Chapter IV: Part 4

_"'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; Rene 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 Rene, and in a moment the murder was out. Whether through misunderstanding, or Rene'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?"

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.

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' fuer 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 cafe 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 cafe. 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 cafe 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 presse--bien presse!_" The sentry capitulated--of course if the _Colonel_ was _presse_, 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 _presse_--it's a great word! If you're only _presse_ 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.