. I bade him good morning, repressing, as well as I could, my
astonishment.

"You are feeling better this morning?" I remarked, as casually as if he
had had a cold in his head.

"Oh, yes, I’m very well in myself, sir," he replied with a contented
smile, "but I have a little headache—I’m thinkin’ the bandages are a bit
tight."

I loosened them and gave him a warning not to get up again. He seemed
disappointed, but promised not to transgress a second time.

It is surprising and pleasing to know that a large percentage of men
shot through the brain recover. Seven out of nine who entered the
hospital one day, some months later, made a good recovery, and when they
left were apparently mentally sound.

A young lieutenant who arrived with one train load of wounded, walked
unassisted up the steps, and smilingly addressed the Registrar:

"About a week ago, a sly bullet popped over the trench and caught me in
the temple. Fortunately it passed out through the opposite side. They
took me down to the Field Ambulance, and, as the surgeon wasn’t very
busy that morning, he said he’d like to take a look inside and see the
works." He laughed aloud at this gruesome witticism and continued: "So
he gave me a whiff of ether, opened the skull and, just as I expected,
found ’nobody home.’ He closed the door, and here I am, as fit as a
fiddle. What a lucky devil I am to have no brains!"

A number of wounded officers had arrived with the men, and many of our
private rooms were filled. We had retained the brass beds, a few
practical chairs and small rugs for these rooms, and with a good fire in
the grate they looked particularly cosy and attractive.

The nurses, too, took special pride in supplementing the meals of the
patients, both officers and men, with delicacies of their own. To the
hot roast chicken was added creamed asparagus or French peas, followed
by appetising salads of fresh green vegetables—which may be had in
France the year round. A bottle of ale or wine and hot-house grapes or
Spanish canteloupe helped to make life pleasant and hastened them along
the road to health. Oh, you may well believe that nothing was omitted
which made for their comfort or well-being. We felt, and justly so,
that for the men who "held the line" there was nothing in this wide
world half good enough. As the inspecting general remarked to the
colonel a few days later:

"Give the boys the best the land affords—if they want Malaga grapes, get
them. If they want beer or wine, let them have it. Spare no expense
that will make them happy and well—they deserve it all!"

As I entered the room of a young English captain, I found him propped up
in bed with a few magazines and books beside him. He was looking very
bright and happy.

"How are you feeling this morning?" It was our stock question.

He smiled pleasantly as he replied: "Splendid, sir, splendid. Your
nurses are charmingly attentive and kind. The rooms and meals are
delightful. I’m in great dread lest I get well too soon!"

He was wounded in the foot; it had been shot through with a piece of
high explosive shell. The small bones were fractured, but he appeared
to be suffering little. The nurse deftly assisted me with his dressing;
after we had finished he said:

"I have a slip of paper here you might be interested to see. I shall
always treasure it as a souvenir of a brave man."

He handed me a little crumpled square on which a few lines in pencil
were scrawled, and continued: "I showed that note to my commanding
officer before they carried me away. It was an humiliation, but it was
my duty."

"What does it mean?" I asked him. "I’m sure this little bit of paper
has a history."

He smiled reminiscently and began: "Our company had been holding a point
in the lines which, under a terrific bombardment, had become untenable.
The commanding officer ordered us to withdraw to a safer trench in the
rear. I called my men and we succeeded in retiring to the position
indicated, in good order and with few casualties.

"I thought every man had left the advanced trench, but a few moments
later when a small body of Germans attempted to storm it, we were
astonished to see it defended by rapid rifle fire from some unknown
source. The battle raged for some hours all along the line, but still
this little spot was stubbornly held. Again and again the Germans
assailed it; but each time with the same lack of success—each attack
they lost twenty or thirty men, and those who reached the trench were
apparently unable to oust its mysterious defenders. When dusk fell the
fighting ceased; and shortly after, I received this little note—it
speaks for itself."

I spread the paper upon my knee and read:

"_Sir:_

"Two other men and I were left behind when the Company withdrew. During
the fight we collected in eight stragglers from other battalions, so we
are now eleven. We held the line against all the attacks. If you, sir,
and the rest of the company wish to come back now, the trench is
perfectly safe.

"JAMES GUFFIN,
"_Sergeant._"

*CHAPTER IX*

Every military unit at the front has its "mascot." Ours was no
exception; in fact we overdid it, and became a sort of home for pets of
all shapes and sizes, from Jean, a little French boy nine years of age,
who wandered in one day from Soissons, to nursing sister Marlow’s baby
goat.

Jean’s mother was dead; his father was fighting at the front, and the
little chap being, as we discovered later, of a migratory disposition,
forsook his native haunts and "took the trail." How or why he came to
us, no one knows, but he liked our company, so he stayed.

A small boy being the only sort of animal we had not already adopted,
was hailed with joy, and before two days had passed, we had taken up a
collection and bought him a complete military uniform, from cap to
boots. He couldn’t speak a word of English—but he was a boy, and as we
too had been boys not so very long ago we understood one another from
the start. Jean picked up English words with disturbing rapidity. He
had learned several distinct and artistic varieties of oaths before we
were aware he understood at all.

Jean and the goat had much in common. They had both been cast upon a
warlike world at a tender age. They had both adopted us, and both
accepted their living from us with gracious condescension.

According to world-wide custom, the goat was promptly nick-named
"Billy," although he was a mere bundle of lank grey wool with legs so
long that it must have made him dizzy every time he viewed the earth
below. He was just strong enough to stagger over to the nursing bottle
which Jean held out in his grimy fist.

Jogman loved Jean; Jean loved the goat, and the goat loved Jogman. Thus
was established an "odd-fellows" circle into which none might break.

"Dat’s a hand fer ye," Tim commented to Jogman, as the pair watched Jean
feeding the goat. "A hand like dat ain’t friends wit’ soap an’ water,
but de goat ain’t too pertickler."

"I washed him about an hour ago," Jogman replied defensively, "but ye
can’t keep th’ boy clean—he ain’t happy without dirt."

Jean sat upon the ground as they spoke, still holding the nursing bottle
up to Billy’s greedy mouth. He understood only a little of what they
were saying, but looked up quickly at the last few words.

"I’m happy here—me," he cried. "_Bien content_—damn!"

The expletive was addressed to Billy who with a sudden tug had pulled
the bottle from his hand.

"Do ye know where small boys that swear go?" asked Jogman reprovingly.

"Big boys what swear go to de war," Jean contended, "an’ me soldier
too."

"If you do it again I’ll send ye back to yer aunt at Soissons," said
Jogman.

The child sprang to his feet at once, and catching him by the hand cried
tearfully: "No!—No!—No!—not back to Soissons—Oh! _Je vous en prie,
non!_"

What strange fear had driven him from home? He couldn’t or wouldn’t
explain it; but he was in great dread of being sent back, and it was the
one threat which influenced him.

"Well, well," said Jogman soothingly, "be a good boy, an’ don’t swear no
more—then we kin keep ye with us."

Jogman had a good heart, but a bad stomach—it’s difficult to get a
perfect combination. Jogman drank; so did the goat, but they imbibed
from different bottles and with different results. He had been on his
good behaviour for almost two weeks—his money had run out. But pay day
came at last and trouble always followed in its wake.

Thirty dollars—over one hundred and fifty francs in French money—was
enough to turn the head of any soldier. With a bulging pocket the
Tommy’s heart throbbed nervously, until he got a chance to "blow it in."
But before this fortuitous event was completed Jogman had signally
disgraced himself and us. Tim accosted him as he was leaving the
hospital grounds:

"Where are ye goin’?" he demanded.

"Goin’ to town to see th’ sights," Jogman returned with a grin.

"_Some_ sights—dose gals," Tim growled. "Remember yer failin’ an’ don’t
hit de can too hard. I can’t bear seein’ ye doin’ mor’n six days ’First
Field’ per week."

Jogman had good cause to know to what form of military punishment Tim
alluded. He had already had several trials of it.

Paris-plage was only two miles distant, and its smart cafés and pretty
girls called irresistibly to the lonely boys. The girls, however, never
worried Jogman. His life was full when his stomach was full, and the
fumes of "cognac" or "whiskey blanc" beckoned him like a siren’s smile.
Loaded down with his full month’s pay and with a twenty-four hour pass
in his pocket, he took the shortest path through the forest towards his
objective.

The day was clear and almost warm, and the soft breeze droned lazily
through the pines. As he reached the edge of the wood he saw before him
the sand dunes rolling gently toward the sea. There was a weird
fascination about those great hollows and hills of sand. Time and the
wind had beaten them so firmly that one might tread upon their crusted
surface and scarcely leave a footprint. Craters as large as the Roman
Coliseum, surrounded by tufted grass, spread before his gaze, but he
tramped stolidly on, hardly conscious of the lonely beauty of his
environment. All that Jogman saw was the top of the large French
hospital which marked the edge of the town and stood out clearly against
the deep blue of the sea.

When he came to the highest point of the dunes he idly noticed the
strange house surmounting it—a dwelling made from an overturned
fishing-smack, with door and windows in its side. But a little farther
on a habitation, stranger still, by accident attracted his attention.
He had lain down for a moment’s rest beside some bushes, and on turning
his head was surprised to see a small window on a level with his eyes.
The house was buried in the sand; its little door, scarce big enough to
permit a man’s body to pass through, was cunningly hidden by the brush
and grass. Whoever lived within was hiding from the world.

Jogman got upon his knees and thrust the brush aside; he pried open the
window and peered within. He saw a small room, neatly furnished with
bed and rug and chair. A dresser stood against the wall. An electric
light hung from the ceiling, but no wires were visible without. The
clothes still lying upon the bed, the overturned chair and the remains
of a lunch upon the table all spoke of a hasty departure. Perhaps it
had been the secret home of a German spy. If so, he had decamped some
time since.

Dismissing idle speculation, but making a mental note for future
reference, Jogman rose and proceeded on his quest. He soon found
himself in the streets of that lively little town which has been aptly
called the "Monte Carlo" of northern France. Its big gambling "Casinos"
had long since been turned to better use, and the beds of wounded
soldiers now replaced the gambling tables and _petits chevaux_.

Hurrying through the "Swiss Village" and scarcely taking time to
acknowledge the greetings of a Belgian lassie who waved her hand from a
shop window as he passed, he entered the _Café Central_ and seating
himself at one of the little round tables forthwith called for a drink.
The barmaid approached him.

"_M’sieur veut?_" she asked.

"Gimme a glass of Scotch an’ soda," Jogman demanded.

"Ees eet wiskie m’sieur desires?" she queried in broken English.

"Yes—whiskey—big glass," said Jogman picturing the size with his two
hands.

"_Oui, m’sieur._"

She filled his glass. He drank it thirstily and called for another.
Several more followed their predecessors, and being now comfortably
alight he proceeded up street, seeking new worlds to conquer.

The butcher-shop door stood invitingly open. Jogman entered unsteadily;
what maudlin idea was fermenting in his brain none but himself might
say. The fat butcher, meataxe in hand and pencil behind his ear,
approached to take his order.

"_Bonjour, monsieur!_" he said.

Jogman placed one hand upon the slab, the better to steady the shop
which, ignoring the law of gravity, was reeling in most unshoply
fashion.

"Bone Dewar, yerself!" he cried, incensed at being addressed in an
unintelligible language. "Why th’ hell can’t ye speak English—like
a—white man?"

How often we too have been unreasonably irritated by a foreign and
incomprehensible tongue! Jogman’s sense of injustice was
preternaturally keen just then. The butcher was a trifle alarmed at his
attitude without in the least understanding the cause of complaint.

"_Quest ce que vous voulez, monsieur?_" he demanded nervously.

"Drop that hatchet!" cried his irrational customer, making a step
forward. "Drop it, er I’ll drop you."

The unfortunate shopkeeper grasped his weapon more firmly still, and
stood tremulously on the defensive.

"I’ll learn ye to do as ye’re told!" shouted Jogman, and seizing a large
knife from the slab he rushed at the frightened man who ran screaming
into the street, with Jogman in hot pursuit.

The sight of a British soldier brandishing a meat knife and chasing a
fellow citizen along the main street was terrifying in the extreme to
the peaceful denizens of the town. They ran shrieking for help, bolting
into their shops or houses, and barring the doors as though the devil
himself with a regiment of imps on horseback were at their heels.

Jogman had cleared the _Rue de Londres_ and in the pride of drunken
conquest was about to attack the lesser streets, when the Military
Police hove in sight. Much to his annoyance the disturbance interrupted
Sergeant Honk in a monosyllabic conversation, which he was holding with
a pretty French girl. He humped himself around the corner just in time
to see the Sergeant of Police take the belligerent Jogman by the scruff
of the neck and the seat of his breeches and heave him into a waiting
ambulance.

Honk returned to his Juliette. She had retired to her balcony and
refused to descend. Honk lifted his voice appealingly from the street:

"H’I say! Down’t ye’ be h’afeered—’e won’t come back, an’ ’e wouldn’t
’urt ye when h’I’m ’ere. Come h’on down!"

But Juliette was obdurate, and turned a deaf ear to his entreaties.

"_Merci—je ne descends point!_" she returned. This was about as
intelligible to Honk as Chinese script, but he understood the shake of
the head all too well.

"Blast ’im," he grumbled; "them bloomin’ blokes what drinks is goin’ to
’ave th’ ’ole bleedin’ town h’about our h’ears. Th’ gals won’t look at
a decent feller soon." And he forthwith went to drown his sorrow in a
mug of beer.

Honk’s complaint was soon verified by the facts. Jogman’s fame flew
from house to house with such infernal rapidity that in less than
twenty-four hours the French had learned an English phrase which it cost
our lads several months of good conduct to eradicate. It was simple and
to the point: "Canadians no good!" For weeks afterward it was shouted
at them every time they entered the village. The populace gathered in
little groups close to their own homes, while a few of the more timid
locked themselves in and shouted through the shutters these same
humiliating words.

As Jogman was brought in to the Guard Room, Barker caught a glimpse of
him.

"Well," Barker cried in scathing criticism; "the colonel said I wuz th’
first t’ disgrace th’ unit. By cripes; I wuzn’t th’ last. You sure
made a good job uv it!"

The colonel was a busy man. His day was as varied and colourful as
Job’s coat. When it wasn’t the vegetable woman who had to be bartered
with, it was the iceman who sought, with true French business acumen, to
show him why he wasn’t really overcharged, although the bill was three
times what the natives had to pay.

"Alvred" had been installed as "Interpreter," and throughout all these
ridiculous and unsatisfactory arguments maintained a face as impassive
as an English butler at a club dinner.

If the electric light bill to the former tenant was eighty francs per
month, and our bill was three hundred francs for the same period,
monsieur was assured, on word of honour, that the party of the first
part was undercharged, and would forthwith be requested to pay the
difference. But one thing was certain; the account against us was
_always_ correct.

When the colonel had finished these little business details he was
hurried away to the operating room. A serious case was awaiting his
skilled hand. The wounded man, whose thigh had been shattered with a
rifle bullet, was lying upon the table waiting patiently to be
etherised. The colonel stepped over to pass a kindly word with him
before he was put to sleep.

"And how are you this morning?" he enquired.

"Oh, verra weel in me’self," the poor fellow answered, with a ready
smile, "but ma leg is a bit troublesome. I hope ye won’t hae t’ cut it
off, sir?"

"Oh, I think not," the colonel declared reassuringly. "I expect it won’t
be as serious as that."

"In course, sir, ye’ll dae whichever ye think best—but I hae a wife and
twa wee bairnies at hame, an’ I were thinkin’ as how I’d be better able
tae dae for them wi’ baith ma legs."

"We’ll do our very best to save it," the colonel answered.

In a few minutes we were dressed in our white gowns and caps. The X-ray
plates were brought in and placed in the illuminator for us to see the
exact damage done. The thigh bone was badly splintered for a distance
of three inches, and one large piece was torn away. We hoped to be able
to put a steel plate upon the bone, and, by screwing it down, draw the
fragments together with some fair chance of having them unite. This is
a delicate operation, and not only demands considerable skill, but the
operating facilities must be perfect.

Fortunately our operating room was ideal, with its white enamelled walls
and marble basins, its rubber covered floor, the most modern of surgical
appliances, and, most important of all, a staff of highly trained
nurses—it was as ideal as science could make it.

With a bright keen knife the incision was made down to the bone. Alas!
It was hopelessly fractured. For a space of several inches there was
nothing but tiny fragments, and the one long loose piece we had seen in
the X-ray plate. The colonel turned, and said:

"What a pity! The space is so large, the bone will never regenerate.
This leg should come off—but I promised to try and save it."

We discussed the situation for a few moments, and finally decided to try
an experiment. The loose piece of bone had not yet been thrown away.
Might it be used as a splint? We fitted it in between the upper and
lower fragment—it was just long enough to be wedged between. We drilled
a hole through either end and fastened it firmly with silver wire.
Would it grow or decay there? We had grave doubts, and time alone would
tell.

Let no one imagine that in the thousands of operations performed at the
front surgeons become careless! Every case is a special one; every
"Tommy" the private patient of the Empire. The surgeon’s responsibility
is as great—and he feels it, too—in that far-away land, as it is at
home.

We put the limb in a plaster cast to hold it firm. It had been a clean
wound—no infection—we had hopes. Six weeks later the bone had united
fairly well, and in three months McPherson was able to walk!

But when this operation was done the colonel’s troubles were by no means
over for the day. It was ten o’clock, and "office" must be held. This
miniature military "Police-Court" sits every morning, with the
commanding officer as judge. If the court is small, it is by no means
unimportant. Jogman realised this as he stood waiting with the guard
and witnesses in the hall, the day after his great "debâcle."

The colonel and adjutant were seated in due state, being in full
"service dress," which, as distinct from undress, comprises belt and
cap. The sergeant-major, in equally dread attire, ordered the guard and
prisoner (the latter being minus both belt and cap—these appurtenances
being denied him) to "’Shun!—Right turn; quick march!—Halt!—Right turn!"
and the whole squad was in line, awaiting "office."

The colonel’s face wore a tired and worried expression; his smile had
disappeared. The sergeant-major announced:

"Private Jogman, sir!"

The adjutant read the charge sheet. "Number 17462, Private James Jogman,
is accused with conduct to the prejudice of good order and military
discipline, in that he, on the afternoon of the 21st instant at 4 p.m.,
in the village of Paris-plage, was disorderly."

The colonel turned to the accused: "Private Jogman, you have heard the
charge against you, as read. Are you ’guilty’ or ’not guilty’?"

"Not guilty,—sir," Jogman muttered shamefacedly.

Sergeant Honk, as a witness, expressed his surprise by an almost
imperceptible lifting of the brush of red hair which did service in lieu
of eyebrows. The sergeant-major’s lip curled slightly. The colonel’s
face remained immobile.

"Read the written statement of the Military Police, Mr. Adjutant," he
commanded.

The adjutant did so. Each line was correct and convincing. The
accused, when asked, declined to express an opinion on it.

"Who is the first witness?" the colonel asked.

"Sergeant Honk, sir."

"Sergeant Honk, what do you know of this case?" demanded the Colonel.

"Sir, h’on the afternoon of the twenty-first, at about four o’clock, h’I
was talkin’ to a lady h’on the main street of Paree-plaige, when h’I
’eard th’ devil of a row—beg pardon, sir, it slipped h’out afore I
thought."

"Go on;" said the colonel drily. "I daresay what you state is quite
correct."

Thus encouraged, Honk resumed with morose enthusiasm: "H’I says to th’
young lady, says h’I, ’Somethin’s broke loose ’ere.’ The women and men
was a-screamin’ an’ runnin’ into their ’ouses. H’I run to the corner as
fast as me legs could carry me—" Jogman looked instinctively at Honk’s
queer limbs, as if he were about to do a mental calculation of his
speed, but was immediately called to attention by the sergeant-major.

"When h’I got there, h’I see th’ prisoner goin’ like h—— (h’excuse me,
sir); well, ’e were goin’ some, I tell ’e, with a butcher’s’ knife in
’is mit——"

"Did he appear intoxicated?" the colonel interrupted.

"’Orrible drunk, h’I calls it, sir—’e were that same, sir; and afore h’I
gets to ’im, th’ Sergeant o’ Police ’ad ’im by th’ seat of ’is pants an’
’oisted ’im into the waggin!"

"Have you any questions to put to the witness?" the colonel asked.

"Yes, sir," Jogman replied. "Will Sergeant Honk state, sir, how many
beers he had inside him when he thought he seed me?"

The unfortunate Honk turned a deeper hue of red, and shuffled
uncomfortably from one foot to the other.

"Your question is not allowed," the colonel replied sternly. "There is
plenty of other evidence to show that Sergeant Honk’s vision was
reasonably accurate."

Other witnesses were called, but the evidence was all equally damning.
At last the colonel asked the prisoner if he had any further defence to
offer.

Jogman replied: "Yes, sir. Last month I fell from the boiler and my
head has been queer ever since. When I take a drink I don’t know what
I’m doin’. I don’t remember anything about all this."

And the Colonel replied: "This month you fell from the water waggon, and
your head is queerer than before. For the crime of which you are guilty
you might be shot; but I intend being lenient with you—on one
condition—"

Jogman looked up expectantly.

"—and that is—that you sign the pledge that you will not touch another
drop of liquor while you are in France."

Honk looked as if he thought this worse than being shot. Jogman glanced
furtively at the colonel’s face; he had never seen him look so severe
before. It was a big sacrifice, but it could not be avoided. He heaved
a sigh and replied slowly: "I’ll—sign—it, sir!"

"Twenty-eight days First Field Punishment!"

"Right turn, quick march!" cried the sergeant-major; and "office" was
over for the day. Remorseful recollection of the pledge he had just
signed clouded Jogman’s brow.

"He’s gone an’ spoiled th’ whole war fer me," he grumbled, as they led
him away.

*CHAPTER X*

Reggy might have been a success as Mess Secretary, if it hadn’t been for
the Camembert cheese. No one could have remained popular long under
such a handicap. He had discovered it in some outlandish shop in
Paris-plage. The shopkeeper had been ostracised and the health
authorities called in.

Some one has said that cheese improves with age. I do not propose to
indulge in futile argument with _connoisseurs_, but Reggy’s cheese had
passed maturity and died an unnatural death. When he produced its green
moss-covered remains upon the table, the officers were forthwith divided
into two factions—those who liked cheese and those who did not; and the
latter class stated their objections with an emphasis and strength which
rivalled the Camembert.

Corporal Granger had charge of the Mess. He was a quiet, gentlemanly
little chap who said little, thought much, and smoked when he had a
chance. He opened the box before dinner, took a whiff which distorted
his face, and silently passed the box to his assistants.

Wilson and René—a French-Canadian lad—wrinkled their noses in unison
over it; then Wilson drawled:

"Smells—like a—disease—we uster have—in the ward upstairs."

But René’s atavistic sense approved the cheese. "Dat’s bon fromage," he
declaimed emphatically. "Cheese ain’t good until it smells like dat."

"Then folks to home eats a lot what’s bad fer them—don’t they?" Wilson
retorted, with mild satire; "an’ them so healthy too!"

René disdained controversy, and with unruffled dignity continued laying
the table. During the first few months of our labours he had been
orderly to no less a person than the senior major—hence his feeling of
superiority. But he and the Second-in-Command hadn’t always agreed; the
senior major had a _penchant_ for collecting excess baggage, and it
behooved his unfortunate batman to pack, unpack and handle his
ever-increasing number of boxes and bags. By the time we reached
Boulogne these had become a great burden. René looked ruefully down
upon it before he started to lift it, piece by piece, into the lorrie.

"Ba gosh!" he exclaimed, in perspiring remonstrance, "I hope de war don’
last too long—er it’ll take one whole train to move de major’s
bag-gage!"

René was impressionable and had all the romantic instinct of the true
Frenchman. As I watched him decorating the table with flowers—we were
to have company that night, and it was to be an event of unusual
importance to us—my recollection carried me back to a bleak October
night on Salisbury Plain. It was scarcely nine p.m., but I had turned
in and lay wrapped in my sleeping bag, reading by the light of a candle
propped on a cocoa tin. René had just returned from "three days’
leave," having travelled over fifty miles to see a little girl whose
face had haunted him for weeks. He was flushed with excitement and had
to unburden his heart to some one. He stepped into my tent for a
moment, the rain running off his cap and coat in little rivulets onto
the floor.

"I’m afraid you’re in love, René," I teased, after he had given me a
glowing account of his trip.

"I t’ink dat’s right," he exclaimed, with sparkling eyes. "Why, dat’s
de purtiest gal what I ever see. Dose arms of hers! Gee, dere ain’t
lilies so white like dat, an’ de roses of her cheeks!—every time I meet
her, I see her like more kinds of flowers!"

"But you’ll see another bud next week, René," I interjected, "and forget
all about this dainty little flower."

"Me forget? Non!" he declared, with conviction—and then a wistful look
crept into his big brown eyes. He sat upon the edge of Reggy’s cot
opposite and reminiscently smoothed the hair off his brow before he
continued:

"Sometime wen you’re up de Gat’-ineau at home, an’ de lumbermen free de
logs in de riviere, you see dem float so peaceful down de stream. De
water is run so slow an’ quiet you don’ see no movement dere; but bimeby
de riviere go lil’ faster, de ripples wash de banks, de logs move
swifter an’ more swift until dey come above de falls—-dey fall, crash,
boom! One gets stuck, annuder an’ annuder; dey jam—dey pile up higher
an’ more high—more hun’reds of logs come down, an’ jam an’ jam. De water
can’t pass—it overflow de bank an’ spread out in a great lake over de
fields."

[Illustration: RENÉ HAD RISEN IN THE EXCITEMENT OF HIS DESCRIPTION]

René had risen in the excitement of his description. The candle light
shone faintly upon his broad shoulders and handsome, inspired face. His
right arm was extended in harmony with the vehemence of his description.
He continued more softly:

"Dat riviere is me; de falls is my lil’ gal at de turnin’-point of my
life, an’ de great lake is my love which has burst over de fields of my
fancy an’ freshes all de dry places. I can’t tell you how I love dat
gal—sometimes I tink—maybe—I marry her some day."

At this juncture the senior major had thrust his head inside the tent.

"René," he called sternly, "get back to your work! Wash my rubber boots
and keep an eye on the tent ’til I return."

And poor René, thus rudely brought to earth, had crept silently away.

At seven-thirty p.m., the shrill call of the bugle sounded "Officers’
Mess":

"The officers’ wives get pudding and pies,
The soldiers’ wives get skilly—"

It is the one call which every officer, senior or junior, knows by
heart, and answers promptly.

A mess dinner is a parade, and is conducted with all the pomp and
dignity peculiar to a Chinese wedding. Woe betide the untrained "sub"
who dares seat himself before the Commanding Officer has taken his place
at the centre of the table! For the first time since our arrival in
France, we were to be honoured with the presence of several ladies, and
the whole mess was in a state of excitement compatible with the
seriousness of such an occasion. It was so long since any of us had
dined under the charming, but restraining, influence of the fair sex
that, as Reggy afterward remarked, he was in a condition bordering on
nervous prostration lest he forget to eat the ice cream with his fork,
or, worse still, "butter" his bread with _paté de fois gras_.

Reggy had other worries on his mind as well. He had been taken aside
early, and solemnly warned that if he, his heirs, executors or assigns,
dared to bring forth upon the table so much as a smell of his
ill-favoured cheese, he would be led out upon the sand dunes at early
dawn and shot. This precaution having been duly taken, he was permitted
to retire to the pantry with Fraser and Corporal Granger, and amuse
himself making thirty Bronx cocktails for our express delectation.
Promptly, as the last note of the bugle died away, the colonel and
matron ushered our fair guests into the Mess Room.

Had our long separation from the beautiful women of Canada whetted our
sense of appreciation? Or was it some dim recollection of an
almost-forgotten social world which stimulated our imagination?
Certainly no more exquisite representatives of the, to us, long-lost
tribe of lovely women ever graced a Mess Room in France!

After the customary introductions had taken place, the twenty-five
officers who now comprised our Mess distributed themselves in various
awkward positions about the chairs of the five ladies—all the rest of
our chairs were at the table—each trying vainly to give himself that
appearance of graceful ease which indicates that the entertainment, of
_grandes dames_ is our chief sport in Canada.

What a dreadful encumbrance one’s hands are on such an occasion! A
military uniform does not take kindly to having its wearer’s hands
thrust deeply into his breeches pockets, and, as every one knows, this
is the only way to feel at ease when addressing a lady in her evening
gown—if you fold your hands unostentatiously behind your back, it
hampers your powers of repartee.

Lady Danby, who conducted a Red Cross Hospital in a near-by town,
appreciated our embarrassment, and did her best to make us feel at home.

"What a delightful Mess Room!" she exclaimed, as her tall, lithesome
figure sank into an arm chair. "It must be so restful and refreshing
after those dreadful operations!"

"Captain Reggy finds it very restful indeed," Burnham volunteered
mischievously; "he spends a great deal of his time here—mixing drinks."

"Ah!—and he does them so very well too," exclaimed Madame Cuillard, with
a flash of her beautiful dark eyes toward the hero of the moment, and
lifting her glass to him in gracious compliment. "He is a man after my
own heart."

"Madam, you flatter me," Reggy murmured, with a low bow, "and yet I fear
I am not the first who has been ’after’ such a kindly heart?"

"Nor you shall not be the last, I hope," the little widow returned, with
a rippling laugh. "Still, ’Weak heart never won’—ah, non—I am forgetting
my English—let it pass. A heart is so easy to be lost in France—you
must be careful."

Fraser’s Gibsonian figure towered above the others as he and Father
Bonsecour and the senior major stood chatting with two Canadian guests.
The girls made a pretty contrast, petite, dainty and vivacious; the one
with blue-black hair and large soft brown eyes, the other fair as an
angel, with hair of finely spun gold and eyes as blue as the sea over
the dunes.

"May I take your glasses?" Fraser queried.

"Thank you, by all means," said the little brunette smilingly. "There’s
nothing I regret more than an empty glass or a flower that is dead."

"The former leaves little to hope, and the latter hopes little to leaf,"
asserted the senior major sententiously, animated by the beauty of our
guests.

"What a dreadful pun, Major Baldwin!" cried the pretty blonde. "You
deserve five days C.B.!"

"Thank Heaven," laughed the major, "we don’t always get our deserts! We
incorrigibles may still, for a moment

_"’Take the cash and let the credit go,_
_Nor heed the rumble of the distant drum’!"_

But the Colonel interrupted these delightful inanities by offering his
arm to Lady Danby and showing her to the seat of honour on his right.
The other ladies were distributed as impartially as was possible amongst
the remaining twenty-four of us. We stood for a moment with bowed heads
while our chaplain repeated that concise but effective military grace:

"For what we are about to receive, thank God!" and then we took our
seats.

The dinner was progressing splendidly. Wilson hadn’t spilled the soup;
René hadn’t tripped over the rug; course after course had proceeded
under Granger’s worried eye with daintiness and despatch. The _sole
meuniere_ was done to a turn, the roast pheasant and asparagus had been
voted superb, and the ice-cold salad a refreshing interlude. Even the
plum pudding, with its flaming sauce, had been transported without
accident to the guests, when Reggy beckoned with a motion of the head to
Granger, and whispered something in his ear.

Granger was the best lad in the world when he wasn’t disturbed, but if
he became excited anything might happen. The order was transmitted to
René, and in a moment the murder was out. Whether through
misunderstanding, or René’s secret pride in its possession, Reggy’s
cheese had been excavated, and before it was possible to interfere, its
carcase was upon the table!

The scent of hyacinth and lilies-of-the-valley faded on the instant; the
delicate charm of _poudre de riz_ was obliterated and all the delicious
odours of the meal were at once submerged in that wonderful, pungent,
all-embracing emanation from the cheese.

The colonel turned first red, then pale. He cast an appealing glance at
Reggy—it was too late. The rest of us glared surreptitiously and
silently at the culprit. An inspiration seized him. Unobserved, he
signalled the mess president, who rose to his feet on the instant.

"Mr. Vice—The King!" he commanded.

"Ladies and gentlemen—The King!" came the formal but inspiring reply.

The cheese was forgotten. We were upon our feet, and lifting our
glasses we drank to our sovereign. Cigars and cigarettes were passed
around, and we waited patiently until the colonel lighted his cigar—for
no one smokes at mess until the O.C. has set the example, or given his
permission. The offending element had been quickly but quietly removed
from the table, and once more peace and happiness prevailed.

But Reggy’s fate as Mess Secretary was sealed!

*CHAPTER XI*

The first line of a certain popular song emphasises a bold and truthful
platitude, namely: "The World’s growing older each day." The
incontrovertible fact is plumped unexpectedly before us, and blocks our
only exit down the passage of argument. If it had read: "The World’s
growing _smaller_ each day," we might have run to our text-book of
Elementary Physics, and, placing a stubby but argumentative forefinger
on the Law of the Indestructibility of Matter, have proved it a
falsehood of the Nth. degree. But, of course, this must all have
happened before the War. Every one knows now—every Tommy can tell
you—that the world is really and truly smaller; for, if not, how is it
he meets Bill, or Jake, or Harry on the streets of _Poperinghe_ or
_Dickibusch_? He knows instinctively that the world is shrinking, and
Halifax and Vancouver may be found any time jumbled together in a little
Belgian village on the wrong side of the Atlantic. I hadn’t seen Jack
Wellcombe for twenty-five years—we had been school chums together—and
his name had almost faded from the pages of my mind; so that on entering
the hospital the morning after Reggy’s last dinner, I received a slight
shock as I lifted a new chart from the table and saw this name staring
up at me:

"Captain J. Wellcombe. Royal Army Medical Corps."

Had the world really become so small? Could a quarter century be bridged
in an instant? I seemed to see the little old stone schoolhouse once
again; its low-ceilinged room, the big box-stove, the well-hacked seats,
and the rows of little boys and girls bowed over their greasy slates.
The scent of midday lunches stowed away floated back to me in memory’s
dream, and the haw-tree brushed its leaves against the window pane. I
saw Jack as he was then, with frank blue eyes and waving golden
hair—courteous, genial and big-hearted, beloved by all; and I wondered
as I stood there if by any chance this might be he.

The nursing sister awoke me from this reverie: "He arrived in the early
morning," she volunteered, "but as he was not seriously hurt I didn’t
call you, and dressed the wound myself."

It was with a feeling of nervous tension and expectancy that I followed
her down the hall to his room and entered. Alas! the world is full of
disappointments. It was not Jack—this dignified man with the touch of
grey about the temples—but still the resemblance grew stronger, the
kindly blue eyes, the same winsome smile—I wondered still.

We passed the customary greetings and chatted commonplaces for a few
moments, and all the time his face wore an expression of puzzled
enquiry, as if he too were trying to recall some faint memory from the
past. At last I blurted out:

"Are you by any chance related to Jack Wellcombe, of K——?"

"A very close relation," he returned laughingly. "I am his dearest
friend; in fact—himself. And you—you are Mac—dear old Mac!" he cried,
stretching out both hands to me in his impetuous, warm-hearted way. I
could have hugged him, I was so glad to see him!

"What a queer game is Life!" he exclaimed a moment later. "For years
you and I have been shaken about, with many a jolt, in the dice-box of
the world, and now, like two Jacks, we are once more tossed together
upon the Table of Fate!"

While we were chatting over old times, the nurse unwound his bandages.

"I hope it doesn’t hurt too much?" I asked him, as I examined his wound
preparatory to dressing it.

"It’s a mere scratch," he returned lightly; "a piece of shrapnel through
the flesh of the thigh; but the surgeon at the Field Ambulance thought I
should come back to hospital for a week or two. Things are rather noisy
around Ypres."

"But what possessed you to join the R.A.M.C.?" I enquired. "You should
be with the Canadians."

He laughed. "Oh, you chaps were too long in coming over. I’d have lost
three whole months of the war. I was in England when it broke out, and
came over with the First Expeditionary Force."

"You were in the retreat from Mons, then!" I exclaimed in envious
admiration.

"Every foot of it," he replied. "That _was_ a fight, you may well
believe. But the Huns didn’t have it all their own way. I saw a
strange scrap one day between a French and a German battalion. The Huns
sprang suddenly out of an ambush and were upon the French with the
bayonet before you could catch your breath. Taken by surprise, the
’poilus’ ran for all they were worth for about a quarter of a mile—and
they are some sprinters too—the Huns following them, shouting like
demons. Suddenly the French stopped—they must have been running to get
their second wind—wheeled about, and with fixed bayonets charged back
like a streak of forked lightning through the Germans. You never saw
such a surprised and rattled bunch of Huns since you were born. If it
hadn’t been so awful I could have shrieked with laughter. But the
French weren’t satisfied with going through them once; they turned about
and came back at them again, like a regiment of cavalry. The Huns
seemed stupefied with amazement and terror; they fought like men in a
daze, and very few ever got back to tell the story of the ’cowardly
French who ran away’!"

"We, too, have underestimated the French, I’m afraid," I said. "We are
beginning to realise their possibilities as a fighting force, and the
Germans aren’t yet awake to their strength and determination."

"They fought well at the battle of the Marne," Jack remarked. "It makes
me smile still as I picture a fat little French officer with drawn
sword—God only knows what he intended doing with it—who stood behind a
haystack waving to his men to come on. He was absolutely fearless.
Again and again he charged up that steep hill with the men, and when
they couldn’t make it, back he would come to hide behind his hay-stack
and wait until he could induce them to try it again. About the fifth
attack they succeeded and went on over the hill."

I questioned him about the battle of Ypres. (This, of course, was the
first battle of Ypres—not that in which the Canadians distinguished
themselves.)

"It was fast work at ’Wipers,’" he said, "with shells falling into the
town like a thousand roaring devils. They dropped one into the
signaller’s billet. It tore a hole in the side of the building large
enough to march an elephant through, and killed every mother’s son of
them. A ’Jack Johnson’ came through the roof of our hospital and
dropped into the ward—exit ward! There wasn’t a bed left standing.
Luckily we had removed most of the patients into the cellar—but those
who were left are still there, buried in the ruins."

"The usual German respect for the Red Cross!" I commented bitterly.

"The flag makes a good mark for their artillery," he returned, with a
smile; "they always look for us."

"You’ve had many narrow squeaks, I presume?"

He laughed merrily. "So narrow that if I had had a big stomach it might
have been whittled down to sylph-like proportions. I was standing one
day close to a dug-out, talking to two brother officers. The
’Whizz-Bangs’ and ’Coal Boxes’ were sizzling over from time to time, but
not especially close. An old friend of mine" (Jack always had an "old
friend" everywhere!) "stuck his head out of the dug-out and shouted up
to me:

"’Drop in and have a drink, Jack—the water’s fine!’

"I told him I was never thirsty in the mornings. He looked surprised,
but called back again:

"’If you’ll do me the honour to descend, I’ll make you a fine long John
Collins!’

"’Well, well,’ I said, ’as you’re so kind and such a persistent beggar,
I’ll humour you.’ The other two officers said they wouldn’t go in, and
so I climbed down into his dug-out and sat down.

"Just as I did so a big shell came—bang!—right where I had been
standing. We sprang to our feet and looked out—the poor chaps I had
just left had been literally blown to pieces!"

He lay pensively silent for a moment or two, and there was a suspicious
glint of moisture in his eyes as he turned his face toward the wall.
Then he turned on his side once more, and smiling brightly up at me,
murmured:

"It’s been a great lesson to me!"

"In what way?" I queried.

"Never to refuse a drink!"

It will take more than a world’s war to depress Jack. His cork-like
spirit will always make him pop up serene to the surface of the
whirlpool of life.

"You know the Guild Hall at Wipers?" he exclaimed a moment later.

"No; I haven’t been to the actual firing line yet," I returned. "The
only time we realise there is a war back here is when the trains of
wounded come in; or, on a stormy night, when the wind blows fiercely
from the trenches, and the boom of the great guns is driven here
intermittently with the gusts."

"As soon as I can stand upon this peg of mine, you and the colonel and I
will motor up and see it all," he declared, with assurance.

"Agreed!" I cried. "You may now feel confident of a speedy recovery.
But tell me more about ’Wipers.’"

He raised himself on one elbow, and commenced reminiscently: "Our dear
old colonel was billeted in the tenement row which used to be in the
square of Ypres, close to the Guild Hall. We had been shelled out of
place after place, but for several days lately Fritzie had left us in
peace. It was too good to last long. One night they started chucking
big shells into the cathedral and what was left of the square. I counted
fifty-seven falling over and around the colonel’s billet. I began to
suspect the place. Taken as an exhibition of fire-works, it was a
success, but as a health resort it had defects.

"It was about eleven o’clock, and some of the houses in the row had
already been hit. Ye gods! Vesuvius in its balmiest days was like a
Chinese lantern to this—for a second, in a lull, you would hear the
whine of a big shell; then, crash! it went into a building, and shell
and house went up together in one frightful smash-up.

"I went over to wake the old boy, as he showed no symptoms of having
been disturbed. It was useless to rap—there was such an infernal racket
with shells bursting, roofs toppling in and walls falling out. I
stumbled up the dark stairs to his room. He was sound asleep—think of
it! I spoke to him, but he didn’t wake; so I shook him gently by the
shoulder and he opened his eyes.

"’Hello, Wellcombe!’ he growled, in his rough but genial way. ’What the
devil brings you prowling around at this time of night?’

"I told him that I thought the billet was becoming a trifle unsafe, as
some of the other houses in the row had already been hit.

"’Is that all you came to tell me?’ he asked, with indifference.

"I said it seemed sufficient to me, and told him we had no wish to lose
him.

"’Well, well,’ he came back at me, but not unkindly, ’and you woke me
out of a sound sleep to tell me this! Go and get me a drink and then
run along like a good fellow and go to bed.’

"And after the old chap had his drink he thanked me, turned over in bed,
and I believe was sound asleep again before I got out of the house—while
a continual hell of fire and shells tore the guts out of the town about
him! When I went back in the morning, there was only one house left
standing in that row—the colonel’s. The others were a crumpled mess of
bricks and mortar!"

I chatted with him as long as I could, and then, telling him I would
drop in later in the day, continued my rounds on the wards.

As we entered one of the smaller rooms, I noticed a bright-eyed,
red-cheeked Scotch lad, not more than seventeen years of age, seated
upon his cot. He was chatting animatedly with several others, but
sprang to attention as we approached. The nurse unwound the bandages
and showed me his wound—a bayonet cut across the palm. We had already
heard from his comrades that this slip of a boy, with the smiling eyes
and ringing laugh, was one of the finest bayonet fighters in his
battalion, and had to his credit a string of German scalps that would
make a Pawnee Chief green with envy. His wound was the result of
grasping his opponent’s bayonet during one of these fights.

The nurse looked up at the boyish face—the big blue eyes and laughing
mouth—he did seem such a child!

"How _can_ you," she cried involuntarily; "how _can_ a little lad like
you bear to kill men with a bayonet?"

[Illustration: "HOW CAN YOU?" SHE CRIED INVOLUNTARILY,
"HOW CAN A LITTLE LAD LIKE YOU BEAR TO
KILL MEN WITH A BAYONET?"]

His lips parted over his even white teeth in a broader smile than ever,
but he flushed deeply as he exclaimed: "Oh, ma’m, when ye’re in a charge
an’ ye see them steekin’ yer best chums—ye go fair mad—everything turns
red afore ye, an’ ye could kill the whole bleedin’ lot!"

"Bravo!" cried the little nurse enthusiastically, clapping her hands—she
had been carried away, as I admit I too was, by his sincerity and
vehemence. "May you live long and grow to be a great man, as you
deserve!"

After dressing his hand and the wounds of the others, we passed on into
the next room, where a poor fellow, shot through the hip, lay suffering
in heroic silence.

It required three of us to do his dressing, because, on account of the
peculiar position of the wound, he had to be turned upon his side each
time, and with a fractured hip this was a process of great difficulty.
This wonderful war has produced its many heroes, but when the great
Recorder above opens His book at doomsday, He will find the name of
William Hoare written large on the pages of valour.

Throughout the painful dressing Nursing Sister Dolly stood at his head,
and, placing her strong little arms about his great shoulders would tell
him to lift himself by her; and Hoare would gratefully lock his hands
behind her neck and help to raise himself. What he suffered, God only
knows! He made no sign of complaint, but gritted his teeth together
like a vise and never spoke until the operation was over. Beads of
sweat stood upon his brow, and his face was pale, but no groan had
escaped.

"Have a little brandy, Hoare," Sister Dolly coaxed; "it’ll do you
good—you look so white." Tears of sympathy stood in her eyes, but Hoare
smiled bravely up at her and said simply:

"Thank you—it would be welcome."

"You are a splendid soldier, Hoare," I remarked, as Sister Dolly hurried
away for the stimulant.

"I’m not really a soldier, sir. I’ve only been a few months in the
ranks," he answered. "I’m a ’bus driver in London."

I thought to myself: "A ’bus driver in London—but a hero of heroes in
France!"

He raised his head as Sister Dolly held the glass gently to his lips.
"You are very kind," he murmured gratefully. "I’m a deal of trouble to
you."

The little sister smiled sadly and shook her head, then without a word
dashed from the room.

"I’d have burst out crying—if I’d stayed another minute," she exclaimed
impetuously, when I met her a moment later in the hall. "I’m a fool, I
know—I’m too chicken-hearted to be a nurse."

"You’re a real woman," I ejaculated in genuine admiration; "the world is
the better because you were born!"

We then visited the large ward. There were forty patients in it, most
of them looking as jolly as if hospital life were one of the most
amusing experiences in the world. Some were reading, some playing
cribbage, some of those with minor wounds were helping about the ward,
and all were smoking.

But one, who had just arrived, looked dangerously ill. We approached
his bed, his greenish pallor was alarming. I felt for his pulse—it had
disappeared. We gave him a hypodermic at once to stimulate him, but we
knew all too well he was far beyond human aid. He smiled slightly as I
spoke to him. His mind was clear, with that preternatural clearness
which heralds death. I sat down beside his bed—it was screened off from
the others—and took his hand.

"Have you any friends to whom you wish to send a message?" I asked him
gently.

"Why, doctor," he enquired, with a keenness of perception that was
embarrassing, and looking up at me with a glance of slight surprise, "do
you think I am going to die?"

"You are very ill indeed," I replied hesitatingly, "and I think it would
be well, if there is some one in whom you are specially interested, that
you should write at once."

He smiled faintly again as he looked me in the eye and answered: "There
is only one person in the world who concerns me deeply—my mother;" he
turned his head away an instant, "I have already written her. How long
do you think I have to live?"

Even when one can answer, this is always the most awkward question in
the world. No one ever gets accustomed to pronouncing a death sentence.
I shook my head sadly and replied: "I cannot tell you positively—but I
fear you have only a few hours more."

"Well, well," he said somewhat indifferently, and then his voice became
more interested. He turned back and asked suddenly: "By the way, will
you grant me a favour?"

I assured him I would do anything in my power; but I was totally
unprepared for his request. He spoke eagerly:

"Then, may I have a bowl of rice pudding?"

His _sang-froid_ startled me beyond speech. Death to him was a matter of
small moment—but hunger was serious. We got him his pudding. He ate it
with relish, and two hours later, with a cigarette between his lips, his
brave eyes closed forever.

There was a bustle in the hospital that afternoon. We had orders to
send two hundred patients to England. The boys were in a state of happy
excitement; those who could walk hurrying down to the pack-stores and
returning with all sorts of wrinkled tunics and breeches, and with old
boots and caps. Sometimes an Irishman secured a kilt, and a "kiltie,"
much to his annoyance, was obliged to wear breeches. For when men from
hospital were returning to England, although all their clothes were
sterilised, no special effort was made in those days to return them
their own. New clothes were issued at home. Those patients who were
unable to get up were dressed in bed, their heads were encased in
woollen toques, big thick bed-socks were drawn over their feet to keep
them warm, and they were rolled in blankets and placed in the hall on
stretchers, ready to depart.

The nurses had slaved for hours. Every patient had been carefully
bathed, his hands and face were spotlessly clean, his wounds were
freshly dressed and he was wrapped up so snugly that the loving eye of a
mother could have found no fault.

The ambulances were at the door once more—but on a different mission
this time—and the boys, all smiles and chatter, were carried out upon
their stretchers or clambered gleefully down the stairs. Nurses,
officers and men were at the door saying good-bye to their patients.
Murmured words of thanks or gratitude on the one hand, and warmest well
wishes on the other were exchanged, and at last, with much waving of
caps and handkerchiefs, the convoy of ambulances started for the steamer
at Boulogne, carrying the happy, care-free loads of boys another stage
toward home, or, in Tommy’s own vernacular—toward "Blighty."

*CHAPTER XII*

It was a wild fight the day the Germans broke through at Givenchy; and
the _Bosches_ were wilder still when, finding themselves in the town,
they were in considerable doubt what to do with it. Of course it would
have been perfectly all right if the rest of their corps had followed on
and backed up the intrepid stormers. But the enemy had reckoned without
his host, and Tommy decided that such visitors should be given a warm
reception. In fact, they went so far in their efforts at hospitality
that they entirely surrounded their guests and closed the breech behind
them, in order that they might receive no "draft" from the rear.

Having thus graciously encompassed them, Tommy proceeded to kill them
with kindness, rifles, bayonets and hand grenades. The Germans, greatly
bewildered by this flattering reception, would fain have rested on the
laurels already won. Tommy, however, insisted on entertaining them
still further, and at last, despairing of ever satisfying such a busy
host, the visitors threw down their arms and capitulated.

When we opened the doors of the Ambulance Train at Etaples and, instead
of the customary khaki, saw the drab coats and the red-banded skull
caps, we were almost as surprised as the Germans had been the day
before.

They were a sorry-looking lot. Dazed and bewildered by their
astonishing defeat, they looked like men still under the influence of a
narcotic. As they got slowly down from the coaches, their heads or arms
in bandages, they looked sick—very sick indeed; but it was not so much
with an illness of the body as an illness of the mind. They stood
together, silent and sullen, seeming to expect ill-treatment at our
hands.

[Illustration: GERMAN WOUNDED]

There is so little of the time "sport" in the German composition that
they cannot understand that to the British war is still a game and, when
the contest is over, ill-feeling ceases. We bore no more enmity toward
these hapless victims of a malevolent militarism than as if they had
been helpless waifs cast upon our charity. This is not a matter for
self-praise; it is the inevitable result of a wholesome and broad-minded
upbringing. God knows these defeated men looked sufficiently depressed
and mean without our adding to their brimming cup of sorrow!

Waiving prejudice for the moment and looking at them with an impartial
eye, what did we see? Stripped of their accoutrements of war, they
looked quiet and inoffensive enough, but the closely shaven heads gave
them the appearance of criminals. In spite of this handicap some looked
to be decent, reliable chaps, not so very different from our own men.
Some were dark and short of stature; some were tall, broad-shouldered
and strong. Some had the fair hair and blue eyes which we always
associate with the Saxon. But there were those too whose low brows,
irregular features and cruel eyes indicated an unmistakable moral
degeneracy which boded no one good.

One, a corporal, who spoke English and acted as interpreter for his
fellows, presented a countenance of such striking malignancy and low
cunning that the mere contemplation of his ugly features—the long nose,
receding forehead and sneaky grey eyes—impressed one with an uneasy
feeling that no dastardly deed would be beneath him. Upon request, he
herded his companions into the ambulances, and as they were, with a few
exceptions, but slightly wounded, a strong guard was sent to the
hospital with them to see that they should do no mischief nor attempt to
escape upon the way.

When they arrived at the hospital and were drawn up in line in the
admittance hall, it was perhaps a pardonable curiosity which prompted
the orderlies to crowd around and get a glimpse of the first German
prisoners they had ever seen. The _Bosche_ corporal took his stand
beside the registrar’s desk and called out, in English, the names,
numbers and regiments of each of the prisoners. Amongst them were
Prussians, Bavarians and German Poles. It is difficult to say how this
medley of nationalities came to be together.

Sergeant Honk was in the forefront among the orderlies, and perhaps that
was the reason he was drawn still further into the limelight. For
suddenly a prisoner, putting his hand into the pocket of his coat, drew
forth a hand grenade, and thrust it at him. Honk was startled, and,
jerking his half-extended hand away with great expedition, backed
hastily from the evil-looking bomb.

"’Ere you!" he gasped excitedly, "wot the dooce are ye h’up to now?"

"_Ein ’souvenir’ für Ihnen,_" said the German, astonished at Honk’s
precipitate retreat. Honk understood only the one word, but that was
enough.

"H’I down’t want any damn dangerous souvenir like that!" he returned
wrathfully. "Put it h’on the tyble!"

The German, gathering his meaning from his actions rather than Honk’s
words, did as he was bidden, and stepped back into line.

"The bleedin’ fool might ’a’ blowed h’up the ’ole hospital," he
declaimed peevishly to his companions, "whippin’ out ’is blimed
h’infernal machine like that; blessed if h’I wouldn’t ’a’ put ’im in the
clink fer h’it."

Burnham now ordered our men to get about their business and proceeded
with the allotment of beds for the prisoners. A slight difficulty arose
at this point, as to their disposal. The colonel had decided to put
them all in one ward; but, as we had no armed guard, we thought they
would be safer if distributed in the several rooms. A number of them
were so slightly wounded that, if segregated in one room, they might
easily concoct schemes for escape or even offence. At the same time, by
decentralising them, they would not only be under surveillance by the
ward orderlies, but by the British Tommies as well, and there would be
little opportunity for collusion. This plan was finally adopted. The
Prussians fell to Reggy’s lot; the Bavarians to mine, and the balance
were divided amongst the different wards.

The next morning Reggy, who had studied in Berlin and spoke excellent
German, when making his rounds approached the bed of a tall, fair-haired
prisoner, whose steely blue eyes contained no hint of welcome, and who,
in spite of his good treatment, was still openly suspicious of us.

After bidding him _guten Morgen_ and dressing his wound—which was in the
place we would have liked to see all Germans "get it," viz.: the neck,
Reggy enquired:

"What do you think of the war? Do you still think you are going to
win?"

The Prussian looked up with a half smile and the suspicion of a sneer
curled his lip. "Is there any doubt about it?" he returned.

"There should be considerable doubt in your minds," Reggy answered
warmly.

"We shall win," the prisoner said, with imperturbable coolness and
assurance; "the war has only commenced, as far as we are concerned."

"But you will be starved out, if you’re not beaten otherwise," Reggy
continued.

The shortage of food in Germany was one of our early delusions about the
war. The Prussian laughed amusedly—not by any means a pleasant laugh.

"If we do not grow a grain," he replied scornfully, "we have sufficient
food stored away to last us for three years. For the past ten years
every city in Germany has kept a three-year supply stored, and only the
oldest crop has been used annually." An illuminating confession!

"But you will run short of men," Reggy persisted.

His patient smiled again at our innocence. "We have ten million trained
soldiers in reserve, who have not yet been called up," he answered
calmly.

We were not prepared at the time to dispute the veracity of these
statements, although later events seem to have corroborated them.

There was a grim heroism about this cold-blooded man, for when he was
placed upon the operating table, although he must have suffered greatly
while the deeply embedded bullet was being extracted under cocaine, he
permitted no groan or complaint to escape his lips. However much we may
hate the Prussians, or loathe their materialistic and unsentimental
attitude toward their fellow human beings, if this man was a sample,
they are as well prepared to suffer as to inflict pain. Proud,
disdainful and bitter, one could not help but feel that he hated us so
thoroughly that should the opportunity have occurred, he would have
killed his attendants without a qualm of conscience.

The contrast between this prisoner’s mental attitude and that of one of
my Bavarian patients was striking. The latter had had his left arm
cruelly shattered, and on dressing it I discovered a large ragged wound
above the elbow. He spoke no English, so that I was obliged to use my
indifferent German.

"_Wie geht es dieser Morgen?_" I asked him.

"_Ganz gut,_" he replied, as he looked up with a grateful smile at
hearing his native tongue. He continued in German: "The nurses have been
very good to me, but my arm pains greatly."

We carried on a more or less desultory conversation while the dressing
was proceeding, but, by dint of getting him to speak slowly, I managed
to understand him fairly well. Wishing to estimate his frame of mind as
compared with the Prussian, I remarked:

"I presume you feel badly over being taken prisoner?"

"No," he replied slowly; "I am glad. To us Germans this war means a
fight to the death; there are only two ways of escape: being crippled
for life—or this. You will wonder at my confessing that I am glad, but
I have left behind me in Heidelberg all that I love best on earth—my
wife and two little children——" His voice choked and tears came into
his eyes, but after a moment he sighed: "God knows whether I shall ever
see them again—for me the war is over—it is just as well."

Do you blame one for forgetting that this man was an enemy? "One touch
of sympathy" in spite of the horrors of war, still "makes the whole
world kin." We may hate the Germans _en masse_, but heart cannot help
going out to heart, and in the weeks that followed I confess, without
apology, that I learned to look upon this man as a friend.

It was about four o’clock the following afternoon that Wilson approached
me, and, pulling himself up to attention, said:

"Th’ nurse on Saskatchewan ward, zur, ses as that German corporal ain’t
had any feed t’day."

"Why not? I asked him.

"Dunno, zur, but he ain’t, an’ she’s ast me to bring th’ Orderly Officer
to see him."

We had laid it down as a principle that German patients, in every
instance, were to be treated the same as our own Tommies, so that it was
annoying to hear that one of our men had been guilty of Hun tactics.
Although I despised this corporal more than any of the others, neglect,
even of him, could not be countenanced in a hospital. I hastened up the
stairs to investigate. The nurse corroborated Wilson’s statement. The
German had complained to her that he had had only a light breakfast and
no dinner, although the other men in his room had received theirs.

I called the ward orderly. "Why did you not give this man his dinner?"
I asked him sternly.

"The meat was all gone when I went for it, sir," he replied, without
looking me in the eye, "but I gave him a dish of custard."

Evidently the orderly had made up his mind to punish the _Bosche_, and
while I sympathised secretly with his antipathy to the individual, I
couldn’t condone his disobedience or the principle.

"Come with me," I commanded, "and I’ll ask him myself."

We entered a room which contained only three beds. In the farthest was
a burly giant of a Highlander, in the middle the wretched German
corporal, and nearest to us was a Munsterite of prodigious muscle and
who was but slightly wounded in the leg.

I asked the German in English, which I well knew he understood, whether
he had received his dinner or not. He affected not to understand me,
and answered in German. As my German is not as fluent as my French, and
I knew that he also spoke this language and might have some secret
reason for not wishing to speak English, I tried him in French. He
pretended not to understand this either. My opinion of him sank even
lower. I tried him then in German, and he replied quite readily in his
own tongue.

"I did not have any meat, but I was given a dish of pudding."

"Did you eat it?" I asked him.

"I had no chance to do so," he answered.

"Why not?" I queried.

He turned his head slowly and looked first at the big Highlander and
then at the equally big Munsterite, and shook his head as he replied: "I
don’t know."

There was some mystery here, and not such a deep one that it couldn’t be
unravelled. I asked the Munsterite:

"Did you eat this man’s pudding?"

"No, sir," he answered readily, but with a queer smile. The Highlander
also answered in the negative. There was still a mystery.

"Do you _know_ this German?" I asked the man from Munster and whose bed
was nearest.

"Do I know him, sir!" he replied, with a significant look directed at
his enemy. "I’ve seen that swine several times. He’s a sniper, and
used to go about with another tall swine who wore glasses. We never
could kill the blighter, but he picked off three of our officers and
wounded a fourth. Do I know him, sir?—my eye!"

Under the circumstances I couldn’t reproach him. I felt morally certain
he had stolen the German’s pudding, as he could easily have reached it
from his bed. I didn’t care to probe the matter further, but warned him
that such a breach of discipline must not occur again. After
reprimanding the orderly also for his negligence—more from a sense of
duty than desire, I admit—I ordered that some food be brought up at
once, and saw that it reached its destination.

We could not have punished the German worse than to leave him in that
room. One could easily understand why he pretended not to understand
English, for I am sure the remarks which passed across his bed in the
days he was there made his ears tingle and his miserable flesh creep.

After I had retired that night, Tim came up as usual to see that I was
comfortable. Sometimes, when I was in the humour, I told him a story;
not so much with the idea of enlightening him as to hear his comments as
I proceeded and from which I gained much amusement.

"Did you ever hear of the mammoth whose carcase they found in Siberia,
Tim?" I asked him.

"Wot’s a mammoth, Maje?" he queried, as he seated himself upon my box
and, crossing his legs, prepared to listen.

"A mammoth, Tim," I replied, "is an extinct animal, similar to the
elephant, but which grew to tremendous size."

"How big?" he enquired tentatively—his head on one side as usual.

"Oh, taller than this house, Tim; often much taller. His teeth were
nearly as big as a hat box, and his leg bones almost as big around as
your waist."

"Go on—go on, I’m a-listenin’," he growled dubiously.

"Well, this mammoth had tumbled over a cliff in the mountains of
Siberia, thousands of years ago, and falling upon a glacier was frozen
solidly in the ice, and, as it never melted, his body didn’t decay. A
few years ago they discovered it, and dug it out practically intact."

Tim’s eyes were wide, and his mouth had fallen open during this
description.

"Wot more?" he demanded quizzically.

"Only this," I continued, "that everything had been so well preserved by
the ice that even the wisp of hay was still in his mouth."

"Dat’ll do—dat’ll do," he cried, as he rose abruptly to his feet. "Don’
tell me no more. I sits here like a big gawk listenin’ to dat story wit’
me mout’ open an’ takin’ it all in like a dam’ fool. An’ I stood fer it
all, too," he continued, with remorseful irritability, "till ye comed to
dat ’wisp o’ hay’ business—dat wos de las’ straw."

"Hay, Tim," I corrected.

"Hay er straw, it’s all de same to dis gent. Gees! you is de worse liar
wot I ever heard."

Tim’s humiliation at the thought that he had been taken in was so
comical that I had to laugh. He turned hastily for the door, and as he
passed out cried:

"Good night, sir. Don’ have no more nightmares like dat."

The first faint light of day was stealing into the room as I felt myself
tugged gently by the toe. I opened my eyes and dimly saw Tim’s
dishevelled head at the foot of my bed.

"What is it, Tim?" I asked, in some surprise.

"Look’ee here," he said huskily, "tell me some more about this yere
biffalo." And with a soft chuckle he tiptoed out of the room.

When the time came to send the German prisoners to England little
Sergeant Mack was detailed to guard them. After a comfortable stay for
two weeks in hospital, and with a keen recollection of kindly treatment
throughout, it was hardly likely they would attempt violence or brave
the dangers of escape. But Mack, seated in the ambulance with a dozen
healthy-looking Germans, who could easily have eaten him alive had they
been so disposed, clutched in his coat pocket a little .22 revolver
which Reggy had lent him. He seemed to appreciate the possibility of a
catastrophe and, judging by the uneasy expression on his good-natured
face, he had little relish for his precarious duty.

Even the ill-famed corporal looked his disappointment at leaving us, and
the others seemed to feel that they would rather stay with captors whom
they knew than fly to captors "whom they knew not of."

The Pole had, remarkable to relate, learned to speak English with a fair
degree of success during his two weeks’ stay, and quite openly expressed
his regret at leaving. The others were merely silent and glum. Perhaps
they felt that now that their wounds were healed, like well-fed cattle
they were to be taken out and killed. The ambulance driver and Sergeant
Honk were seated in front, but little Mack was alone inside, and they
had twenty miles to go.

Nothing of moment happened until the ambulance, threading its way
between the railroad tracks at Boulogne, pulled up upon the quay at the
_Gare Maritime_. Here unexpected trouble arose. No German prisoners
could be taken upon the hospital ship; the Embarkation Officer refused
to let them aboard. He said they must be taken back to the Canadian
hospital until a proper boat was ready for them.

During this discussion it got whispered about amongst the populace that
there were _Bosches_ in the ambulance, and in an incredibly short space
of time it was surrounded by an angry mob who shook their fists and
swore savagely at the occupants. Apparently they only needed a leader
to urge them on, and the Germans would have been torn from their seats.
The prisoners remained quiet, but the pallor of their faces showed that
they realised the seriousness of their position.

Sergeant Mack drew his little revolver and shouted to the driver to make
haste and get away. The driver needed no further urging; the danger was
too obvious. The car started with a jerk and cleared the crowd before
they were aware of Mac’s intentions, but they shouted wrathful oaths
after it as it sped up the quay.

"Blimey, if them French ayn’t got a bit uv temper too!" Honk ejaculated,
as he wiped the sweat from his excited brow; "five minutes more’n they’d
’ave ’ad them blighters inside by the scruff uv their bloomin’ necks."

Imagine the surprise and dismay of the nurses as they saw the crowd of
broadly smiling Germans coming up the hospital steps. The nurses, who
had for two weeks repressed their natural antipathy to these men and had
given them good care, felt considerably put out by their return. But
the prisoners, like mangy dogs who had found a good home, were so glad
to return to us that it was pitiful to see their pleased faces, and we
took them in again with the best grace we could assume. The few hours
they had had together in the ambulance had given them a chance to
compare experiences. They were content. All we could hope was that our
own boys under similar circumstances in Germany would be treated as
tolerantly and well.

Three weeks afterward they all left for England, and even the Prussian
was almost reconciled to us, for he said in parting: "_Auf
Wiedersehen!_"

*CHAPTER XIII*

The colonel’s seven-passenger _Berliet_ was chug-chugging softly at the
villa door, the drowsy hum of the exhaust hinting of concealed power and
speed. The colonel, Reggy, Jack Wellcombe and I were about to commence
our long-looked-for trip to that battered corner of Belgium which still
remained in British hands.

Tim was standing at the door with his master’s "British warm" thrown
across his arm, waiting for the colonel to come out. It was a clear
cold February morning, the air had in it just the faintest hint of
frost, but not a breath of wind stirred the green foliage of the pines.
Lady Danby’s runabout stood across the road, and from beneath it peeped
a pair of trim limbs encased in thick woollen stockings and ending in a
pair of lady’s heavy walking boots; telling Tim that her ladyship’s
dainty "chauffeur" was somewhere there below.

The "lady-chauffeur" was one of that eccentric, but interesting, band of
mannish Englishwomen who invaded France in the early days of the war,
and who have done wonders toward making Tommy’s life in a foreign land
agreeable. Intelligent, highly educated, remarkably indifferent to the
opinion of the outside world, Miss Granville was a character worth more
than a passing glance. Her toque was always pulled well over her ears,
her thick, short grey woollen skirt had two immense pockets in the
front, into which her hands, when not otherwise engaged, were always
deeply thrust. A long cigarette invariably drooped from the corner of
her pretty, but determined mouth, and she walked with a swinging,
athletic stride. Romance might have passed her by unnoticed; but the
world could not ignore her—she was too much a part of it. Some innate
chivalry impelled Tim to step across and offer his assistance to the
fair one in distress.

"Kin I be any help to ye, Miss?" he enquired, as he stooped down and
peered underneath the car at the little lady who, stretched at full
length upon, her back, was smoking a cigarette and at the same time
screwing home an unruly nut.

"Oh! Is that you, Tim?" she remarked without removing the cigarette or
taking her eyes off her work. "No, thanks, I think not—this is a
woman’s job."

"Ladies does queer stunts in France," Tim commented meditatively; "we
ain’t taken advantage uv dem in Canada de way we ought. See how de
womens here, carries wood on dere backs, an’, look at dem fish-women
ketchin’ skrimps in de sea. Gee, de gals to home ain’t never seed real
work!"

"You should train them, Tim. It’s all a matter of up-bringing. Won’t
you have a cigarette?" she replied as she thrust a long open silver case
out from under the car toward him. Tim extracted an Egyptian of a size
such as he had never seen before.

"T’ankee, Miss—dat’s a smoke fer a prince."

"That was the intention, Timothy," she remarked casually; and then came
an unexpected question: "Do ladies in Canada smoke, Tim?"

Tim was visibly embarrassed. "Not sich as we _calls_ ladies, Miss," he
stammered; and then realising that he had made a _faux pas_ he blundered
on—"that is, Miss, I mean t’ say—"

A rippling laugh from beneath the car cut short further explanation.

"Tim, Tim," she cried mockingly, "what a sad courtier you would
make—you’re too deliciously truthful."

Poor Tim was red with chagrin.

"I don’ know wot a kertyer is," he replied defensively; "I’m a
hod-carrier meself."

"Stick to it, lad," she laughed, "the hod lost one of its best exponents
when you came to the war."

But the colonel now appeared at the door, and Tim, with a hasty adieu to
his fair tormentor, sprang across the road. When we were all snugly
tucked in the car, he stood for a moment looking ruefully toward the
cause of his recent embarrassment.

"Dat’s a queer gent, sir," he observed to the colonel, "dat lady-shoffer
’cross de way. It ain’t on’y her boots wot’s like a man’s—de works in
her belfry’s queer too."

Reggy secretly sympathised with Tim’s discomfiture, for it was only the
day before, when he had made a graceful but unavailing whack at a golf
ball, that he had turned to see her watching him intently—hands in
pockets, cigarette in mouth.

"Rotten stroke, Miss Granville?" he remarked, to cover his annoyance;
and she had coolly blown a cloud of smoke through her nostrils and
replied:

"You’re dead lucky to have hit it at all."

As the car moved off Reggy exclaimed: "That’s the sort of girl who never
gets a husband."

"Why not?" queried the colonel.

"Too much brain," Reggy returned. "It’s too humiliating for a man to
have a wife cleverer than himself."

"All depends upon the man," the colonel commented drily. Reggy ventured
no reply to this ambiguous retort, but for the next few miles seemed
lost in thought.

An hour’s uneventful run brought us to the barricade on the outskirts of
Boulogne. It consisted of two large waggons placed at an oblique angle
across the road, at the foot of a steep hill. It was so ingeniously
arranged that a motor car could not pass except at low speed. We were
stopped by the French guard who stood with fixed bayonet—that long
slender wicked-looking instrument, the sight of which makes cold shivers
run up and down the back. The officer emerged from his little hut, and
saluted with all the grace peculiar to the true Frenchman.

"_Votre ’laisser-passer’ monsieur, si’l vous plais?_" he demanded
politely.

The colonel unfolded the large blue pass, duly signed and stamped. It
was scrutinised closely, the name and number of the car were recorded,
and the officer, once more saluting, motioned us to proceed.

Running a barricade in France is not a healthful exercise. We did it
once, by mistake, but an immediate rifle shot brought us to a halt. The
sentry takes nothing for granted; if one goes through six times a day,
the pass must be produced each time. Even the small towns of northern
France cannot be entered or left without this ceremony.

We lunched at _Mony’s_—every English and Canadian officer in France
knows the spot—a small Italian restaurant close to the theatre, where
substantial but delicious meals pop up from the cellar’s depths. In
this small room with the sawdust-covered floor and the little glass
partitioned stalls, the full-stomached Signor Mony beams upon a
clientele such as no other like café in the world can boast.

French, Belgian, English; yes, at times Italian, Russian, Serbian and
even Japanese officers of high rank and ladies whose fame in charitable
and Red Cross work is international, dine in this unique café. The
little bar is in the dining room, and above its mahogany top you may see
the head and shoulders of the proprietor’s youthful daughter—a girl of
such rare and artistic southern beauty that men and women too stare in
admiring wonder.

But the military and the nobility are not the only guests. The crowded
café distils a broad Bohemianism which startles one. At one table we
see two dark-eyed "ladies-of-the-street" boldly ogling a couple of young
subalterns in khaki who have just arrived from England. Brushing
shoulders with the finest in the land the demimondaine quaffs her green
liqueur, powders her nose and dabs again the painted cheek that riots in
its bloom. At another table two French generals, oblivious to the hum
about them, are planning schemes of war too deep for thoughts of giddy
girls who seek to catch their eye.

Above the glass partition curls the smoke of cigarettes, and the
laughing voices of Englishwomen tell us who are there. Upon the
leather-cushioned bench which skirts the wall, a handsome Belgian, well
past middle age, rests his chin upon the shoulder of a beautiful young
Russian girl, and gently puts his arm about her waist. And as we look
with passing interest at the pair, she takes the lit cigar from her
companion’s lips and places it between her own, blowing the clouds of
smoke into his face. Every table but one is filled. The blended murmur
of a dozen different tongues, the popping of champagne corks, the
rippling laughter of the women, all combine in one strange sound in
stranger France. One thing only reminds us of the outer world. The
mani-coloured uniforms of soldiers of the several nations represented
tell us all too truly that only a few miles away is the great grim
battlefield and—death.

At 3 p.m. we started once more on the road and climbed the steep hill to
that broad highway which leads to Calais. But now we reached another
barricade, and an unexpected obstacle arose. The sentry regretted with
a shrug of the shoulders and both uplifted hands, but the road was under
repairs, and none might pass that way.

Jack came to the rescue and appealed to him in his inimitable French.
_Monsieur le Colonel_ with him was urgently needed at the front. The
shortest and quickest route was the only one for such an important
man—great speed was essential to the completion of pressing duties.

We could see the sentry wavering. Jack repeated: "_Mon Colonel est bien
pressé—bien pressé!_" The sentry capitulated—of course if the _Colonel_
was _pressé_, there was nothing else for it. He let us pass. As we
whirled along the road, Jack laughed in that boyish manner of his and
exclaimed:

"If you’re ever held up by a French sentry, you must always be
_pressé_—it’s a great word! If you’re only _pressé_ enough you can get
anywhere in France."

There wasn’t another vehicle but ours upon that splendid highway, and we
bowled along at tremendous speed through green fertile valleys and
through leafless forests, rounding the curve which runs to the southeast
from Calais and skimming along the crest of a low smooth mountain for
mile upon mile.

We soon were on the road to St. Omer. From time to time the noisy whir
of an aeroplane overhead helped us to realise that we were gradually
drawing nearer to the real battle line, and once on looking up we could
see the giant human bird at a great height, sailing above us. He came
lower, so that we were able to see the pilot distinctly, and directed
his course straight above the road. At the time we were travelling
about fifty miles an hour, but he passed us as though we had been
standing still—a moment later he became a mere speck in the distance,
then faded into the mist beyond.

As we approached closer to the front we had expected to find the towns
deserted except by troops. In this we were agreeably disappointed. As
we entered St. Omer we found motors and waggons by the hundreds coming
and going in a busy rush; every store was open too, and business was
thriving with a thrift unknown before the war. Women and children,
soldiers and civilians, crowded the busy streets, and the hum of
industry was heard on every hand. Here not many miles from the
trenches, we could see again the undaunted confidence of France,
implicit reliance upon her troops, unswerving loyalty to her
ideals—unutterable contempt for the possibility of further German
invasion. It was a revelation in faith and a stimulus to merit such
whole-souled unbreakable trust.

We had just drawn up at the curb in the city square when a big
Rolls-Royce turned the corner and stopped close to us. It contained a
man who wore the uniform of the British Red Cross Society, and who well
matched the car in size; he descended and hastened over to our car.

"Jack!" he cried delightedly, "old Jack Wellcombe; by George, I’m glad
to see you!" As he spoke he shook Jack warmly by the hand. "You and
your friends must come over to the ’Bachelor’s Own’ with me."

Jack performed the round of introductions, and Mr. Harman, who proved to
be an American from Texas, reiterated that we must come and dine with
him.

"Thanks, Harman, old chap; we really must get along, we have to make
Poperinghe to-night," Jack protested; but his American friend refused to
take "no" for an answer.

"For," he concluded, parodying a line from a once popular opera, "’you
really must eat somewhere, and it might as well be here.’ Don’t be in a
hurry to get to Poperinghe," he continued. "I was over there this
afternoon when a German aviator came to call. Just as a preliminary,
and in order to show his good faith, he dropped a bomb on the
church—Some crash, I tell you. It trimmed one corner off the tower and
spattered the door rather badly."

"Was any one hurt?" Reggy enquired anxiously.

"Not at the moment," Harman replied, "but a few hundred fools, including
your humble servant, rushed into the square ’to see what made the wheels
go round.’ He hovered over us gracefully for a few moments, waiting to
collect a good crowd of spectators, then he dropped a big one right into
the centre of the mass."

"Good Lord!" Reggy exclaimed in a horrified whisper, "what happened?"

"Nothing as bad as we deserved, but there were eleven killed and as many
more wounded—it was a horrible sight! You’ll see the effects of it
still when you get there, in the broken windows and pieces of stone
knocked out of the buildings for fifty yards around."

We decided to stay for dinner. We motored down a side street and pulled
up at his "Bachelor’s Own." It was a comfortable French house of the
better class, with floor of coloured tile and long glass doors
connecting all the down-stairs rooms. A piano and a grate-fire, around
which a few leather easy chairs were placed, gave the "lounge" an
appearance of homelike comfort—moreover, one might sit there and, by
merely turning the head, see everything of interest on that floor. We
noticed in the next room the table being spread for numerous guests, and
a Belgian servant bustling about at his work.

Harman motioned us to be seated, and after offering us some cigarettes,
told us to "make ourselves at home" as he must warn his butler (save
us!) of our arrival. When he returned a few moments later, beaming with
smiles, like the true host he proved to be, he remarked deprecatingly:

"You mustn’t expect too much of an old bach’s table in these rough
war-worn days; but as far as it goes this is open house to every man in
uniform."

Later in the evening, when guest after guest "dropped in," until there
were eighteen of us in all, we grasped the significance of his remark,
and realised what his genial hospitality meant to the lonely officers
who passed that way.

We didn’t expect too much—in fact we didn’t expect half of what we got.
We hadn’t looked forward to grilled _merlin_, roast chicken, tender
lamb, Jerusalem artichokes or delicious cantaloupe, nor to Gruyère
cheese served with crisp cream-wafers. In our modesty we had forgotten
to expect the mellow flavoured wines which clung to the sloping sides of
glass as delicate as a spider’s web, or rich Havana cigars and real
Egyptian cigarettes. No, strange as it may seem to the casual reader,
we hadn’t expected any of these things; we were prepared for Bologna
sausage and a can of sardines, but in these we were disappointed. A
whirlwind of plenty rose at Harman’s magic call, and cast us adrift upon
a sea of luxury.

Towards the close of this splendid repast, I took occasion to ask our
benevolent host to what particular branch of the Red Cross work he was
devoting his energies.

"Just what you see," he answered with a laugh. "Cheering up dull dogs
like Wellcombe here, as they pass upon their weary way—that’s about
all."

"He’s talking bally rot!" cried Jack from his end of the table, "I’ll
tell you what he does, as he won’t tell you himself. He feeds the
hungry and the poor; he gives all kinds of delicacies, from pickles to
pheasants, to the wounded and sick soldiers in the Field Ambulances and
hospitals for miles around; he carries food and drink to the wounded
Tommies in the trenches and the Dressing Stations. I’ve seen him steal
out upon the battlefield in a perfect hell of machine gun bullets and
shrapnel—places where the devil himself wouldn’t venture or expect to
get out alive—and carry back those poor shattered lads in his arms.
He—"

"Jack, Jack," Harman cried in protest, "for heaven’s sake have a little
pity—I can’t live up to a rep’ like this!"

"Don’t interrupt, please!" Jack commanded. "One word more and then I’m
through. He’s been a perpetual Santa Claus to every boy at the front,
and a godsend to every man in the rear—a damn good fellow and a man."
He had risen to his feet and struck the table with his hand in his
earnestness. "Here’s a toast for you, my comrades in arms," he cried in
conclusion: "Here’s to Harman—Harman the Red Cross hero of St. Omer!"

As one man we rose to our feet and drained our glasses dry.

After dinner we crowded into the lounge, and Jack sat down at the piano.
With nimble fingers he drew soft music from the keys. We soon
discovered we were in a nest of artists, drawn together by a common tie.

Little Watkins, another Red Cross driver, who, as we afterwards learned,
had risked his life a score of times to help some wounded fellow on the
treacherous road, sang for us. It seems but yesterday that we sat there
in the smoke-filled room, listening with rapt attention to his silvery
tenor voice. The flames from the fire lit up his face as the throbbing
notes poured forth. _Je sais que vous etes jolie;_ we know now why he
sang so well—he was in love. Poor Watkins has many months since passed
to the "great beyond," but the sweet pathos of his voice still lingers
in the ears of those he charmed that night.

Kennerly Rumford was then called upon—yes, the world-renowned Kennerly
Rumford, in khaki in a little room in St. Omer—and in that magnificent
baritone of his filled the house until it rocked with glorious sound.
Rich, deep, rolling melody welled up from his great chest, until the
wonder of it struck us dumb. I looked about me; pipes rested unused
upon the table; cigarettes had been cast away, and the cigars, forgotten
for the nonce, were dead.

We were loathe to leave this house of entertainment, but time was
pressing, and we still had many miles to go.

The streets were black as pitch; no lights were permitted in the war
zone, but at last we found our way out of the town, and started.

*CHAPTER XIV*

As we sped along the road to Poperinghe, the headlights of our car made
a lone streak of white against the utter blackness of the outer world.
Occasionally on the wings of the wind came the boom of the big guns,
followed a moment after by the sharper crash of the bursting shells.
The barricades became more numerous, and from time to time we were
halted by a British sentry and our passes were scrutinised with especial
care.

It was about ten p.m. when we crept softly through the outskirts of the
little Belgian town which marked our destination for the night. We
pulled up at a small hotel, less than a hundred yards from the spot
where the German aviator had wrought such havoc that afternoon. The
stone walls of the buildings about were marked with holes, which showed
up plainly in the light from the car, and the cobblestones for several
yards around were splintered.

As is the case with most small hostels in northern France and Belgium,
the door through which we entered opened directly into the bar. The
blaze of light within, well screened off from the street by heavy
curtains, dazzled our eyes, and the crowded room with its round
marble-topped tables was heavy with smoke. The ever-smiling bar-maids
were having a busy time. Bottles of whiskey and soda, beer or wine,
stood upon every side, and the clink of glasses intermingling with the
clatter of foreign tongues, fell upon our ears. The soft, sibilant
French, the cockney English and the guttural Flemish warred with one
another in an unintelligible babble.

Jack seemed as much at home here as ever. The pretty blonde bar-maid,
the daughter of the house, came forward to greet him, and shook him
warmly by the hand. She assured him, and us, that "_M’sieu le Capitaine
was ton jours le lien venu_." In fact, we were made so welcome that we
were shown forthwith into a private room, the better to avoid the noise
and smoke of the bar.

"What are the prospects of a bed or two for four?" Jack asked the
Belgian lassie.

Mademoiselle was _desolé_, but she feared the prospects were _bien
mal_—in other words, nil. She would enquire across the way, however, and
see if any of the houses round about could still boast an empty bed.
She returned shortly, more _desolé_ than ever. What with the thousands
of Belgian, French and English troops billeted in the town, there was
not a vacant room left. She would give up her own room for monsieur,
but _hélas_, it was so _petite_ there was only accommodation for one.

Reggy laughed. When Reggy could laugh at the prospect of no bed for the
night the situation must have been amusing. "Colonel, you’ll have to
take the bed," he cried, "and the rest of us can sleep in the car."

"No, no," Jack protested; "We must all be together. We’ll take a run up
to the convent and see what Sister Paulo has to say."

"Good Lord!" laughed the Colonel. "You don’t suppose a nun is going to
house four strange officers for the night, do you?"

"All things are possible—in Belgium," Jack returned. "You don’t yet
know the size of the Belgian heart. Sister Paulo and I are old friends.
I had the pleasure of bringing her and several other Sisters of Charity
out of Ypres one night last fall, during the bombardment. The _Bosches_
had killed some of them and shot their poor convent full of holes.
Sister Paulo gave me this silver crucifix as a memento of the occasion."
He held up for our inspection an exquisite little cross. "I have always
carried it since—she’s a good sort; more woman than nun."

"If I should die and by mischance arrive in Hades," cried the colonel,
"I hope you’ll be in heaven, for I’m sure you’ll have enough pull with
St. Peter to get me up!"

As we crossed the dark square, crowded as it was with troops of the
three nations on their way to and from the trenches, we could hear
distinctly the rattle of artillery and the bursting of the German
shells, not many miles away. A mischievous gun might have dropped a
shell into that square at any moment—we wondered why it didn’t. There
could be only one reason. No humanitarian consideration ever deterred
the German; but the town was so full of spies that it would not have
been good business to bombard it. A few months later, when the spies
were all eliminated, the long-range German guns soon made short work of
Poperinghe.

We arrived at a two-storey brick building, and after a lengthy pull at
the bell-rope the door was slowly opened a little way. Jack enquired
for Sister Paulo, and upon giving his name, the door was immediately
thrown wide and we were ushered into a small waiting-room. We had
scarcely seated ourselves when a tall nun, with saint-like face and
frank smiling eyes entered the room. She recognised Jack at once and,
holding out both hands in greeting to him, exclaimed in excellent
English:

"My dear Capitaine! How glad I am to see you once more—you are as
welcome as your name."

"These are some very dear friends of mine, Sister Paulo," Jack cried,
after he had introduced us individually, "and we have come to you in
distress—we poor sons of men have no place to lay our heads."

"Ah!" said Sister Paulo, with a gracious smile, "perhaps we shall now
have an opportunity of doing you a little kindness for your many, many
goodnesses to us." She turned to us and continued: "You see, Capitaine
Wellcombe risked his life to save ours. He came to our Convent in Ypres
during the night of that frightful battle, when the shells were falling
in thousands about us, and the city was in ruins. One big shell tore
through the wall and fell into the building—I shall never forget the
horror of that night! The streets were lit up by fires, and the noise
was awful beyond words. We were distracted—we seemed to have been
forgotten by every one, when suddenly Captain Wellcombe came like an
angel from above and climbed in through the rent in the wall. One by one
he carried us out in his arms and put us in an ambulance. He took us
through those dreadful streets and brought us here to safety. He is a
brave man, and every night we pray for his protection."

For once in his life Jack looked embarrassed, and blushed like a
school-girl. "Sister Paulo exaggerates, I’m afraid," he said, in some
confusion. "It seemed more dangerous than it really was."

"You may make light of it, if you wish, my dear Capitaine," Sister Paulo
replied, holding up a reproving finger, "but you can never make it to us
less than the act of a brave and noble man!"

She left us for a space, but shortly returned to tell us that our rooms
were ready and that we were thrice welcome to what accommodation their
poor house afforded. We were ushered upstairs and along a narrow hall
in which we met several Belgian officers, who bowed low as we passed.
Jack was given a small room to himself.

When Reggy and the colonel and I arrived at the room which was pointed
out as ours for the night we met a tall Belgian officer coming out of
it. We grasped the situation on the instant. These officers, who had
been hastily aroused, were, with their remarkable courtesy and native
hospitality, actually giving up their beds to us. The others had
already disappeared down the stairs, and this officer too would have
passed us with a bow, but we arrested him and protested that he must on
no account deprive himself of his room.

"But you are not disturbing me in the least," he replied in French; "you
are doing me a great pleasure by accepting my bed."

We assured him that we should be able to find accommodation somewhere,
and that we felt very guilty for having been the cause of so much
inconvenience.

"My dear sirs," he protested feelingly, "there is but a very small
corner of Belgium left to us; there is so little opportunity for us to
offer hospitality to a guest, that when such an occasion as this arises
where we have the honour of accommodating our English friends—it would
be unkind if you denied us this poor privilege."

We could not doubt his sincerity, and felt that he would be hurt if we
made any further protest. Where he was to sleep we did not know; but we
thanked him, and after bidding him _bonsoir_, passed inside. There was
a single and a double bed in the room. The tables were strewn with
swords, revolvers, field glasses, prismatic compasses and all the usual
accoutrements of military officers. It was evident the room had been
vacated hastily.

The single bed naturally fell to the lot of the colonel, while Reggy and
I, being a trifle smaller than he, clambered into the other—a high,
old-fashioned one. Reggy sank wearily into the feather mattress and
fell asleep as soon as his head touched the pillow. He had the happy
faculty of being able to sleep anywhere and at any time.

We were to make an early start, and six a.m. came all too soon. A light
French breakfast was prepared for us when we descended. About an hour
later, after expressing our deep thanks to our gracious hostess, we got
into the motor once more and started on the road towards Ypres. There
wasn’t a cloud in the sky. The sun shone brightly, and not a warlike
sound broke the stillness of the clear, cool air as we sped along
between the tall poplars which lined the road. One thing only reminded
us that we were approaching close to the battle line—the reserve
trenches dug on either side. These we passed from time to time; but they
were half full of water and uninhabited, and it was apparent there was
little thought of their ever being needed.

Here and there a few horses were tethered in poor canvas-covered
shelters, and in the farmyards near-by we saw numbers of French military
waggons which looked like gipsy carts. Occasionally we overtook a
battalion of French or Belgian troops marching quietly towards the
trenches. Their apparent absence of any definite marching formation
struck us with surprise. They did not walk in line, but ambled along of
their own free will; some with loaves of bread or rolls strapped to
their knapsacks, and one carrying a roast of beef under his arm. They
seemed to have foraged for themselves, and carried along any extras
which appealed to their individual fancy. But they were a tall,
stalwart-looking body of men, and we felt sure were much better trained
than their irregular march would indicate.

We had reached a point about midway between Poperinghe and Ypres. The
morning was still soundless, save for the whir of our motor.

"Looking at this blue sky and the quiet fields, who would ever believe
there is a war so near?" Reggy remarked.

These words had no sooner fallen from his lips than the air was suddenly
rent with the blast of gun after gun, so close on our right that we were
startled and instinctively jumped towards the left of our car. The
sharp bursting of shells over our heads impelled us to look up, and
there directly above us was a German aeroplane.

Shell after shell burst below him, leaving rounded clouds of white smoke
hanging in the still air, and as each exploded the aviator rose higher
and higher. The range of the guns grew longer; some shells burst above
him; some to right or left. Round after round of shrapnel followed his
every movement. We looked in vain for the battery. They were so
carefully hidden that although we could not have been fifty yards away,
there was not the slightest visible sign to indicate their position.

At the same time the whirring rat-tat-tat-tat of a machine gun close
beside us on the left made us turn our heads sharply in that direction.
At first we could not see this gun either, but guided by the sound we
soon discovered it on a platform halfway up the outside of a farmhouse,
against the wall, and manned by a French soldier. We watched the
aviator with the same interest that a quartette of hunters might view
some great bird, hoping to see him winged. But he seemed to bear a
charmed life, and dodged shrapnel and machine-gun bullets alike, soaring
higher and higher until he became a mere speck in the heavens. Then the
firing ceased as abruptly as it had commenced.

Our car had been stopped during this one-sided battle, but now that it
was over we started on again. The cobblestone road had been torn up by
shell fire in many places, and driving was rough and difficult. We
passed batteries of artillery and long lines of army service waggons,
wending their way Ypres-ward. There was no further firing for the
present and we crossed the bridge over the Yser and entered the town
without mishap. From the distance there was little change to be noticed
in Ypres; but now that we entered the streets we soon saw the effects of
the bombardment. For the most part the smaller houses had not at this
time been destroyed; but every large building in the place was in ruins.
Churches, convents, schools and factories had been ruthlessly crushed,
and the railway station was levelled to the earth. The streets were
almost deserted, shops were long since closed, and business was dead.

We arrived at _La Grand Place_—once the scene of a busy market, and
stood beside the ruins of the famous Guild Hall. Its roof had fallen
in; the walls were shattered; piles of stones and mortar had tumbled
into the street. The clock tower alone, as if in defiance of the German
gunners, stood erect and the clock remained untouched. A dead horse
lying close by upon the pavement reminded us that we were now within
easy reach of the enemy’s fire.

We turned and walked across to the Cathedral of St. Martin; a short time
since the pride of that beautiful city. Alas! it too was lost. We
clambered over the ruins and got upon the window ledge to look within.
The priceless panes were gone; the marble floor, except in patches here
and there, was buried deep and the great supporting columns of the dome
had toppled over; one lay across the nave, its round flat stones still
clinging obliquely together and lying like _rouleaux_ of coin side by
side. The sacrilegious shells had burst into the chapel of the Holy
Sacrament, had desecrated the altar and piled huge heaps of masonry upon
the floor. The crucifix had disappeared, but the statues of the saints,
by some strange miracle, remained intact.

From the torn paintings upon the walls the faces seemed to have turned
appealingly toward the open roof, their gaze fixed as in a last pitiful
prayer to heaven. They were lost—those wondrous works of Art which once
with magic charm had held the world enthralled. Never again would
humanity come to bow in humble admiration at that shrine of beauty, nor
gather inspiration from the hallowed walls. And as we looked upon the
wreck about us, now but the memories of an irrestorable past, our bitter
thoughts travelled across the lines of trenches to that strange race to
whom no neighbour’s hall or home is sacred and to whom the work of
centuries, the irreplaceable monuments of master minds, are naught.

As we looked again upon those time-honoured, tottering walls the great
jagged holes seemed to cry out to us for revenge, and a sudden just but
implacable anger against the perpetrators of these hideous world-crimes
stormed within our hearts and choked our utterance.

With a sigh we turned from the contemplation of this scene of wanton
destruction and started our walk through the desolate streets. Crossing
the Menin road, we entered that little graveyard where so many of our
brave men lay buried. The houses round about lay crumbled, but this
sacred spot, by accident or design, had been spared. As we passed
bareheaded down the path between rows of closely crowded graves, the
new-made wooden crosses seemed to lift their white arms to us in mute
appeal. Here and there the cap of some once gallant French or Belgian
officer hung upon his cross—a crown of glory that no mortal hand dare
touch. Some of these caps had rested there for months, rotted by rain,
torn by the wind, faded by the sun—but dyed with a glory which time
could never dim, and emblazoned with the halo of self-sacrifice. And as
we stood there upon the threshold of the battlefield we saw the conflict
in a clearer light—behind us faith and patriotism; in front patience and
heroism, and at our feet self-sacrifice and deathless love.

A great wreath of purple leaves lay upon the grave of a young prince,
clinging lovingly to the new-made mound. He rested there side by side
with his humbler fellows—they had fought and died together. We
sometimes forget that a prince is human; he seems so far above us—he
lives in a different sphere and appears to be cast in a different mould.
But when we stand beside his grave, we realise at last that he was but a
mortal like ourselves; that he has lived his life like us—the same
desires, the same ambitions and the same need for love. Only one word
was entwined, in white letters, with the purple leaves; only one word,
but it bridged two countries and two souls—heaven and earth were
joined—for the small white flowers clinging together spelled the magic
name of "_Mother_." We may fall unnoticed in the thick of battle, we
may be buried with a host of comrades in a nameless grave, but a
mother’s heart will seek us out, no matter where we lie, and wrap our
lonely souls about with the mantle of her undying love.

"You have seen both ends of a battle now—the hospital and the
graveyard," Jack exclaimed, as we left the cemetery; "come with me and I
will show you what it is like to be in the middle."

"Can’t we take a little walk along this road, and see the first line
trenches?" Reggy enquired. We were crossing the Menin road again at the
moment.

Jack laughed. "Not if you wish to come further with us. If you step
out of this shelter in daylight there won’t be any Reggy to brighten our
trip. No one goes out there in daylight—that is, if he wishes to attain
old age."

"But it seems so quiet here," Reggy protested. "Apart from broken-down
buildings, I can’t see a sign of a war—there isn’t a soul in sight but
ourselves."

"Jolly good reason," Jack replied. "If you take a peep through the
hedge there you’ll see the trenches—we’re as close as we dare go at
present."

Reggy looked disappointed. "There isn’t even a gun," he complained.

It seemed as if the invisible gunners had heard him, for suddenly the
fields round about us sprang to life and belched forth smoke and shells.
Some cannon in the dark shade of the bushes were actually so close that
we could see the streak of flame from the muzzle light the shadow. The
Germans were not slow to retaliate, and in a few minutes the roar of
their guns and the howl and crash of shells added to the general
clamour. Fortunately they did not appear to have our range, and the
shells fell far afield.

"That’s what _you_ brought down upon us—you doubting Thomas," Jack
remarked facetiously to Reggy. "You’ve started a nice row now that will
last for hours."

"Isn’t this great!" Reggy cried like a pleased child. "I wouldn’t have
missed this for a million."

"I hope Fritzie will miss you for less," laughed the colonel, "or we’ll
be short an ex-Mess Secretary."

Reggy vouchsafed no reply to this hope.

"We’d better get along out of this," Jack said; "the _Bosches_ may
discover their mistake before long and pour a little shower of hate on
us."

We got into the motor and started towards the Dickibusch road. At
Jack’s request we stopped for a few minutes at the ruins of a large
schoolhouse which had comprised one city block. The semblance of a
building remained, but the walls stood only in jagged patches.

"These are the remains of our Field Ambulance," Jack explained. "Come
inside and see; you will get a faint idea of what the ’Jack Johnsons’
did to our hospital wards."

We passed into what had once been the main entrance. The doorway had
received one great shell which on bursting had carried the four walls
with it. We stumbled along the floor over heaps of brick and mortar;
through piles of broken chairs and beds, and, climbing the ruins of the
staircase, arrived upon a landing from which we could see the interior
of what had once been a large room.

"This was my ward," Jack told us. "You see that big hole in the roof?
A big shell came through there, and burst right here." He pointed to a
wide, irregular opening in the floor. Every stick of furniture was
smashed to atoms. Daylight came through great gaping holes in the walls
and floor. The beds were merely nests of twisted iron. The greater
part of the ceiling had fallen in and lay in a heap in the centre of the
room.

As we walked about we saw that every other ward was in a similar
condition. We went out into the schoolyard. There were five or six
tremendous excavations in the ground, perfectly round and capable of
holding a baby whale. There was no earth heaped up, for the big shells
which made these hollows left nothing behind.

We were still standing there when suddenly there arose a noise like the
muffled scream of a distant multitude. We stood rooted to the spot,
wondering what grim horror this might be. It grew louder and louder,
coming towards us at terrific speed.

"For God’s sake," I cried to Jack, "what is that awful sound?"

"Look into the field—quick—you will see!"

We all looked. The sound became a roar—a crash, and then about a
hundred yards away the earth sprang high into the air in a great black
mass intermingled with clouds of smoke and stones.

"Permit me," Jack remarked coolly, "to introduce you to ’Jack Johnson.’
Now you can understand a little how those poor boys in the hospital felt
when he came crashing through the roof."

"If we stay here a few minutes longer," the colonel remarked, "we may
have it brought even more dramatically to our attention."

Jack laughed. "Oh," he cried, "we’re as safe here as anywhere—you never
can tell where the next will drop."

We were soon to verify the truth of this remark.

*CHAPTER XV*

We had turned the corner of the road on which we had just witnessed the
effect of the big shell—the hole was still smoking—when once again we
heard the distant whine. This time there was no need to ask what it
meant; we knew all too well, and for an anxious moment or two we
wondered whether after its arrival the newspapers would speak well of
us, or whether we should be blown into such small pieces that we should
only be reported "missing."

It is recorded that sometimes those who are drowning are able, in a few
brief moments, to rehearse the drama of their lives. Our lives must
have been too complicated for such hasty revision, but as the sound
changed from a whine to a shriek, an unearthly roar, and with a crash
like the crack of doom the ground opened before us and shot a blinding
storm of rocks and mud sky high—when all this occurred far, far faster
than I can pen the lines, we had plenty of time to develop a nasty pain
in the pit of the stomach, to which the mystic torment of an unripe
cucumber is a joy. A great cavity yawned before us where once the road
had been, and belched forth clouds of smoke as if the crust of hell were
riven in twain. At the same moment, lest our tranquillity should be
restored too soon, our own guns opened up with a vicious roar and hurled
their screeching shells over our heads like myriads of fiends possessed.
Reggy’s face was a study in black and white—I couldn’t see my own.

"Do you think the Germans see us?" he enquired anxiously of Jack.

"No, I think not," Jack reassured him; "it’s customary for them to shell
any good road in the hope of picking off a convoy."

"It’s a damned uncomfortable custom," Reggy returned earnestly, "and I
could forgive them for not observing it for the next ten minutes."

The chauffeur, who had stopped the car dead by using the emergency
brake, now released it, and we started forward again. But we had
considerable difficulty in navigating the ditch on the side of what had
been the road.

We had just moved in time, for a second shell dropped where we had been
a moment since, and tore the opposite side of the road away.

"Being between two lines of artillery is a little too much like
battledore and shuttlecock," I remarked to Reggy, "with all the odds
against the shuttlecock."

"Object to word ’battledore,’" Reggy retorted; "it’s too frivolous and
pun-like for the present dangerous occasion."

We were now making haste towards a small village a few miles ahead, and
we were not sorry as we passed into the poor shelter its brick houses
afforded. As long as we were on the open road it was quite impossible
to rid oneself of the feeling that the car was in full view of the
German gunners.

The streets of this dirty little village were filled with British
Tommies, who, still covered with the mud from the trenches, were as
care-free and happy as were those fifty miles from the front. They
smoked and chatted together in little groups at the entrance or in the
courtyards of the miserable hotels, one at least of which seemed to be
on every block. As we drew up the colonel enquired of a sentry:

"Can you tell me where the ’Princess Patricias’ are billeted?"

We had been informed that this famous battalion, which had reached
France just six weeks after us, was somewhere in this neighbourhood. To
discover their whereabouts was the real object of our journey. The
sentry made reply:

"I believe, sir, there is a battalion of that naime ’ere somew’eres.
Hi, Bill!" he called to another Tommy, who was leaning against a near-by
door-post; "w’ere is them Canydians wot wos ’ere t’other day?"

"Bill" banked his cigarette by pressing it against the wall and came
over on the double to the side of our car. He saluted with that
peculiar Jumping-Jack motion so much a part of the real Tommy, and
ejaculated:

"I ’eard they was at the next town, sir; it ayn’t far from ’ere, but
it’s a funny naime—Runnin’-hell, er somethin’ like."

"Would it be Reninghelst?" Jack enquired.

"Ay—that’s it, sir; I knowed they was ’hell’ in it somew’eres."

"Just since the ’Canydians’ came, I’ll wager?" Reggy interjected
mischievously.

The Tommy grinned approval of this jest, and volunteered to show us the
direction. He stood on the running board of the car and saw that we got
started on the right road.

"Straight ahead now, sir," he said, as he saluted and sprang down.

The heavy shelling had died away, and for the next two miles the sun
shone on a peaceful country. We had a chance to marvel at the
well-ploughed fields, and wondered what venturesome farmers dared work
in such a place. It was almost noon and we had begun to think that we
had left the war behind us once more, when suddenly the rapid bark of
German guns aroused us, and the sharp crack of shrapnel high above our
heads caused us to look up. A new sight met our gaze.

Three of our own aeroplanes were hovering directly over the German
trenches, and battery after battery of artillery were exhausting
themselves in an angry effort to bring them down. The accuracy of the
enemy gunners startled us. This time we were not the hunters, and our
sympathies were with the aviators. As shell after shell burst, leaving
their white clouds to right or left, we held our breath in suspense.
Time and again, as the explosion occurred directly under one of our
machines, the smoke hid it from view, and, in a tremor of anxiety, we
feared to see it dive to earth. But when the smoke cleared away our
three undaunted birdmen were still on high, swooping over the German
batteries with a persistence and intrepidity which must have been
maddening to the helpless _Bosches_.

It wasn’t long before two enemy aviators rose to give battle, and as
they approached our men the firing from below ceased. The five
aeroplanes circled round and round, apparently sparring for position,
and rose to such great height that we could hardly distinguish them.
They were so close together that neither the British nor German
artillery dared fire upon them. At last one of the enemy machines
detached itself from the others and darted towards our lines with the
speed of the wind.

Immediately our batteries opened up, and round after round of bursting
shells followed its every movement; now to right, now to left; now
above, now below, ever closer to their mark. Finally one well-directed
shell burst immediately beneath the aviator. The machine was straight
over our heads; we craned our necks to follow it. It swerved and
fluttered like a wounded bird, slipped sideways, fell for a short
distance, then seemed to stagger like a drunken man; righted itself at
last and swiftly descended towards the German lines. That the aviator
was wounded we did not doubt, but he had somehow escaped death. In the
meantime we had lost sight of the other four machines, and when we
looked for them again they had disappeared from view.

The streets of Reninghelst were crowded with soldiers when we reached
that town, and among them we recognised, to our joy, some stalwart lads
from the "Princess Pats." On the corner was a group of young officers,
and in the crowd we espied the familiar features of Captain Stewart who
had spent his last night in Canada with us. At the same moment he
recognised us and hurried over to the car to greet us.

"Well, well," he cried delightedly, as he shook hands with us two at a
time, "welcome to our city! Where the devil did you chaps spring from?"

We assured him that his question was quite _à propos_, as we had just
passed through the infernal regions. He laughed as he replied:

"Interesting bit of road, that stretch between Ypres and here—been in
the front line trenches ourselves for a week out there—caught blazes,
too!"

His uniform still showed the effects of the trench mud. He was a tall,
thin chap, prematurely grey. Like many others of the Princess Pats, he
was a veteran of the South African War, a crack-shot, and all-round
dare-devil. He spoke in short, quick snatches, starting his sentences
with unexpected jerks, and could keep a regiment in shrieks of laughter.

"How is the trench life out here?" the colonel enquired, with a jerk of
the head towards the battle line.

"Plain hell—with a capital H. Excuse the repetition of the word—nothing
else describes it—a quagmire two feet deep, full of mud and filth."

"Couldn’t you dig it deeper?" Reggy enquired with some concern.

"No chance—everywhere you dig—turn up rotting carcases—farther down you
go the more water you have to stand in."

"The snipers are bad too, are they not?" I asked him.

He laughed again. "_Were_ bad, you mean," he cried; "not many left
around our trench. Poor Fritzie found us a nasty lot—played dirty tricks
on him—organised a ’snipe-the-sniper’ squad—put ’em out of business."

"How did you manage it?" I asked curiously.

"Stalked ’em—like red Indians—dug a tunnel out to a hill too—came up
through the centre of it—hollowed it out inside—and put ’em to sleep one
by one. Fritzie doesn’t love us any more, but, by Gad, he respects us!"

After we had listened to a few more details of this wild and remarkable
life, the colonel enquired:

"Where are your headquarters? We want to see your O.C. and the rest of
the chaps."

"I’ll climb in and show you the way. It’s in another village a few
miles from here."

Under his guidance we soon found ourselves in the town, and we stopped
at the entrance of a small house which still claimed a patch of garden
in front. The room we entered contained a barrack table strewn with
field maps and papers, and on the tile floor were the sleeping bags of
the four officers who made this their temporary home. Major Gault, a
tall, handsome officer, with the bearing of the true soldier, rose to
welcome us.

"It seems good to see some one from home again," he exclaimed, as we
shook hands. "I thought we were the only Canucks in Belgium."

"You were the first Canadians in Belgium, but we beat you to France by
some weeks," the colonel replied, "and we have come up here to tell you
where we live, and to let you know that there is a Canadian hospital
waiting with open arms to receive you when you call."

"That’s splendid," cried the major; "when the boys get hurt be sure
you’ll hear from us."

It is just as well we cannot look into the future. We walk blindfolded,
clinging to the hand of Hope, and trust to her for kindly guidance.
None of us at that moment guessed how soon we were to "hear" from those
brave men.

Later, when we were about to start for home, they all came out to the
car to say _au revoir_.

"It’s a good expression—’_au revoir,_’" Captain Stewart cried, as we
were parting; "much better than ’Good-bye.’"

"Take care of yourselves," we cried, "but don’t forget if you need us,
we are waiting!"

"We’ll remember," Stewart returned, "for I have a premonition I’ll not
be _killed_ in this war."

He waved his hand as we left, and when we looked back the little group,
whom we were never to see together again, waved their hands in a last
farewell.

After about an hour’s run we saw in the distance, set like a jewel of
the Tyrolese Alps, the pretty town of Cassel, near which our own
Canadian boys were shortly to be quartered. It was about twenty miles in
a direct line from the trenches, and soon after our visit the long-range
German guns dropped their tremendous shells on its outskirts.

When we reached the hospital a cablegram was waiting for the colonel.
He tore it open hastily, fearing bad news from home. As he read its
contents his mouth expanded in a broad grin, and he passed it silently
to us. We read, and Reggy, looking over Jack’s shoulder, had the grace
to blush as he too saw his mother’s message:

"Greatly worried about my son. No word from him for weeks. He was
troubled with insomnia at home. Does he sleep better now? Cable my
expense."

And the colonel sat down and forthwith wrote this soothing reply:

"Reggy splendid. Awake only at meal hours. Don’t worry!"

Late one night, about a week after our visit to the firing line, we were
at the railway yard assisting in the unloading of a train of wounded.
About three hundred and fifty had arrived, and we were transporting them
rapidly to the hospital. The Medical Officer commanding the train
approached me and said:

"I have one car filled with wounded officers, and nearly all are
stretcher cases. Will you come and see them?"

We walked down the line of cars and, mounting the steps, entered the
officers’ coach. We passed between the cots, and chatted with each
officer in turn; they seemed quite cheery and bright. But one, who had
pulled the blankets high about his neck, and whose face was partly
covered with a sleeping-cap, looked very ill indeed. Unlike the others,
he didn’t smile as we approached, but looked up without interest. His
face was white and he took no notice of his surroundings. I asked him
how he felt. He answered slowly and in a weak voice:

"I’m all in, I guess—don’t trouble about me."

Something in the voice and the jerky manner of speech seemed familiar.
I looked at him more keenly.

"Stewart!" I exclaimed with involuntary dismay. "Good Lord, it’s
Charley Stewart!"

"Oh, is that you, Major?" he said, with a faint show of interest. "I’ve
come to call, you see, sooner than I expected. It’ll be a short visit,"
he continued grimly. "Short trip and a dull one."

"Surely it’s not as bad as that," I said, as encouragingly as I could,
but feeling very sick at heart as I looked down at his pale face.

"Hole through the stomach," he replied weakly. "Bad enough for a
start."

"We’ll take you up to the hospital—I’m sure we can fix you up all
right," I said, with as much assurance as I could assume.

"Take me wherever you like," he replied dully; "it won’t be for long."

I assisted in getting him into an ambulance, and cautioned the driver to
go carefully, and after seeing the others safely transferred, sprang
into a motor and followed. Imagine my surprise and chagrin when I
reached the hospital to find that he had not arrived, and after due
enquiry discovered that he had been taken, through some misunderstanding
on the part of the ambulance driver, to Lady Danby’s hospital. We
concluded it would be unsafe to move him again that night, and after
’phoning the commanding officer to give him his very best attention,
proceeded with the urgent work of caring for the hundreds of others who
had already arrived.

In the meantime Captain Stewart was carried through the imposing portal
of his new abode. As the stretcher was deposited with a slight jar upon
the floor in the centre of a great hall, he opened his eyes and stared
in wonder, first at the vaulted roof, then at the magnificent paintings
on the walls, the stage at the far end of the hall, and last, but by no
means least, at Lady Danby’s beautiful face as she leaned over him to
assist him. Her golden hair, her big blue eyes and flushed cheeks, and
her graceful figure were too much even for a man half dead. He gave one
more helpless glance at the stage, then his gaze returned to this
vision, and, closing his eyes in a sort of drowsy ecstasy, murmured:

"Where’s George Cohan and the chorus?"

"What does he say?" asked Lady Danby in surprise.

"He takes this for a theatre, and is asking where the chorus girls are,"
a sprightly nurse volunteered, with keen appreciation, and not a little
amused at the shocked expression on Lady Danby’s face.

"Dear me," she exclaimed, "it must be one of those dreadful Canadians!"

"I’m afraid he’s not quite himself at present, your ladyship," the nurse
protested, scarcely able to repress a smile.

Stewart opened his eyes once more and remarked coolly as Lady Danby
hastened to another patient: "No—not quite all there—part shot away,
excuse me." He then closed his eyes again and lay still until the
orderlies removed him to his bed.

The Medical Officer came to examine him, and the nurse cut away the
dressings from his side. He inspected the wound very carefully and
finally said:

"Rifle bullet wound through the lower lobe of left lung. It might have
been worse."

"How long do you think I have to live?" Stewart enquired, with some
anxiety.

"To live?" cried the surgeon, with a laugh. "About thirty or forty
years, with luck."

"What!" shouted Stewart, as he half sat up in bed with a quick jerk.
"Do you mean to tell me I have the ghost of a chance?"

"You’ll have a splendid chance if you keep quiet and don’t shout like
that. You’d better lie down again," the surgeon commanded, not
unkindly.

"But, good Lord," Stewart protested animatedly, "here I’ve been trying
to die for three days,—every one encouraged me to do it; and after
passing through four surgeons’ hands, you’re the first to tell me I have
a chance. It’s wonderful. Now I _will_ live—I’ve made up my mind."

"Who said you would die?"

"First the Chaplain at the Field Ambulance where they carried me in—more
dead than alive. He came and shook his head over me. He was a good chap
and meant well, I’m sure—he looked very dismal. I asked him if I would
die, and he answered pityingly: ’A man shot through the stomach can’t
live, my poor fellow. Shall I pray for you?’ I told him to go as far
as he liked—he got on his knees and prayed like the deuce."

"But you said you were wounded three days ago," the surgeon remarked.
"What kept you so long from reaching here?"

"I lay one whole day in front of the trench where I was wounded. The
stretcher-bearers, against my wishes, came out to bring me in—just as
the man at my head stooped down they shot him through the brain. I
heard the bullet go ’chuck,’—he fell stone dead across me. I ordered
the others back at once—that they must leave me until night. They
refused to go at first, but I commanded them again to get back—at last
when they saw I was determined, they went. Poor chaps! I know they
felt worse at leaving me than as if they had been shot down."

During this conversation the surgeon had dressed the wound, and now,
admonishing his patient that he must not talk any more, left him for the
night. In the morning Lady Danby came to his cot and marvelled at his
bright face and cheery smile.

"You’re feeling better this morning, I see," she remarked brightly.

"Much the better for seeing you, madam," Stewart returned, with his
customary chivalry; "and one does recover rapidly with such excellent
nursing and care."

"I’m afraid we’re going to lose you to-day," she replied, with a tinge
of regret in her tone. "The Canadians insist on claiming you as their
own, and I suppose we must let you go."

"I must admit," he returned, "that I am sorry to leave such congenial
company—come and see me sometimes, won’t you, please?"

Lady Danby smiled. "When I first saw you last night, I thought I
shouldn’t care to see you again—but you aren’t really quite as dreadful
as I thought. Some day soon I’ll run in to see how you are getting on."

A few hours later, when Stewart was safely ensconced in our hospital, he
observed reminiscently: "I’m awfully glad to be among old friends once
more—but those English hospitals are not without their attractions!"

*CHAPTER XVI*

He was a mere boy, scarce nineteen years of age, a sub-lieutenant in the
Territorials, and a medallist in philosophy from Oxford.

Who would have guessed that this frail, delicate-looking Welsh youth
with the fair hair and grey eyes was gifted with an intellect of which
all England might be proud? He might have passed unnoticed had one not
spoken to him, and, having spoken, had seen the handsome face light up
with fascinating vivacity as he replied.

One cannot attempt to recollect or depict the mystic workings of his
marvellous mind; for, once aroused, gems of thought, clear cut and
bright as scintillations from a star, dropped from his lips and left his
hearers steeped in wonder.

It was then, you may well believe, no ordinary youth who walked into the
hospital, with mud-covered clothes and his kit still strapped to his
back. He dropped the kit upon the floor of his room, and, sinking
wearily into a chair, brushed back with his hand the unruly hair which
sought to droop over his high forehead.

His commanding officer, who had accompanied him to the hospital, had
taken me aside, before I entered the room, and had told me privately his
views about the boy.

"You look tired," I remarked, as I noted the weary droop of the head.

He smiled quickly as he looked up and said: "Done up, I think. Those
six months in Malta were a bit too much for me."

"But you have been home before coming to France, have you not?" I asked
him.

"Home!" he cried in surprise. "No such luck! We had expected a week or
two in England after our return, but it’s off. There were four thousand
of us in Malta, but we’re all here now, at Etaples, and liable to be
sent to the trenches any moment. When I stood on the cliffs at Wimereux
yesterday and saw the dear old shores across the Channel—" He stopped
suddenly, overpowered by some strong emotion. "I’d be a better soldier
farther off. Between homesickness and the pain in my chest, I’m about
all in."

He did look tired and faint, and even the pink rays of the setting sun
failed to tint the pallor of his cheeks. I told him I would send the
orderly to help him undress and that he must get into bed at once.

When I returned shortly and examined his chest, I found that he was
suffering from a touch of pleurisy; there were, too, traces of more
serious trouble in the lungs.

"What do you think of me, Major?" he enquired with a quizzical smile,
when I had completed the examination. "Anything interesting inside?"

"Interesting enough to call for a long rest," I replied. "We’ll have to
keep you here a while and later send you home to England."

"My O.C., who by the way is my uncle too, and a medical man, insisted on
my coming here," he remarked. "He says I’m not strong enough for trench
life. But the old boy—bless his heart!—loves me like a son, and I’m
morally certain he wants to pack me off for fear I’ll get killed. I
simply can’t go home, you know, until I’ve done my bit. It would be
jolly weak of me, wouldn’t it?"

"You might go for a time," I replied guardedly, "and return later on
when you get stronger."

He started to laugh, but a quick stabbing pain in the chest caught him
halfway, and he stopped short with a twisted smile as he exclaimed:

"I believe the old chap has been talking to you too! You’re all in
league to get me out of France."

This was so close to the truth that I could not contradict him, but
shook my head in partial negative. His uncle felt, as I too came to
feel later, that the loss to the world of such a brilliant mind and one
with such potentialities would not be compensated for by the little good
its master could accomplish physically in the trenches.

"After all," he argued, "how much poorer would Wales be if I were gone?
The hole would soon be filled."

"I can’t agree with you," I answered slowly; "your life is more
important to others than you think, and you would risk it in a field for
which you are not physically fitted. You have overdrawn your brain
account at the Bank of Nature, and flesh is paying up. You must go home
until the note is settled."

"Sounds rational but horribly mathematical—and I always hated
mathematics. Hope I’ll be able," he continued mischievously, "to repay
the ’interest’ you and uncle are taking in me."

"We want you to consider the matter philosophically," I said, "not
mathematically."

"That’s better," he replied, with his usual bright smile; "philosophy
comes more natural to me. True, it savours of Euclid, but I can forgive
it that offence; it has so many virtues."

He remained silent a few moments, thinking, and then asked me suddenly:
"If I go home, how soon can I get back to France?"

"I hope you won’t return here," I replied gravely; "it would be
suicidal, and, flattery aside, your life is too valuable to be
sacrificed over here."

"Perhaps you are right," he murmured pensively, as though we were
discussing a third party whose life interested him only in an impersonal
manner, and without exhibiting the slightest self-consciousness or
vanity. "It might be better if I stayed at home. I admit," he
continued more brightly, "I have a selfish desire to live. I am so
young and have seen so little of this great big interesting world and I
want so much to know what it all means. Still I would far sooner die
than feel myself a slacker or a ’skrimshanker.’"

"No one will mistake you for either," I returned warmly. "Your lungs
are not strong, and I fear if you remain here in the cold and wet you
will not recover."

"There’s so much in life to live for," he cried animatedly; "besides,
I’m a little dubious of the _after_ world. For a little longer I should
like to learn what tangible pleasures this world offers, rather than
tempt the unsubstantiated promises of a future state."

"But surely you believe in an after life?" I enquired, in some surprise.

"It’s difficult to believe what one cannot prove," he returned
evasively.

"But," I ventured argumentatively, "I can imagine that if the total
_matter_ in the universe is indestructible and cannot be added to or
taken from, the _soul_ too is indestructible—it may be changed, but
cannot be destroyed."

"Ah!" he exclaimed quickly, "you are assuming the reality of the
abstract. Suppose I do not agree with your hypothesis, and deny the
existence of the soul! You cannot prove me wrong. Sometimes I fear,"
he continued more softly, "the soul, or what we conceive to be the soul,
is merely the reflection of poor Humanity beating its anxious wings
against the horror of extinction."

"Or the shadow of a poor physician scuttling away from the terrors of
your philosophy," I laughed. "You iconoclasts would pull our
castles-in-the-air about our ears and leave us standing in the ruins."

"I’ll build another castle for you," he returned with a queer, sad
smile, as though he sympathised with my dilemma.

"But not to-night," I urged, as I arose to go; "you must wait until you
are stronger; you have been talking too much already for one so ill, and
I must say good night."

It was several days later, and the youthful philosopher was making good
progress on the road to recovery, when another young officer, very
similar in appearance to our patient, drove up to the door of the
hospital in a motor car. He was attended by two senior officers of
distinguished appearance and very military bearing, and who showed
considerable deference towards their young companion.

Apparently they had come from the front and, as the colonel showed them
about the various wards, took the keenest interest in the patients. At
last they came to the young Welshman’s room. As they entered he turned
to look at them, and, dropping his arms, suddenly lay at "attention" in
bed.

"Llewellyn, by Jove!" exclaimed the youngest of the trio, as he stepped
forward and shook our patient warmly by the hand. "I had no idea you
were here. How are you?"

"Much better, thank you, your Royal Highness," said Llewellyn, with his
ready smile, "and greatly honoured by your visit, sir."

"I hope it is nothing serious," said the Prince of Wales kindly—for it
was he—"you are looking quite bright!"

"It isn’t _very_ serious, I believe, sir—a touch of pleurisy, that’s
all. But the doctors insist on sending me home on account of it. That
is my chief grievance."

The young Prince smiled understandingly. It was not so long since he too
had unwillingly been detained at home by illness. His blue eyes lit up
with a quick sympathy as he remarked:

"I hadn’t expected to find an old class-mate here; I hope you will soon
be quite well again and able to return to France."

"I shall do my best to get well soon," Llewellyn answered thoughtfully;
"but the doctors seem to consider my constitution too delicate for
trench life, sir. I have the consolation, though, of knowing that our
college is well represented at the front, for of the seventy-five
students at Magdalen only five are home, and three of those were
physically unfit."

"Isn’t that a splendid record!" cried the Prince with enthusiasm. "It
makes one feel proud of one’s college."

They chatted on various topics for a few moments longer, and then as his
Royal Highness turned to go he exclaimed:

"This is a wonderful hospital; a great credit to Canada! I must write
father and tell him about it. I consider it one of the finest in
France. I am sure you will do well here. Good-bye, dear chap, and the
best of good luck to you!"

The kindly and earnest good wishes of his Royal young friend touched
Llewellyn deeply, and there was a suspicious trace of moisture in his
eyes as he returned:

"Good-bye, sir, and many, many thanks for your kindness in coming to see
me."

*CHAPTER XVII*

The senior major bought a motor car. It was his supreme extravagance.
If there were others who frittered away their substance in riotous
living, at least the major could not be accused of such frivolity. He
had none of the petty vices which eat like a wicked moth into the fabric
of one’s income. Any vice that got at his income bit it off in large
chunks and bolted it before you could say "Jack Robinson." The motor
car was the greatest of these. There may be some who do not consider a
motor car a vice. The only answer I can give them is that they never
saw the major’s car. When he first unearthed its skeletal remains in the
hospital garage, it bore a remote resemblance to a vehicle. It had part
of an engine, four tireless wheels, and places which were meant for
seats. A vision of its possibilities immediately arose before his
mind’s eye, and he could see it, rehabilitated and carefully fed,
growing into a "thing of beauty and a joy forever."

Some of the officers argued it was German, because no such thing could
have been made by human beings. Others maintained it had been left on
the hospital grounds centuries before and the garage had grown up around
it. The maker, out of modesty, had omitted to inscribe his name, but it
had a number whose hieroglyphics antedated "Bill Stump’s Mark." The
original owner sacrificed it, from a spirit of patriotism, no doubt, for
the paltry sum of three hundred dollars, and in the course of time, with
the trifling expenditure of three hundred and fifty more, two mechanics
succeeded in getting it started.

That was a memorable day when, with a noise like an asthmatic
steam-roller, it came ambling out of the hospital yard, peered around
the corner of the fence, and struck off down the road at a clip of three
good English miles an hour.

We rushed to the door to see it, and when the smoke of the exhaust
cleared a little, there sat the major ensconced in the front seat. There
was a beatific smile about his mouth and a gleam of pride in his eye—the
pride of possession. He wasn’t quite sure what it was he possessed, but
it was something which moved, something instinct with life.

"Sounds a bit noisy yet," he murmured confidentially to himself, "but it
will loosen up when it gets running a while."

What prophetic sagacity there was in this remark! It _did_ loosen up,
and to such good purpose that several parts fell off upon the road.
Little by little it got going, and in less than a month you might have
heard it almost any bright afternoon, groaning in the garage preparatory
to sallying forth upon its quest.

But about this time another event of such importance occurred that the
major’s car was thrust into the background. We had in our hospital a
venerable old sergeant of peripatetic propensities, who had two claims
to recognition: first, that he was, and is, the oldest soldier in the
Canadian force in France; and secondly—but this was never proved—that he
could "lick," according to his own testimony, any man within fifteen
years of his age in that part of the world.

Sergeant Plantsfield, our postman and general messenger, travelled into
Boulogne and back from once to thrice daily—in other words, inside the
year he accomplished a motor trip of sufficient length to encompass the
earth. His stock of rumours was inexhaustible, for he developed and
launched upon an unappreciative world at least one new tale daily.

Now if there is one thing a soldier loves more than another it’s a
"rumour"; and the more glaringly absurd, the more readily he will listen
to it. So when the worthy old sergeant burst into the hospital with
excited eyes, flushed cheeks and cap all awry after his latest trip from
Boulogne, the boys crowded round to hear the news.

"They’re here! By gosh! They’re here at last!" he shouted, as he
deposited his overflowing mail bag in the hall and looked triumphantly
from one to another of his listeners.

"Who’s here," demanded Barker, "the Germans?"

"Germans be blowed!" declared the sergeant with scornful emphasis.
"They won’t never be here!"

"Put a little pep in it, dad!" said Huxford. "Wot is it?"

The sergeant waited a full minute to give impress to his announcement,
and then in a tense whisper ejaculated: "The rest of the Canadians are
in France—the whole division’s at the front!"

There was a dead silence for a moment, and then a wild cheer went up
that shook the hall until the windows rattled.

"Ye ain’t stuffin’ us again?" Wilson queried anxiously, when the noise
had died away. "Ye done it so often afore."

Plantsfield looked at him with withering contempt. That his word—the
word of the chief "rumourist" of the unit—should be doubted was almost
too much for human endurance.

"I’ll stuff you, ye young cub, if ye dare to doubt a man old enough to
be yer grandfather," he returned scathingly; and then turning to the
others he continued: "I seen the Mechanical Transport near Boulogne and
was talkin’ to them."

"Oh, I’ll bet you wos talkin’, all right," Wilson came back
vindictively, "if ye got within fifty yards uv ’em."

Plantsfield’s garrulity was proverbial. He had been known to buttonhole
generals and draw them to one side to whisper a choice bit of scandal in
their unwilling ears—his age excusing him from reprimand.

He looked wrathfully at Wilson, but that wily youth kept his rosy cheeks
carefully out of arm-shot. Turning back to his more respectful
auditors, and for the nonce ignoring the disrespectful one, he pursued:

"The Supply Column on their way to the front saw a German aeroplane over
them, forgot discipline in their excitement, jumped down off their
waggons and blazed away at it with their rifles."

"Without orders, I’ll bet?" exclaimed Jogman, slapping his knee.

"Of course," grinned Plantsfield.

Honk had been standing with his mouth open, listening intently and
taking in every word orally. He opened it a shade wider as Jogman
finished speaking, and was about to make an observation, when Huxford,
who was somewhat of a mimic, took the words out of his mouth:

"Just like them blawsted Canydians—’avin’ their poke at th’ bleedin’
Hun. W’y cawn’t they wyte fer h’orders like h’everybody h’else—wyte
until ’e gits aw’y?"

Honk’s indignant protest was drowned in the general clamour which
followed this sally, but his eyes—individually—said wonders.

At the outset discipline was a sore point with the Canadians. Like the
peoples of all free-born countries, it took a long time to suppress the
desire for individual initiative and an innate independence resented
authority. But as the war progressed, Tommy and his seniors came to
realise the absolute necessity for discipline, and bowed with what grace
they might before its yoke. Perhaps what reconciled them most was the
acquired knowledge that it pervaded all ranks from the generals down.
They soon saw that the chain of responsibility must have no missing
link.

In the early days of the war, however, on Salisbury Plains in the rain
and mud, discipline was almost an impossibility, and officers seeking to
inculcate this quality in their men had many strange experiences.

A Tommy was doing "sentry go" one evening in front of his battalion
lines when an officer approached to speak to him. Tommy kept his rifle
firmly on his shoulder, at the "slope," and made no attempt to come to
attention or salute. The officer, wishing to see if he understood his
duty, demanded:

"What are you doing here?"

"Just walkin’ up an’ down," Tommy replied nonchalantly, forgetting, or
at least omitting that important suffix: "sir."

"Just walking up and down," the officer reiterated, with annoyance.
"What do you suppose you’re walking up and down for?"

"To see that none of them guys comes in soused an’ disorderly, I
s’pose," he replied, but without any apparent interest in his
occupation.

"Don’t you know who I am?" the officer demanded testily, exasperated
beyond endurance by such slackness.

"No," Tommy answered shortly. The absence of the "sir" was striking,
and the tone implied further that he didn’t care.

"_I’m the commanding officer of your battalion!_" Each word dropped
like an icicle from the official lips.

"Holy—Jumpin’—Judas!" Tommy exclaimed, doing the "present arms" in three
distinct movements—one to each word; "court-martial fer me!"

It was too much for the gravity of the most hardened disciplinarian.
The colonel turned and fled from the spot until he was far enough away
that the God of Discipline might not be incensed at his shouts of
laughter.

Tommy escaped the court-martial, but he wondered all evening what a
sentry really was supposed to do.

It was almost a month after Plantsfield’s momentous announcement before
the Canadians commenced arriving at our hospital. They came in twos and
threes, scattered amongst large numbers of other British troops, but
they were mostly cases of illness or slight wounds—and we had little
opportunity for comparing the stoicism of our own boys with that of the
English, Irish and Scotch who arrived in droves. What would our lads be
like when they too came back broken and torn? Would they be as patient
and brave as the other British Tommies? Could they measure up to the
standard of heroism set by these men of the Bull Dog breed? We waited,
we watched and we wondered.

There was only desultory fighting during the month of March, and most of
the wounds were from "snipers" or shrapnel.

The first seriously wounded Canadian to reach the hospital was an
artillery officer, from Alberta. A small German shell had dropped into
his dug-out and exploded so close to him that it was a miracle he
escaped at all. When he arrived with his head completely swathed in
bandages, and fifty or more wounds about his body, he looked more like
an Egyptian mummy than a man. His mouth and the tip of his nose were
the only parts of his body exposed to view, and they were burned and
swollen to such an extent that, apart from their position, they conveyed
no impression of their true identity. It was somewhat gruesome to hear
a deep bass voice, without the slightest tremour, emerge from this mass
of bandages. It was as if the dead had suddenly come to life.

"Would you be kind enough to put a cigarette in my mouth, sir?" he
asked.

One is tempted to believe that after this war the eternal question will
no longer be "Woman," but "Cigarette."

"Do you think you can smoke?" I asked him doubtfully.

Something remotely resembling a laugh came from the bandaged head, but
there was not the slightest visible sign of mirth.

"I can manage it fairly well," he returned confidently; "my right arm
has only a few wounds."

Only a few wounds! And he could lie there and speak calmly of them! He
might have been excused for hysterics. The English officers in the
other beds smiled appreciatively:

"He’s a brick!" I heard one murmur.

The nursing sister, a keen, young woman of ability, looked across the
bed at me with a slight smile of pride. She made no remark but as she
leaned over her patient to unwind his bandages, a flush of pleasure at
his heroism dyed her cheeks. We would have no cause to be ashamed of
our own boys. As we stood beside the bed of that gallant chap, the
epitome of all that was best and bravest from home, a lump arose in our
throats and choked back speech.

With the aid of cocaine, I removed about a dozen small pieces of shell
from his chest and arms. His face was mottled with myriads of splinters
of stone, and his right eye was practically gone. The hair had been
completely burned off his head and in the centre of the scalp a piece of
nickel, about the size of a penny and as thin as a wafer, had been
driven. One large piece of shell had buried itself in the right leg;
half a dozen more smaller scraps were in the left; his wrist watch had
been smashed to atoms and the main spring was embedded in the flesh.

"I can’t see yet," he explained, "so please watch where I lay my
cigarette. I suppose my eyes will come around in time?"

How much would we have given to have been able to assure him of such a
possibility! I had grave doubts, but answered as encouragingly as I
dared. Reggy came in later to examine the eye and shook his head over
it despondently.

"There’s a chance for the left eye," he remarked to me, as we passed out
into the hall, "but the right eye will have to be removed as soon as he
is able to stand the operation."

(Apart from this loss, in the course of time, he recovered perfectly.)

We went into the room of a young officer from British Columbia, who had
also just reached the hospital. He was a tall, handsome, fair-haired
youth. He rose to his feet, trembling violently, as we entered. He was
still dressed and after we had passed the customary greetings I
enquired:

"Have you been wounded?"

"No," he replied with a smile, although his lip quivered as he spoke.
"I wish I had been. It’s rotten luck to get put out of business like
this. I got in the way of a ’Jack Johnson’; it played me a scurvy
trick—shell-shock, they tell me, that’s all."

It might be all, but it surely was enough. There is nothing more
pitiable than the sight of a strong, active young man, trembling
continuously like an aspen leaf. Shell-shock, that strange, intangible
condition which leaves its victims nervous wrecks for months or years,
was uncommon in the early days of the war, but with the advent of
thousands of guns is much more common now.

We chatted with him for a little while, and then continued our
pilgrimage to the larger wards. Nursing Sister Medoc, a tall graceful
girl, a typical trained nurse, met us at the door.

"Here’s a strange case, Major," she remarked, as she pointed to one of
the new arrivals who had just been placed in bed. "He is quite insane
and thinks he is still in the trenches, but he refuses to speak."

"He must be insane if he won’t speak to you, Sister," Reggy suggested
facetiously.

"That will be quite enough from you, young man," she returned with calm
severity.

Sister Medoc preceded us into the ward, and Reggy whispered
confidentially in my ear:

"Do you know, you can’t ’jolly’ our trained nurses—they’re too clever.
Sometimes I think they’re scarcely human."

"You’re quite right, Reggy," I returned consolingly, "too many are
divine."

Reggy looked as if he would have liked to argue the point, but by this
time we had reached the bedside of our patient. I addressed a few words
to him, but he made no response and returned my look with a fixed and
discomfiting stare. I wondered how, if he refused to talk, the nurse
could tell he believed himself still in the trenches.

The riddle was shortly solved. Turning on his side and leaning on one
elbow, he grasped the bar at the head of the bed and cautiously drew
himself up until he could look over the "parapet." He shaded his eyes
with one hand and gazed fearfully for a moment or two into the mists of
"No Man’s Land." Then quickly raising his elbow in an attitude of
self-defence, he shrank back, listening intently to some sound we could
not hear, and suddenly, with a low cry of alarm, dived beneath the
sheets (into the trench) as the imaginary shell went screaming over his
head.

As soon as it had passed he was up at the "parapet" again, straining his
eyes and ears once more. His nostrils dilated tremulously as his breath
came in quick short gasps. His upper lip curled in anger, and in that
grim moment of waiting for the German charge, his teeth snapped firmly
together and every muscle of his body was tense.

By the strained look in his eyes we knew the enemy was almost upon
him—Reggy and I in the forefront. With a wild cry of hate and fury he
sprang at us, lunging forward desperately with his bayonet. Reggy
backed precipitately against me, but before he had time to speak our
assailant, with a shiver of horror, had retreated into his "dug-out."

"Thank the Lord that was only an imaginary bayonet!" Reggy gasped; "I
could hear my finish ringing the door bell."

"If we had been real Germans, Reggy," I returned with conviction, "we’d
be running yet!"

"Do you think he’ll recover?" Reggy asked.

"Yes. The attack is so violent and sudden; I think he has every chance.
We’ll send him to England to-morrow."

Another month passed. It was the night of the twenty-second of April
when this startling message reached the hospital:

"Empty every possible bed. Ship all patients to England. Draw hospital
marquees, beds, blankets and paliasses, and have your accommodation for
patients doubled in twenty-four hours."

Something unlooked for had happened. We worked like slaves. The
hospital grounds soon looked like a miniature tented city. In half the
time allotted us we were able to report that we were ready for six
hundred wounded.

A despatch rider, covered with mud, whirled up to the door on his
motorcycle. A little crowd gathered round him.

"Anything new?" we asked him excitedly.

"The Canadians are in one of the most frightful battles of the war," he
replied. "The wounded will be coming in to-night."

And this was the day for which we had been waiting! This was the day
for which we had crossed the sea! It was as if an iron hand had
suddenly gripped the heart and held it as in a vise. We asked for
further news, but he knew nothing more, and with anxious and impatient
minds all we could do was—wait.

*CHAPTER XVIII*

As the sun hid its face on that tragic evening of the twenty-second of
April, 1915, the Turcos and Canadians, peering over their parapets, were
astonished to see a heavy yellowish mist rolling slowly and ominously
from the German trenches. In the light breeze of sundown it floated
lazily toward them, clinging close to the earth. Although the Turcos
thought it a peculiar fog, they did not realise its true significance
until it rolled into their trenches and enveloped them in its blinding
fumes, stinging their eyes, choking their lungs and making them deathly
ill. They could neither see nor breathe and those who could not get
away fell in heaps where they were, gasping for air, blue in the face,
dying in the most frightful agony.

Germany, discarding the last tattered remnant of her mantle of honour,
had plunged brazenly into a hideous crime—poison-gas had been used for
the first time in the history of war!

Coughing, sneezing, vomiting; with every breath cutting like a knife,
crying tears of blood, the unfortunate Turcos who had not already
fallen, fled from the accursed spot. The horses too, choking and
startled, whinneying with fear, stampeded with their waggons or gun
limbers in a mad endeavour to escape the horror of the poisoned air. A
storm of shrapnel, high explosive and machine-gun bullets followed the
flying masses and tore them to pieces as they ran.

For four miles the Allied trenches were left unprotected, and a quarter
million Germans who had been awaiting this opportune moment, started to
pour through the broad gap on their drive for Calais.

A brigade of Canadian artillery in Poperinghe received a hurried message
that evening to move forward, take up a position on the road near Ypres
and wait for further orders. They had but a faint notion of the great
trial through which they were to pass.

When they arrived at the point designated it was almost dark and the
noise of the German bombardment was terrific. Presently along the road
from Ypres came crowds of fleeing civilians. Feeble old men tottering
along, tearful women carrying their babes or dragging other little ones
by the hand, invalids in broken down waggons or wheel-barrows, wounded
civilians hastily bandaged and supported by their despairing friends
hurried by in ever-increasing numbers. Some had little bundles under
their arms, some with packs upon their backs—bedding, household goods or
clothes, hastily snatched from their shattered homes. With white
terror-stricken faces, wringing their hands, moaning or crying, they ran
or staggered by in thousands. Their homes destroyed, their friends
scattered or killed, with death behind and starvation before, they ran,
and the greedy shells, as if incensed at being robbed of their prey,
came screaming after them.

To add to the confusion and horror of the evening, the Turcos, wild-eyed
and capless, having thrown away their guns and all encumbrances, came
running in stark terror across the fields shouting that the Germans had
broken through and would be upon them any moment. They cried to the
artillery to escape while they yet had a chance—that all was lost!

It required more heroism to stand before that onrush of terrorised
humanity than to face death a dozen times over. To the Canadian
artillery these were the most tragic and trying hours of their lives,
but with stolid and grim determination they stood through it, waiting
impatiently for the order to move forward.

All through the night the homeless, despairful creatures from St.
Julien, Vlamertinge, Ypres and the villages round about streamed by in a
heartrending, bemoaning multitude. Sometimes in agonised fear they broke
through the ranks of the soldiers, stumbling onward toward Poperinghe.

The shriek of shells and the thunder of the guns continued hour after
hour, while on high the vivid glare of bursting shrapnel cast a weird
unearthly glow over the land. Between the blasts of artillery, from
time to time on the wings of the wind, human cries blending in a
gruesome murmur added to the horror of the night.

Through it all those men of iron stood by their guns waiting for the
word of command. At 3.00 a.m. it came. A murmur of thankfulness that at
last they were to do something went up, and in a twinkling they were
galloping eagerly forward toward their objective.

They chose the most advanced position in the line of guns, close to the
Yser, and soon were in their places ready for the fight. Shells fell
about them in thousands, but the men happy to be in the thick of the
battle turned to their guns with a will and worked like mad.

The dawn broke, but there was no cessation of the fight. The guns
became hot, and screeched complainingly as each shell tore through the
swollen muzzle, but still there was no reprieve or rest, and all day
long they belched forth smoke and death over the Yser’s bank.

When the Germans commenced to pour through the gap which their
treacherous gas had made, they overlooked one important obstacle. On
their left were the men who had lived through four months of misery in
the rain and mud of Salisbury Plains, each day laying up a bigger score
against the _Bosches_ for settlement.

With this unhappy memory, it was not likely that the First Canadians
were to be ousted from their trenches or killed by gas alone without a
struggle for revenge. For some reason only their left wing had received
an extreme dose of the gas. Many fell and died, but those who remained
stuffed handkerchiefs into their mouths, covered their noses and held on
like grim death for the great attack they knew was coming. They had not
long to wait. Most of them had never seen the enemy before, and the
sight of thousands of Germans marching forward in dense masses was to
Tommy a distinct and unlooked for pleasure. But on they came in a
multitude so great that it looked as if no guns on earth could mow them
down.

In spite of the sight of these great numbers, it was with the utmost
difficulty that the officers could restrain their men from rushing out
at the enemy with the bayonet. Tommy argued: "Between Salisbury Plains
and Wipers we’ve been stuck in the mud for six months, never so much as
seeing the nose of a German, and now here they come, just asking to be
killed and you won’t let us get out at them!" The mere fact of being
outnumbered twenty times over didn’t seem sufficient excuse to
disappointed Tommy for remaining under cover.

Myriads of self-satisfied _Bosches_ came marching past, as though the
world were theirs. They were due for a rude awakening. They had not
progressed far when the extreme violence of the counter attack caused
them to pause in irresolute wonder. Who were these bold, desperate men
who dared remain in the trenches when half an army had passed? No army
in its senses would remain with unprotected flank. There must be
tremendous reinforcements at their back—so reasoned the Germans. To
stay with one wing "in the air" seemed too much madness even for the
"untrained" Canadians.

But one thing was clear to the Teuton mind; whoever they were, they were
a decided menace to their advance and must be annihilated or forced back
at all costs before the German Army could progress. But what a lot of
annihilating they seemed to take!

The third brigade swung across the enemy’s flank and poured such a
withering fire into the _Bosches_ that they were sore pressed, with all
their horde, to hold their own. Men and guns were fighting back to
back, grimly, determinedly, unflinchingly and with invincible valour.

The enemy artillery now had command of the main road to Ypres, and of
many of the lesser roads, and was keeping up a hellish fire on all to
prevent reinforcements or supplies from reaching the Canadians.

All that night our plucky men fought them off, driving them back through
the woods. They retook four captured guns. All the next day, thousands
without food or water fought side by side with unconquerable spirit. In
impossible positions, raked by enemy shell fire, without chance to eat
or sleep, they held on and tore at the Germans like angry wolves,
fighting with such unheard of ferocity that their opponents were
absolutely staggered.

If a seemingly hopeless message came from headquarters to a battalion:
"Can you hold on a few hours longer?", back would come the answer piping
hot: "We can!"

Again and again the doubting question came to the trenches: "Can you
still hold on?", and again and again returned the same enheartening
reply: "We can and _will_ hold on!"

Then an unheard of thing occurred—neglect of an order. The message from
headquarters, couched in generous words, read: "You have done all that
human power can do. Your position is untenable. You must retreat!"

A flush of disdainful anger swept over the officer’s face as he read
this message, and he replied in three words: "Retreat be damned!"

The Canadians had not learned the meaning of the word "retreat." It had
been left out of their martial vocabulary—some one was responsible for
this omission. The Germans tried to teach them its meaning with gas,
with bayonet and with shell; but thick-headed Tommy and his officers
always misunderstood it for "hold" or "advance." It took four days of
starvation and four sleepless, awful nights to make the most intelligent
amongst them understand the word, and even then it was a scant
concession to the _Bosche_.

Little bands of men, the remnants of dauntless battalions, holding
isolated, advanced points, were commanded to fall back in order to
straighten out the line. But the brave fellows who had so gallantly
defended their posts, were loath to give them up. Unnerved, weak and
exhausted, they still wanted to remain, and when their officers insisted
on their leaving, some actually sat down in the trench and wept bitter
tears of humiliation and chagrin.

During these four fateful days British and French reinforcements had
been rushed up to fill the gap, and further German progress was
impossible. Harassed from the flank, beaten back from the front,
decimated and discouraged, the Germans had suffered a disastrous and
momentous defeat—for to them Calais, their greatest hope, was
irretrievably lost.

During the great battle the Field Ambulance in which Jack Wellcombe was
stationed was working night and day at fever pitch. Time and again the
German guns sought out their quarters and big shells levelled to earth
the houses round about; but, as if the hand of Providence were watching
them, the little field hospital escaped with its patients each time,
just before the buildings were wrecked.

Five times during the three days this fortunate move was accomplished
not a moment too soon, but still they stuck doggedly to the village, as
close as possible to the guns. Sleep was out of the question. Even if
the noise and imminent danger might have been ignored, the streams of
wounded coming in had to receive attention, and during those frightful
days no man flinched before his precarious and arduous duty.

In the seventeen consecutive days and nights of the artillery battle
there was never a full minute’s break in the bombardment from either
side.

On the fourth day, during the lull in the infantry fighting, the door of
the field ambulance was suddenly darkened by the figure of a man. He
staggered in. His eyes were bloodshot. His clothes were torn and
covered with mud, his chin had not been shaved for days and his
appearance betokened utter weariness and exhaustion.

Jack Wellcombe met him at the door and, in spite of his unkempt and wild
appearance, recognised him at once as the Commanding Officer of a
Canadian battalion.

"Good morning, sir," he said in his usual cheery manner.

The colonel looked toward him with glazed, unseeing eyes and without a
sign of recognition.

"I want four coffins," he muttered, ignoring Jack’s greeting.

"You want what, sir?" Jack exclaimed, with a puzzled look.

"Four coffins," he repeated with mechanical firmness and in a tone of
command, "and I want them at once!"

"Come in, sir, and sit down," Jack urged. "You’re unnerved from this
wild fight and lack of sleep. You need a rest—not a coffin."

"I know what I want," he repeated with calm insistence, "and it’s four
coffins—to bury four of my officers."

Jack thought the man’s reason had gone as a result of the terrific
strain, but decided to humour him.

"Come over to my billet with me and get a shave, a wash and a good glass
of grog, and then when you’re feeling better we’ll go out together and
get what you want, and I’ll go back to the lines with you."

The colonel passed his hand across his forehead as though he were trying
without success to recollect something, and then without a word suffered
Jack to take his arm and lead him away. When they arrived at the billet
Jack gave him a stiff glass of brandy and asked him to lie down while
the water was being heated for his bath. Before it was ready he had
fallen sound asleep and Jack did not disturb him for a couple of hours,
when he was aroused with difficulty.

The batman meanwhile brushed the caked mud from his clothes, and by the
time he had had a bath and a shave and a bite of lunch he had begun to
look more like himself. He seemed greatly depressed and talked little;
he was like a man walking in his sleep and still in the throes of a
gruesome nightmare.

As they started off up the street of the village Jack remarked: "You
don’t really want those coffins for which you asked me this morning, do
you?"

The colonel looked uncomprehendingly at him. Without answering the
question, he asked in return:

"Is there a florist’s shop in the village?"

"Well, not exactly a ’florist’s,’" Jack replied, "but there is a place
at the far end of the street where we might get some flowers."

"Let us go there!"

He spoke no further word until they arrived at the little house which
Jack pointed out as a likely place. They entered the room and after
some slight delay madame produced a vase filled with deep red roses.
The colonel selected four of the largest, paid the woman and without a
comment walked out with the roses in his hand.

"Get me a motor car," he said to Jack; "we have several miles to go."

The mechanical transport supplied them with a small car and they started
on their strange mission. They pulled up a few miles back of the firing
line and tramped silently across the fields, the colonel still clutching
the roses, until they came to a spot where a number of Tommies were
standing by four open graves which they had just dug. Beside the graves
rested four shapeless bundles covered with blankets.

"Do you know the burial service?" the colonel asked Jack suddenly.

"I’m afraid I don’t remember it well enough to repeat it," Jack replied.

"It doesn’t matter much," he went on thoughtfully, "I can say it
myself."

The men got ready with their ropes to lower the packages, one by one,
into their respective resting places. It was all that was left of four
gallant officers of a gallant battalion. The colonel repeated the
burial service from memory, word for word:

"Ashes to ashes—dust to dust..."

But before the earth closed over them he stood at the foot of each
grave, silent as the grave itself, and dropping a rose tenderly upon
each stood at attention, his right hand at the "salute." As the earth
fell dully upon the blankets he turned away with tears in his eyes and
said simply:

"Poor brave chaps! I loved them all! God keep them. They did their
duty!"

It was ten o’clock at night as Reggy and I, crossing the tracks at the
_Gare Maritime_ in Boulogne, saw a battalion which had just disembarked
from the cross-channel boat drawn up on the quay, ready to entrain for
the front.

We walked toward them in a spirit of idle curiosity—for the sight was
one to which we were well accustomed—when, under the dim light of a
partly shaded street lamp, we noticed that they were from home. We
approached a little group of officers who were chatting animatedly
together, and among them found several whom we knew.

"What’s the truth about this big show the Canadians are in at the
front?" one cried. "There are all sorts of rumours in England. Some say
eight hundred casualties; some say eight _thousand_."

"I’m afraid eight thousand is nearer the mark," I replied hesitatingly,
fearing to discourage them.

"Eight thousand!" he echoed; and then an eager cry went up from the
little group:

"By Jove! Hope they’ll hurry us on to the front!"

And I was afraid of discouraging them! How little I understood my own
countrymen!

"All aboard!" came the call a moment later, and the enthusiastic Tommies
eagerly clambered into the waiting coaches. As the train clank-clanked
along the street and left us standing there alone in the darkness, back
to our ears came the familiar but ribald strain of "Hail, hail, the
gang’s all here!"

No matter in what strange words it may find vent, the care-free spirit
of song is the true spirit of the army.

"You can’t discourage men like that," said Reggy with a smile half
amusement and half unconscious pride.

And each occupied with his own thoughts we turned and walked silently
down the quay.

THE END

*** End of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "The First Canadians in France - The Chronicle of a Military Hospital in the War Zone" ***

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