The First Canadians in France

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.