Chapter XXVI

VISITORS.--NEW YEAR IN HOSPITAL.--THE CHURCH EVACUATED.--I GET FURLOUGH,--AND CATCH A NIGHT-GLIMPSE OF PARIS.

Christmas week passed away, and we had anything but a pleasant time of it. The frost and cold were so intense that it was with much difficulty we could keep ourselves sufficiently warm to enable us to do our work. About this time we had several visitors at our quarters. They were Captain Brackenbury, of the Royal Artillery, Prussian Military Attaché; Captain Frazer, also of the Artillery; and Colonel Reilly, French Military Attaché,--the last of whom had been captured in Orleans on the morning of 7th December, by the Prussians, and kept there ever since. He was now ordered with an escort of Uhlans to the frontier. We had a great laugh when he walked into our place on that unlucky 7th; and related how, on awaking, he found to his surprise that the town was in the possession of the Germans. It was certainly not pleasant for him.

We had also with us Major de Haveland, a knight of Malta, and, as I was informed, the only English member of that order. It is well known, however, that the knights of St. John are divided in their obedience; and I do not believe that the Grand-Master, who lives in Rome, would recognise many who in England are spoken of as Maltese Knights. The major, I presume, was of the Roman Obedience. Two members of the press were our guests, Mr. Mejonelle of the _Daily Telegraph_ and Mr. Holt White of the _Pall Mall Gazette._ The former, who was an artist, made sketches also for the _Graphic._ He has given a representation of Ste. Euverte, in which several of us figure. The day I was showing him round, there was a dead soldier laid out on the High Altar, wrapped up in his sheet, with nothing but his head and toes to be seen. He had been taken out of one of the beds beside the Altar immediately after his death, so as to make room for a fresh occupant, and merely laid there while the infirmarians were arranging the bed. The sight struck our guest forcibly, as it could not fail to do; it was most uncanny.

These gentlemen expressed their satisfaction at the way in which everything was carried out at Ste. Euverte, and the clean and decent condition in which we kept the Hospital, despite the presence of almost every circumstance which could militate against cleanliness and order.

Another couple of days, and we found ourselves celebrating the obsequies of the old year, and welcoming, after the fashion of heathens, the advent of the new, by partaking of the unlimited supply of rum punch, which nigger Charlie served up. I have already praised it.

On the evening of New Year we dined together, and toasted not only our noble selves, but our respective countries, homes and friends; endeavouring to feel as happy as possible in the midst of occupations which demanded good spirits as the best way of keeping up our health and courage. It would be unfair to nigger Charlie if I forgot his most eloquent and humorous oration, delivered in choice Virginian or negro dialect, in reply to the toast of his health which Colonel Hozier proposed. The most remarkable portion of it was, perhaps, that in which Charlie exulted over the former wealth and greatness of Dr. Pratt's family, as large slave-owners! What could a Declaration of Independence do for such feudal enthusiasm as this?

The weather continued bitterly cold; and Henry Schroeder, the sub-lieutenant whom I mentioned as having been shot at Beaugency by one of his own men, asked me as a favour to find quarters for him in some private house in the town. After much trouble I heard, by accident, that at the convent of Notre Dame des Récouvrances, the superior, Mère Pauline, desired much that the cloisters, dormitories and schoolrooms which the convent possessed, should be occupied by our Ambulance. The Sisters were afraid lest the Germans should establish in their house an Ambulance of their own, to which the nuns highly objected.

But the fact that Mère Pauline was an Englishwoman, in great measure accounted for her anxiety to have us. I need hardly say that I did not want much pressing; at once I had Schroeder, Rüdiger, and four or five others, removed into their new quarters, and took formal possession in the name of the Ambulance.

Here, in good beds and warm rooms, with every care and attention paid to them, and good food to eat, they were very snug and comfortable--a pleasing contrast to the cold, dreary church which they had just left. I appointed one nurse, Soeur Léopoldine, to look after these men, whose number, in a few days, I increased to ten, so that I had quite a hospital there, though on a small scale.

The patient named Rüdiger, a young fellow of seventeen, and a volunteer, whose leg was fractured, became a particular favourite with his nurse and with Mère Pauline. He had not a hair on his face, which was of a ruddy hue, and wore a perpetual smile. He spent his time mostly in learning the French Grammar, a task in which he was helped by Soeur Léopoldine during her spare moments. Most of the others were Bavarians, and, I must say, a sleepy uninteresting lot.

Schroeder was the son of a wealthy tobacco and wine merchant in Hamburg. He had one brother, who was captain in an infantry regiment. Their mother was still living. He told me with pride that he had supplied Bismarck with many a cigar; and promised me a case of them and a barrel of oysters, when he returned. Poor fellow, he little knew what was coming; for at this time he was comparatively strong, and, in the opinion of many, out of danger. But, from my conversations with him, I learned that his family history was very bad; and from the first had grave misgivings about his case, which, however, it was my duty to disguise from him. When, occasionally, without being able to help it, I looked serious, he used only to laugh, and chaff me, singing, in the most comical way possible, the well-known English ditty, "Champagne Charley is my name". I liked Schroeder.

I now put two of my men from Ste. Euverte into No. 44 Rue de Bourdon Blanc. They were Martin Dilger, my old patient--the survivor of the railway-shed--and Jacob Venheiser. There they received the kindest care and attention from their good host and hostess, M. and Madame B----.

By 4th January I had removed all my worst cases into private quarters in the town; leaving only about a dozen in the church, all of which were now on the high road to convalescence, and fit to be removed to Germany by the next ambulance train. On this happy disposal of my patients I had greatly to congratulate myself; for just now pyæmia and hospital gangrene of the worst type, showed themselves in the church; and we knew from our experiences at Sedan and the railway station how sure they were to be attended by terrible results, where such a number of wounded were kept together.

And so it proved now. In a few days, blood-poisoning made great havoc among the men, and its victims lay piled one above another in the dead-house,--truly a sorry sight for those who had spent so much care on them! We determined at once to evacuate the church; for even the convalescent were not safe from this dread malady, which some of the savants in our profession tell us is preventable; such, however, is not my experience. Disinfectants and carbolic-acid dressings were used unsparingly. Fresh air, as I have said, is of paramount importance in the management of this disease; and it must come to the patient in a continuous current,--moreover, to be effective, it must be dry air, while about the patient it requires to be warm, or at least the patient himself must be warm, and at no time suffer a chill. Every day the members of our staff eagerly sought new quarters for their wounded in the private houses of the town, which was now not a difficult task, the garrison not being very large, for Orleans had ceased to be that theatre of war which heretofore it had been.

As time rolled on, and fresh arrivals did not come in, we had more leisure. And well for me that it happened so! I had begun to find the work tell upon my health, and now a little relaxation was as necessary as it was agreeable.

During all this time no startling event happened, save an attempt that was made by some demented person at Orleans to assassinate a Prussian soldier. For this offence a fine of 600,000 francs was levied on the town; and to show the amount of trade which was carried on by the French with the invaders, out of this sum imposed, 400,000 francs were paid down in Prussian money. The fine was demanded on the 16th, and paid up fully on the 23rd of December.

Now, as I was daily beginning to feel more and more exhausted, and feared my health was becoming undermined, I determined to seek leave of absence for a few weeks. Dr. Tilghman, who was again _locum tenens_ during Dr. Pratt's absence on business for ten days, knew how much I wanted a change, and did not hesitate to give me leave, under condition that I would report myself again before that day month. A matter of urgent private business obliged Dr. Sherwell to start for Hamburg on the next day, and I resolved to get ready that evening, 7th Jan., 1871.

I went with Dr. Fritz to the Commandant of the place and the Head Military Surgeon, from whom I obtained sick passes all through France and Germany, and Railway and Hotel billets free. The Northern parts were still in the hands of the French, so that I had no chance of getting home in that direction. I handed over my cases to the care of Dr. Parker, who, with his usual good nature, promised to give them his best attention in my absence. I made as little as possible of my departure to them, merely saying that I should be back at the end of some days.

At six o'clock next morning Dr. Sherwell and I were at the Railway Station, where we found that a train full of wounded was to be put under our charge as far as Corbeil. Our way of getting on was a novel one, for we were to be drawn by horses the whole distance. After much confusion and waiting we started. The entire train was composed of goods trucks, in which the wounded were laid on straw, using their rugs to cover them. There were many officers among them who took pot luck with the men, for there was no special accommodation. Every three trucks were drawn by four horses, and thus it was that we took the train to Corbeil,--a distance of some fifty miles.

The morning was bitterly cold, and a dense fog hung about, which made it hard for us to keep ourselves warm; but matters mended when we came to Artenay, where hot soup and bread were awaiting us.

In one of the trucks sat Martin Dilger and one or two other of my patients, all in high spirits at the thought of getting back to the Fatherland, though minus a limb each. In another carriage we had a company of soldiers as an escort to the cavalcade, and these made themselves useful when required.

Thus we went along at a snail's pace; but Sherwell and I got out now and then, and ran ahead of the train to warm ourselves, for the weather did not mend, and many of our charges suffered severely from it. During the journey I fell into conversation with the sergeant of our guard, a mere lad, like so many others, and a volunteer. He spoke English well, with hardly any accent, and had lived and studied in London during the past two years, hence his knowledge of the language. He had been at Gravelotte, of which tremendous affair he gave me a most interesting account.

He was a gentle youth, with a soft musical voice, and plainly of position, as well as education. He said that he had been recommended for the Iron Cross. Here was the third volunteer I had met under the age of twenty, and all three were of good social standing.

There was one old wounded colonel who had a large flask bottle of chartreuse, with which he repeatedly plied Sherwell and me during the journey. I think we neither of us disliked it just then. The next stop we made was at Étampes, where we remained half an hour to have some hot coffee served out. At dusk we had got as far as Juviose, where we changed lines, and in due time arrived at Corbeil about 8 P.M. Our convoy excited notice and wonder among the country people in the districts which we passed, and in many places they came out in crowds to see us go along. When we arrived at Corbeil, we called on the Etappen-commandant, got our passes checked, and went to the major for our billet and rations,--in other words, our requisition for board and lodging, which he gave us on a very snug well-furnished little house in a central part of the town. Having dined off a piece of coarse beef and some bread and beer, we strolled out for a short time. Next morning we were up betimes, and went out to see the town, which is a quaint old place. We stood on the ruins of the bridge, which we had crossed over on piles and planks, in the parts where it had been damaged by the French explosion. It formed a pretty sight when seen at a little distance.

What struck me most about the place was that all the trade of the town seemed to be in the hands of German sutlers, principally Jews, who had followed in the footsteps of the army. Few of the inhabitants kept establishments open for the sale of merchandise. In one of these shops where we turned in to buy some trifles, we met a friendly German civilian, who told us that our best route eastwards was by Lagny, beyond Paris,--a station some forty miles from Corbeil--which was in direct railway communication with the Rhine. He added that a convoy of provision was to leave at noon for that place, and advised us to secure a seat in one of the waggons. Accordingly, we found out the conductor, promised him a couple of thalers for the lift, and secured places in one of the least uncomfortable of these vans. It was, by the way, of very simple construction. The body, made of osier-work and tapering to a point, rested on a heavy beam which ran lengthwise, and which rested, in turn, on the pair of axles, the upper part being supported by stays which went from the main ribs of the boxes of the wheels; in short, the whole resembled a boat resting on a piece of timber, which again found support on the axles. Then there were twists of osiers overhead, covered with canvas which made the thing like a gipsy's tent.

In this queer turn-out we started from Corbeil, drawn by two Dutch ponies; but, though our horses were fresh and spirited, our progress was very slow, the ground being as slippery as ice. Just before nightfall it began to snow hard, and when we came to the hamlet of Brie, our conductor would go no further. The roughing on his horses' shoes was worn, and it would be too dangerous for us to travel at night on such unendurable roads.

We got down, therefore, rather unwillingly, with our traps in our hands; and going about in quest of lodgings for the night, as fortune would have it, we espied at the further end of the village a line of waggons similar to that which we had just left. Upon hailing the conductor, we found that they also were for Lagny, and starting at once; so that again we took our seats, this time in a waggon load of hay, which helped to keep us warm, or, at all events, prevented us from being thoroughly frozen. It was snowing fast, and by now was quite dark. We thought the cold fearful. As we went along the horses seemed to take it in turns to fall; but sometimes our ponies would be down together; happily, they were not encumbered with harness, and soon righted themselves. Yet, once or twice it took the united ingenuity of us all to extricate them from the rope-traces, in which their legs had become entangled.

We had a lantern hung out over the front of our waggon, by the dim light of which we were barely able to see the road before us. In time, to our great relief, the snow-storm, which had lasted for hours, cleared up. We had been afraid that our steeds would either miss the road, or tumble us into a ditch. At one place I got out, and trudged through the snow for a couple of miles. There was a part of this road turning round the crest of a hill, from which we could see the flashes from the forts round Paris, and hear the booming of the cannon distinctly. Several times I saw the little thin streak of sparks rising into the sky, which the fuse of the bombshells threw out on their journey, while sudden flashes in the air, followed by a loud report, signified that a shell had prematurely burst.

It was a splendid sight, and resolving to get the best view possible, I climbed into an apple tree by the way side, where, kneeling on a huge bunch of mistletoe, I could see every few minutes a shot directed from the forts and one in reply, each leaving its comet-like train of fire behind it. Though the besiegers and the besieged were many miles distant, I could hardly realise that they were not close at hand. So little, at the time, did I comprehend the magnitude of the siege guns, and the remoteness at which they could be heard. Much as I should have liked to linger on the scene, I could not tarry; I had to come down from my apple tree, and trot along until I had rejoined my waggon. Such was my second glimpse, and that at night, of the siege of Paris. My first, if the reader has not forgotten it, showed me the assault which ended in the burning of St. Cloud.