The First Canadians in France

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 Boscheswere 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.

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.