The Bandstand in the Square.
Many interesting little affairs happened in the Bandstand in the Grand Place beneath our laboratory windows. One Sunday evening in June a khaki-clad figure ascended a pulpit which had been improvised there; the seats in front of him were filled with rows of generals, colonels and other officers. In a rich, stentorian voice he gave out the lines of a verse, and led by a cornet, the strains of the grand old hymn "O God our help in ages past" swelled on the summer evening air, sung as only soldiers can sing.
The crowd of soldiers about the bandstand grew, and little French children playing about in their best Sunday clothes, stopped in curious wonderment to hear "Les Anglais" sing. A few of their elders strolled over and even though they could not understand, they listened attentively.
Our thoughts flew thousands of miles over the ocean to other Sunday evening services at our home in Canada. We could see the old family pew; we could hear father and mother and the old friends singing that same old hymn, while our youthful minds were likely busied with recollections of a lacrosse match or baseball game that we had seen the day before, or maybe of a visit to the old dam where we had had the finest swim of the season. We could see women attired in spotless white, and men in frock coats and silk hats, walking sedately to church, and we longed with an intense longing for one more such Sunday in the old home town. It seemed ages since we had been there; we wondered whether we would ever visit the old scenes again, and we had a premonition that we never would. The theme of the brief sermon was the old, old story of Christ's coming to save sinners, and the guns boomed and a belated aeroplane overhead buzzed homeward while the speaker appealed earnestly to his hearers to serve Christ by following his example in true living even as they were now, by offering their lives, serving humanity.
General Haig presents medals.
One summer evening, after the battle of Aubers Ridge a number of junior officers and private soldiers, including Indians, began to gather about the bandstand. As ten o'clock approached, motor after motor drew up, numerous staff officers descended and formed themselves into groups. There was much saluting and hand-shaking, the saluting being done by the junior officers and men, and the hand-shaking taking place among the seniors.
Although furniture was none too plentiful a table which was secured somewhere, was placed about six paces in front of the grandstand steps. A cloth was placed upon the table, and two officers began spreading on it in orderly array various small boxes. A list was produced, names were compared and carefully checked. The officers and men who were to receive decorations were then paraded, and as the roll was called each man took his place in order in the line. The list was again checked over, and compared with the boxes on the table.
At 10.20 a big car drove up and a figure stepped out—a figure known to the whole world—Sir Douglas Haig. Well groomed, handsome, quick of his movement, he looked as he was, every inch a soldier. As he approached the groups everyone stood to attention; the senior officer gave the salute, and the General acknowledged it.
After a few words with the officers in charge, General Haig took his place behind the table and made a short speech, after which the soldiers were called up one by one while he pinned on their medals or decorations. Each soldier saluted as stepped forward, and as he stepped back to his place he saluted again in acknowledgment of the remarks of the General.
There was no fuss, no feathers; the affair was typically British. Such decorations as the Legion d'Honeur and Croix de Guerre, had to be presented, and they were, after which everybody shook hands and went away. It was all very simple. In serving your country you risk your life, and incidentally you may get a decoration for bravery. Why make a fuss about it?
An Old Flanders Hotel.
There are many kinds of hotels in the little towns and villages of northern France, some good and some bad;—mostly good if you only want bread, cheese and beer, and very bad if you want anything else. Still, you do occasionally run across an hotel which is capable of providing a decent meal, though the rooms and general accommodation are, as a rule, exceedingly poor. Heat is a thing unknown. If you raise a row and demand a fire, they will provide it for sundry francs and centimes extra. In war time coal becomes more and more difficult to obtain, and the inveigling of a fire out of mine host becomes increasingly difficult.
The M—— Hotel was rather a pretentious hostelry. It occupied part of the City Hall or Hotel de Ville which faced the Grande Place. The Hotel de Ville is a rather good looking red brick building, three stories high, and is said to be over 200 years old. In the centre an arch way, protected by heavy iron gates, leads into an inner court, occupied chiefly by stables. To the right is the entrance to the police magistrate's office and court, and to the left is the entrance to our Hostelry.
A typical old Frenchman, with a snow-white drooping moustache and closely cropped white hair, runs the hotel with the aid of his rosy cheeked daughter and a couple of maids. The old man spends his time in dispensing wine and beer, looking after the maids, occasionally cooking a meal for a particular guest, buying the food, and playing billiards with the little groups of old cronies that foregather in the common room each evening. Like all Frenchmen, he had been a soldier in his time, and had never forgiven the Germans for 1870. His picture as a young man in uniform, hung in the dining-room of the hotel.
Moreover, he was a musician, and before the war had played the French horn in the town band. His banquet hall, which we were now using as a laboratory, had been the band room and the home of all band practices in the long winter months. How the old man did roll his eyes with ecstasy and raise his hands with unutterable joy as he listened for the first time to the wonderful mellow music of the British Grenadier Guards' band as it played in the bandstand in the square. Handel's largo, the overture to Tannhauser, and a fantasia on British airs,—each brought forth a different series of gestures. "Monsieur, I have not heard such fine music since I heard the Republican Guards' band at Paris; in fact, monsieur, this is finer—the tone is richer, rounder and more mellow. It is marvellous, Monsieur le Colonel, marvellous; it is entrancing; a-ha! heavenly!"
M—— Hotel in the evening was an interesting sight. Little tables were spread about upon the sawdust sprinkled floor, each table with two or four guests discussing the official communiques of the day, the flow of talk assisted by a bottle of red or white wine. M.X., the miller, at heart more or less of a pessimist invariably got into an argument with that fierce optimist, M.Y., the lumberman. Night after night they would argue as to the progress of the war; whether Germany was really short of food; whether there were really three million men in "Keetchenaire's" army; whether the country was infested with spies; or why Von Kluck's army turned back from Paris.
An Indian Concert.
Towards four o'clock, one afternoon, we noticed an unusual clearing up of the village square. Military policemen were ordering away motor cars, wagons, and lorries, while everything in the square was made spick and span. About four-thirty, Sikhs, Beloochis, Pathans, and Ghurkas began to stroll into the square and congregate in groups, shaking hands with acquaintances they had not met for some time, just like typical Frenchmen. Those who came later carried drums and bagpipes of the regulation kind. At five minutes to five the bandmaster made his appearance, and the band lined up while they tuned their chanters.
Sharp at five o'clock, with a punctuality that was remarkable, the band stepped out across the square to the tune of "The Cock of the North," played in perfect time and tune. At the far side of the square they wheeled about and back they came with ribbons flying and chests inflated, looking like real natives of the Scottish hills. It was the most perfect pipe playing I had ever heard. The French were delighted. As the strains died away in the wail of the chanters, a hearty round of applause brought smiles to the serious faces of the Indians, and away they went again to "Highland Laddie," followed by "The Campbells are Coming."
Then another band followed with performance on the Indian pipe which is something like a chanter, without the bag or drones. The effect was awful. To make a hit they attempted "La Marseillaise," and it was a hit. Had it been a farce it could not have been beaten—no two instruments were in tune and some of the notes of the scale were altogether missing, so that the most ghastly discords were sprung upon us. No wonder such instruments can lash the hillsmen into fury. They had us nearly fighting mad.
To hint that we were not entranced with their efforts, we clapped but faintly—but the musicians took it as hearty applause, and burst forth with fearful onslaught upon "Rule Britannia." When they were through you could have heard a pin fall. Not a soul risked a sound lest the players should mistake it as an invitation to renew their entertainment; so the real pipe band came on for another whirl and we were made happy once more.
Precisely at five-thirty, the concert ended, and the cosmopolitan crowd of French civilians and soldiers, British Tommies, Indians, Highlanders, and Canadians, melted away. Five minutes after, save for the presence of a few blue rock pigeons flitting about in search of their evening meal, the square showed no sign of life.
The Jail.
The town jail and dungeon is in the Hotel de Ville. Heavy barred doors open into a little dimly-lit store room, with windows high up protected by iron bars. Through this room a small doorway leads to a dungeon without light of any sort. We always knew when this prison had an occupant—in the morning a fatigue party under a corporal would appear marching across the square carrying food rations. The corporal would halt his men, step forward and give the signal on the door; it would be opened by the sentry guarding the inner cell. The food was then conveyed to the prisoner, the fatigue party marched away, and the sentry with rifle on shoulder paced up and down the front of the jail until his relief arrived. At no time was the guard off duty for a moment until the prisoner, perhaps under sentence of death, had been removed.
Once we had to report on a swab from a prisoner under the death sentence. Military law says that no man can be shot while suffering from any disease in hospital. Consequently when this man was found to have a suspiciously sore throat, it was reported by the Medical Officer and there was great excitement. Telegrams flew back and forth about the matter while I had to stay up till midnight to obtain a good culture. The culture, much to the relief of the staff officer who was waiting for the report, did not show diphtheria bacilli, and at five o'clock the following morning the poor chap met his fate.
A Canadian Graveyard.
The road to Bethune was always of interest to us, because near the pretty little village of Hinges was a hill; in fact Hinges was right on the top of this hill—our area, elsewhere, was as flat as a board. Hinges was interesting because it was full of trees and hedges and gardens, and somehow reminded one of the beautiful little sequestered villages of England, rather than a French village.
On the far side of the village, where the hill descending swept away off towards Bethune, a fine big French chateau nestled in the midst of a huge park of enormous trees. From the chateau a sweeping view of the surrounding country was obtained. Not more than two miles below it, on the La Bassee Canal, could be seen the spires and towers of the real little city of Bethune. Away beyond Bethune one could see the blue hills in which the Germans were strongly entrenched. To the right among these hills projected three sharp-pointed, pyramidal hills, indicating the location of the dumps of French coal mines, then operated by the Germans.
FRENCH SOLDIERS ADVANCING UNDER COVER OF LIQUID FIRE.ToList
For a time during the battles of Givenchey, one of our field ambulances had been located in the spacious shady grounds of the chateau. A little graveyard near the main gateway, on the roadside, is the last sleeping place of a number of Canadians who died in this ambulance. To-day a neat fence surrounds this little area of Canadian soil and the graves are kept trim and covered with flowers. Even before the authorities took any action I saw the French country people themselves decorating the little mounds beneath which lay "Les Canadiens" who had come so far "to fight for France" in this struggle for the freedom of the world.
It is a beautiful little sleeping-place, and somehow it never seemed to me so sad a spot as some of the other graveyards in France where our Canadians lie. As the roar of the British guns increase as the months go by, and the number of shells carrying death and destruction to the Germans, multiplies—one can imagine that the spirits of those who lie below are watching the enemy lines being pressed back towards Berlin, and that they will understand that their sacrifice has not been in vain.
And, one night as I passed the spot, during the battle of Loos, when the sky flickered red as from summer lightning with the flash of myriads of shells, and the horizon was defined in electric green from the flares of the Germans, I fancied that I could see the shadowy spirits of the departed ones hovering over this spot before their final departure, and I felt that they must realize that the work of our army in its struggle for the freedom of the world was being carried on with increasing efficiency.
Indissoluble ties now bind France to Canada: her soil has been watered with our very best blood and the bond of a common suffering in a righteous cause has united us forever.
A Hot Day in the Field.
One hot day in early June I made a tour of the —— divisional area with the sanitary officer. We had been asked to go over this area, and make suggestions for the improvement of its sanitary condition. It was the only time during two summers spent in France that I felt I was really in the "sunny France" of my imagination. The sun beat down on the floor of our open car so that when one stopped for a minute it became a veritable little red hot radiator. So long as we kept moving, the breeze created made it bearable; but when we left the car for a minute the seats become too hot to sit on, and the perspiration fairly streamed down our faces.
The air rising from the fields and roads vibrated like that over a hot stove; the dust raised by motors hung suspended for long minutes in the motionless air, and filled one's nose and mouth. The chickens in the farmyards stood with beaks wide open gasping for air.
Even military form was relaxed on account of the heat, and lorry drivers, men on transports, and troops marched and worked with their coats off. All the water ditches near the front were filled with soldiers bathing themselves. It is extraordinary how war conditions will break down conventions. Many times that day I saw absolutely nude men bathing in a roadside ditch, and women passing only a few yards away, neither of them being at all concerned about the others. Sections of the Aire-La-Bassee canal looked like the "old swimming pool" in midsummer. Hundreds of soldiers dived, swam, and rolled about in the dirty waters. Finely built, rosy-skinned chaps they were too, playing about like care-free boys, with aeroplanes buzzing by overhead, and shells exploding in a village to the rear.
After a busy morning making our inspection and taking water samples for examination, we dined at the divisional Mess B and set out again to complete our tour. We visited the various filling points of water carts and gradually drew nearer the front line trenches. Turning down one arm of "the tuning fork"—a forked road near Festubert, we came upon an advanced dressing-station. A little to our left was a grey pile of bricks and rubble, all that remained of the village of Festubert.
The medical officer of the dressing-station told me that only ten minutes before the enemy had been shelling the spot about a quarter of a mile farther on, which was our next point of inspection.
"What do you think? Shall we go?" asked the sanitary officer.
"I leave it to you," I said, and we proceeded.
As we approached our destination I picked up the next numbered bottle. It was number 13. A curious sensation passed over me and I put the bottle back, taking up number 14. "Why don't you live up to your disbelief in superstitions," I said to myself and I put bottle number 14 back. When we arrived at the place I took up number 13, got the water sample while the car was being turned and "beat it." Of course nothing happened and we finished our trip at 5 p.m. after a 60-mile tour through the area occupied by as fine a Scotch division as Scotland ever produced.
There are compensations for almost everything in life if you can discover them: I never enjoyed a bath more in my life than the one I had when I reached home that night, sticky and dusty and hot, with the aid of a sponge and half a gallon of water. (Baths are rare in French houses.)
The Fire Fete.
Merville is a staunch compact little town with a big church whose lofty byzantine, rounded dome projected high into the air forms a landmark that can be seen for miles. We have been able to pick up this tower quite easily from a point in Belgium fourteen miles away—a point from which we were actually watching the bombardment of our lines at St. Eloi on the 10th of June 1916. The church is a very large one for a town of the size, but as the people are very good Catholics in that district, it was in constant use from early morning to late at night. Funerals passed to and from it daily and the chants of the resonant-voiced priests became such a frequent thing that we ceased to pay any attention to them. Funerals in France are a most terribly depressing sort of thing, anyway.
One Sunday there was evidence of something unusual on hand. A stage twenty feet across had been erected against the wall of the Hotel de Ville, facing the square and approached by a flight of a dozen steps. During the course of the morning it was covered with green boughs and flowers, a cross was erected on the top while various coloured banners and the tricolors helped to make a very effective and pretty stage.
Meanwhile around the church square there was great excitement. Girls of all ages in white, and boys with short white trousers, blue coats and tam-o-shanters had been going towards the church since early morning. From our laboratory window we could see these youngsters being collected into groups and being instructed by nuns. Banners of various kinds floated in the air and hung from the windows of the houses round about.
We had settled into our daily work when the sound of children's voices floated through the laboratory windows, and we looked out to see a procession coming across the Grande Place, led by an old man carrying a gilded staff and wearing a cocked hat. Right behind him walked a priest between two altar boys, all three wearing elaborately worked tunics of lace; the boys carried poles with lanterns on the top.
Following them came, two and two, the smaller boys of the village. Then came a band of tiny boys carrying wooden guns over their shoulders and dressed as Turcos; large groups of bigger boys followed dressed in white trousers, blue coats and tam-o-shanter hats, and headed by a bugle band.
These were succeeded by a number of girls dressed entirely in white, the smaller ones being in front and the larger ones behind. Then came the really beautiful part of the procession. In this section every girl was dressed differently, each dress being of some period in the history of Flanders. As a study in costume alone it was exceedingly fine.
Some of the dresses were quite beautiful. One had a blue-laced bodice over white and a red velvet skirt with a high pointed black straw hat; another had a black bodice with a white under vest and a blue skirt, the hat being of white lace. Others which I cannot now remember in exact detail were very interesting and recalled all the historical tales that I had ever read of ancient Flanders.
Next came a canopy supported by two of the older men but with choir boys on the four guy ropes. Under it walked the priest who was to be the master of ceremonies for the day. Then came other girls in white, depicting various characters in French history, such as Joan of Arc. The prettiest girl of the village was the one chosen to be the angel, she wore a large pair of wings and was dressed in a white filmy material which made her quite realistic according to the commonly accepted ideas of angels. After these walked the older girls and women of the village according to their age, the tottering old grandmothers coming last. Finally came the men in the order of their age.
By this time the procession had doubled backward and forward on itself as it gradually approached the altar under our windows. The officiating priest, which on this occasion happened to be the clergyman from our own hospital, slowly mounted the steps of the stage as the chant swelled into greater volume, and the whole crowd went down upon its knees in prayer. After certain offices had been performed by the priest at the altar he descended and the procession dispersed.
Such was the interesting "Fete de Feu" of Merville. We were told on the very highest authority that at one time over two hundred years ago, the town caught fire and that nothing could be done to save it. In this dire extremity the parish priest prayed to God and promised him that if he would save the village the town would each year for all time have a memorial procession of thanksgiving; immediately the fire went out and the thankful villagers and their descendants have since that time never failed to keep the sacred promise then made.
Toban's Pup.
Private Toban, contrary to army orders, owned a dog. It was a nondescript pup, with a cross eye, and also a kink in his tail. It was coloured a sort of battleship grey with two or three splashes of brown on the flanks, and his nearest blood relative was probably a French poodle—though his ancestry was a subject of prolonged and sometimes heated debate between Toban and his mates. A Tommy who had scornfully described him as "A 'ell of a lookin' dawg" had been promptly felled by a blow from Toban's right.
Before the second battle of Ypres, when the division was in training, the Canadians did a good deal of route marching. Toban used to take the pup along with him and the pup used to become tired. Then Toban would pick him up and carry him. Finally the medical officer noticed his fondness for the dog and would, on occasion, take the pup in front of him on the saddle.
Once the battalion was going into action and the M.O. was busy at his regimental aid post, making preparations for a rush, when Toban came in. "Say, Doctor," he explained, "I can't take the pup with me and I tied him to a tree down the road."
"I will look after him" promised the M.O. and Toban disappeared.
"Here Corporal, find that dog, and label him with Pte. Toban's number and company," ordered the M.O.
In a couple of minutes the Corporal returned.
"Say Captain," he reported, "I found the pup wrapped up in Toban's blanket and tied to a tree."
The rush began and the doctor forgot all about the dog until an hour later, when Toban, spitting teeth and blood, stumbled into the room with a bullet through his jaw.
"Oh, say Toban," called the M.O., "I found your dog, and he's all right."
When Toban's face was bound up the M.O. asked, "Do you think you can make the field ambulance by the bridge?" Toban nodded and started off.
A minute later he thrust his head into the room—the pup was in his arms, still wrapped in the blanket—and spluttering gratefully through the dressings, "I got 'im, Doc, good-bye," away went Private Toban en route to Blighty.
The Incorrigible.
Private Saunders of the ——th Canadian battalion was a hopeless alcoholic. In England he had become such an incorrigible that the regimental officers decided to get rid of the man. Major M—— hearing the case being discussed by some fellow officers, said, "Let me have a try at him" and with relief they agreed to his transfer to the Nth.
In due time the battalion went to France, and like all others in the first division, took part in the second battle of Ypres. During one of the attacks Major M. was shot through the chest, and left on the field as his battalion was slowly forced back. Saunders learned that the Major—the one man who had treated him like a human being, was somewhere out in front. Under cover of night he left the trench and crawling on his hands and knees searched about for hours amid a hail of bullets and shrapnel, till he found the Major.
"You can't carry me, Saunders, leave me and go back," commanded the Major.
"Now look here," said Saunders, "you have always been my boss and I've done what you told me, now it's my turn; you do as I tell you," and getting the Major on his back he carried him 200 yards to the shelter of a ditch. Then obtaining assistance he went out and succeeded in having the Major conveyed to a dressing-station.
Again taking his place with his battalion, Saunders went into another attack the same night, and had his head blown off. Here was a case where, as far as the officer was concerned, kindness had its own reward; and here again was a case of an apparently useless man, when his hour had struck, arising to the supreme heights of self-sacrifice.
Dirty Jock.
You can't always tell the real worth of any man to the army. Some men, who are efficient and valuable, in times of quiet, are not able to stand up in the gruelling of a battle; while other men, ordinarily useless and difficult to handle, will develop wonderful initiative, resourcefulness, and daring under stress or emergency. The quality of heroism may be surrounded by the most unlikely exterior—but at the supreme moment the hero in every man will come out and he may surprise us by rising to undreamed heights of self-sacrifice.
Jock Smith was a nuisance to the whole regiment; he was a constant reproach to the Colonel, the Medical officer and everybody else. The very day his regiment landed in England he got gloriously drunk and it was only by the simple but very certain method of prodding him with the point of a bayonet in the immediate rear that he was kept from falling out of the ranks and going to sleep on the roadside.
"I didna know ye were gaun ta march the nicht oor I wudna hae got drunk," he apologized.—So it was always. Smith was dirty. Smith was troublesome. Smith, in short, could have well been done without. So dirty did he become, in fact, and so verminous, that his medical officer ordered that he be given a bath; and the order was carried out by a squad of four husky Tommies with a considerable amount of enthusiasm on the part of the squad and a tremendous amount of profanity on the part of Smith.
One bright day "a show was pulled off." Like the rest of the battalion, Smith was in it. As they went over the parapet with the cheer that the Germans have learned to know and dread, Smith was well up in the van. He did his part with an enthusiasm that was a credit to his brigade. An officer passing through a captured trench found Smith in a quandary with three prisoners backed up against the wall. "Come along" cried the officer, "leave those men for somebody else." An hour later Jock walked into the dressing station wounded. "Well, what is the matter with you?" said the M.O., looking up from his work of bandaging the wounded. "I think am hit, Doctor," he answered, and he was, for a great chunk of flesh had actually been blown out of his thigh.
About that time the officer of the trench episode came in with a couple of bullet wounds. Catching sight of Smith he said, "Hello Smith! Where did you leave those prisoners?" "Dinna ye ask foolish questions," was the reply, and nothing more could be got from Jock.
Smith submitted to the surgical dressing without a murmur, and was laid out on a stretcher to await the ambulance. Finally it came.
"Here, take Smith," ordered the M.O.
"No, never mind me, Doctor," said Smith, "jist tak the ither men, I'll be walking."
"Do as you are told," commanded the M.O.
"Now Doctor, jist pit the ither boys in; they're worse nor me, I'll walk."
"Damn your eyes," snapped the Doctor, "don't be a fool; get in there," and in spite of his earnest protests Smith was hoisted into the ambulance to leave the firing line for all time.
Early in March, 1916, a telegram arrived appointing me representative of Canada on the War Allies' Sanitary Commission. This Commission, which had been formed for the purpose of mutual assistance and co-operation in matters of hygiene and sanitation, was to meet in Paris in the middle of March. It was a splendid opportunity to meet some of the great medical men and scientists of the Allies, and during the few days before the congress met I gathered together all the data that I thought might be of use, as well as plans and photographs.
It was a bright spring day when I left by motor for Paris via Amiens. We stopped at Merville to call upon my old French friends whom I had not seen since my leave in Canada, and distributed a number of presents which had been sent to them from home by my family. They were greatly pleased at having been remembered by their Canadian friends, for the French have a real regard for us.
As we bowled along over hill and valley, through the sector occupied by the British Army, freed of all responsibilities, we felt as though we were off for a holiday. The area as far as Amiens had recently been taken over by the British and we were surprised to find that there were no British troops in that town excepting a few officers. It had, for good and sufficient reasons, been placed "out of bounds." Amiens was a real city, the first that we had seen in the north of France; it had wide paved streets, broad boulevards, double street car lines, electric lighting and all the things that go to make up a modern city in any country.
The road from Amiens to Beuvais led away from the front and all evidences of military operations disappeared. The country in that region was rolling, well tilled and well wooded. Numerous quaint little villages, each one different in character from the other, nestled in the shelter of the valleys. At one place we stopped to pick the mistletoe from a row of apple trees that were simply covered with the green parasite; while we watched, away to the west, a gorgeous sunset flame and die. It was the finishing touch to a day that had been almost perfect, and we tumbled into bed at the Hotel de l'Angleterre in the ancient city of Beuvais to sleep the sound sleep induced by fresh air and sunshine in those who have not been accustomed to it.
Next morning at ten o'clock we set out for Paris, and, crossing the Oise at the point where the British had blown up the bridge during their retreat from Mons, reached the gate of St. Denis in the walls of Paris at noon. Although every pedestrian and wagon driver was being stopped and made to show passes we were asked no questions.
Paris seemed cleaner than ever in the spring sunshine and I was more than ever captivated by the beauty of her buildings. The street market of St. Denis was thronged with women and had a fair sprinking of bearded French soldiers. Even at that early date quite a number of men were seen hobbling about in civilian clothes with service medals on their coats. We saw many Belgian soldiers but British soldiers were entirely absent, for Paris, too, was "out of bounds" to the British army. The very few men of military age seen was remarkable compared with London, and though the great battle of the war, Verdun, was then at its very height not sixty miles away, Paris, as far as we could judge, was not at all worried.
At night the city was brightly illuminated till nine o'clock; then the lights were lowered. Even at midnight the streets were light enough to see to get about. Paris had little fear of Zeppelins; they had made several attempts to reach the city but had failed in all except one raid. The establishment of listening posts and other devices near the front for detecting the approach of the airships made it a simple matter to prepare plans to intercept them and give them a warm reception, for it takes a fairly long time for a Zeppelin to reach Paris after it enters French territory. A few weeks before our arrival French anti-air-craft guns and search-lights mounted on motor lorries had pursued and brought down a Zeppelin and the Huns had probably decided that the game was not worth the candle.
Paris, therefore, freed from worry from this source, went its usual way at night and crowds thronged the Montmartre district, the quarter inhabited by the student and demi-monde class. Most of the theatres were in that quarter, and, although the majority of the regular playhouses were closed, the picture shows and music halls, such as the "Folies Bergeres" were crowded nightly.
There were two performances a week in the Grand Opera House, consisting of acts from different operas. The "Comedie Francaise" the Government endowed theatre, still gave performances at regular intervals, which in perfection of acting were, as always, unequalled anywhere in the world.
The Opera Comique also gave grand opera on Sunday afternoons, and the one performance that I was fortunate enough to see—Carmen—was the most perfect production of grand opera that I have ever seen or heard. From the standpoint of the critic I could find no flaw, and though Carmen is not a favorite of mine, I revelled in the perfection of staging, acting and singing of this performance. The street and mob scenes were so realistic that one forgot that they were not real street scenes; the acting of the singers was so fine that one was carried away by it and forgot all about the wooden acting of grand opera customary in America and England; and it was only when the curtain finally rang down that one realized that the flawless performance had been but a play.
The restaurants on the Rue des Italiens, near the Place de L'Opera in the Montmartre district were thronged with people. The weather was warm enough for the crowds to sit at the tables under the awnings in front of cafes and sip their wine or coffee, and there I spent many a half hour after my evening lesson in French, watching the crowds surging up and down the broad sidewalk.
Men were scarce in Paris, particularly men of military age. A few "Poilus" home on leave, and a number of Belgians, with a sprinking of other soldiers, were the only evidences of war. The men seen were practically all over the military age. It was the golden age for the "has been"; the old man had again come into his own.
The girl of the demi-mondaine was having a hard time of it in Paris. There was no travelling public such as usually thronged Paris in search of pleasure and excitement and upon which she had been accustomed to batten. She was therefore forced to take up with an older and often inferior class of men which she would have scorned in times of peace.
Rumour said that many of these women were starving, and judging by the voracious manner in which they tackled pedestrians openly on the streets at night there was ample ground for that belief. Men were followed and grabbed by the arm who had no intention or desire to make or receive any overtures.
It was so different to what one had heard of the French women of the street that it came as a great revelation of how the times were out of joint, and how difficult it really must have been for such people to obtain the money necessary to live. One would have expected cruder things in London but such was not the case, though there is this difference that solicitation is not permitted on the streets of London while it is in Paris.
Official Paris allows the people within its gates to do as they like in matters of morals without let or hindrance. And so the "Petite Parisienne" whose man had gone to the war and perhaps had been killed, took to the streets again in search of another, and was forced to take up with men she would have despised in other times.
English speaking people have no idea of the Parisian viewpoint on questions of morality; in fact our view points are so diametrically opposed to one another that we have no common ground for discussion. The average Parisienne of the street is not immoral; she is unmoral, that is to say she has no morals because she never did have any. She has been accustomed to look upon herself as a commodity of barter and trade and we cannot in fairness judge her as we judge women who have been brought up to other ideals.
As I sat sipping my coffee one evening one of these women leaned across the aisle and entered into conversation. As she rattled away a poorly-clad child selling bunches of violets approached and looking at me placed a bouquet on the table beside me. Mechanically I put my hand into my pocket for a penny, but by the time I had found it to my surprise the child had passed on. The woman stared at me and at the retreating child and asked, "What did she do that for?"
"Perhaps because I smiled at her," I said.
The woman asked no more questions but got up and walked away; the child's action had touched her as it had touched me and I like to remember that on four different occasions little French children, strangers to me had given me in this same sweet way flowers that they might have sold.
The English soldier was popular in Paris. Before the city had been put out of bounds for the British Army it had been a favorite resort of men and officers, who had made a great reputation with the Parisians for being courteous, kind and liberal. The Belgians on the other hand were quite unpopular, being openly called "dirty Belgians" and, judging from my own personal observation, there was a certain amount of reason for this disrespect.
Towards nine o'clock, when the lights were lowered, the genuine Parisian who had been dining in the cafes began to go home, as did the successful women and their consorts, causing the crowds to become perceptibly thinner. Those women who had not been successful, redoubled their efforts, and it was really pathetic to see the attempts of some of these poor outcasts who were little more than children, to capture their prey.
At midnight the Place de L'Opera was absolutely deserted. On two occasions I watched this strange fascinating panorama of human life and emotion, forgetful of the time, and found myself quite alone there as the clock struck the midnight hour. Alone I watched the moonlight streaming down upon the Grand Opera house transforming it into the purest marble.
I wondered whether it was all a dream. Could it be really true that I was there in Paris in the middle of the great war? Was it possible that the greatest battle of all time was taking place at the very moment not sixty miles away? Yet it was a real "Bon soir" that a passing gendarme gave me as I strolled homeward past the great bronze shaft erected by Napoleon in the Place Vendome and now towering black in the white moonlight, while the river Seine shimmered like molten silver in its way to the sea. It was really true but it was one of those times when a soldier in Europe finds it very difficult to accommodate himself to the violent contrasts which he is constantly meeting, when transferred suddenly from the war zone back into the peaceful life of the civilian.
The quiet and dignified Hotel Lotti on the Place Vendome was described in the guide books as frequented by the French nobility and the aristocracy; the claim proved to be correct for when I was there two French countesses, an English knight and a Duke had apartments there. The Hotel Lotti is next door to the Hotel Continental and is owned by the former manager of that Hotel. Both the Hotel Continental and the Meurice across the road are supposed to be particularly fine and "splashy."
Shortly after we came, the Prince of Serbia arrived in Paris and stayed at the Hotel Continental. At the same time representatives of all the allied governments arrived and stayed at one or other of these hotels. There was a guard of Serbian soldiers always at the entrance to the Continental as well as a crowd of onlookers which sometimes swelled to tremendous proportions. The newspapers chronicled the movements of the Serbian prince and when it was announced that he was to leave the hotel the traffic on the street was blocked with cheering crowds.
If I heard the Marseillaise sung once I heard it sung twenty times by the throng on the street below my windows, for the Prince of Serbia was the symbol to France of that brave people whose valour had won for themselves immortal renown and had captured the imagination of the French people. The French are certainly a nation of hero worshippers and though they no longer recognize an official nobility they do dearly love a title.
The same kind of demonstrations took place when Lord Kitchener and Asquith drove through the streets. Everywhere they went the roads were lined with the dark blue uniforms of the national guard, the gendarmes and some of the territorials in their light blue service dress.
Then French soldiers lining the route across the Place de la Concorde on the day when we drew up to see Lord Kitchener, Mr. Asquith, General Cadorna of Italy and other foreign representatives pass, looked small and insignificant in their, to us, sloppy uniforms; yet those were of the race "who had threshed the men and kissed the women of all Europe"—the soldier, which through all the centuries since the time of Julius Caesar, had shown the most consistent fighting ability of any nation in Europe. Their soldiers at that very moment were fighting for their very existence and week after week were pouring out their best blood in torrents on the battlefield of Verdun, demonstrating to the world the possession of qualities which we had prided ourselves belonged to the Teutonic races and particularly to Britons,—the quality of "sticking it."
They are a wonderful people, the French, marvellous in their spirit of self sacrifice. The French woman does not weep when her son or husband goes to war. No, he goes to serve "La Patrie" that word for which we have no synonym, the something which is greater than everything else, for which all must be sacrificed with joy. France is a name to conjure with; it is an ideal as well as a country, for it embodies all that Frenchmen have fought and died for in all the centuries.
Paris had never before seemed half so clean, but this is the impression that you always get when you return to it. Perhaps it was the contrast with the filthy, muddy streets of the little northern villages in the war zone,—streets traversed daily by hundreds of motor lorries and thousands of men each of whom brings in, from the surrounding country, a certain amount of dirt.
On Sunday morning towards eleven o'clock the great avenue—Le Bois—leading towards St. Cloud, was crowded with the better class of Parisians, all wending their way to the woods and parks for the day. They were there in tens of thousands, on foot and in taxis, and very frequently carrying lunch baskets.
Never does one see such a smartly dressed crowd of women as one sees in Paris. No matter what the combination of colour, no matter what the style, they look well, for they have the national gift of knowing how to wear their clothes. Even the widows in mourning, and there were many of them, looked most interesting. French women have a grace of carriage and know how to walk, which is in striking contrast to the majority of English, Canadian or American women. It is the ensemble which gives the Parisienne that air of distinction which is so characteristic.
The children were dressed in the styles which are usually seen only in the fashion plates and as much pride and thought was evidently spent upon them as on the dress of the mothers themselves. The French children in Paris are particularly well behaved and obedient.
The trees in Le Bois were just bursting into leaf on that first Sunday of mid March. The rented boats on the little lakes were filled with young boys and their sweethearts, and they splashed up and down and ran into each other, and made much noise after the manner of people of that age under similar circumstances the world over.
Crossing the Seine we ascended the hill to the race course of St. Cloud, from which a magnificent view of Paris is obtainable. It was a splendid situation for the French Canadian hospital established there under the command of Lt.-Col. Mignault of Montreal.
The French authorities did not want the wounded from Verdun to come to the Paris hospitals, for it might depress the people too much. So, though Verdun was at its height, no wounded were seen in Paris and the hospitals in fact were almost empty at the time. And as the Parisians did not see any evidence of great losses through the presence of wounded, it was quite natural to conclude that there could not be many wounded. If not why worry, for the newspapers were full of the tremendous casualties inflicted on the enemy? The French army must be very good to be able to hold the German back like that, must it not? So Paris was optimistic and the wounded went elsewhere to the country where it was said the air was much better than in a large city like Paris.
The French Canadian hospital, however, was not going to be done out of the work that they had come so far to do, and demanded patients. As the hospital was situated in the suburbs (where the air was presumably good) permission was granted and it was filled with wounded from Verdun on the following day.
Though not fully completed when I saw it, the hospital was in running order. It consisted of a series of wooden huts arranged in the area behind the grand stand, and had just enough shade trees around to shelter the huts partially from the sun. It was always a marvel to me to see soldiers recovering from what have always been considered to be fatal wounds. I saw one man that day at St. Cloud who had been shot through the centre of the forehead two days before at Verdun, the bullet coming out of the top of his head, and leaving the brain exposed. The man was sitting up in bed reading and when the wet dressing was raised by the surgeon one could see the brain pulsating.
Of the meetings of the War Allies' Sanitary Commission there is little to be said because they were of a technical nature, and chiefly of interest to scientists. The first meeting was held on March the 15th and one was held thereafter every afternoon for the next three weeks, with the exception of Sundays. About thirty-five delegates were present altogether, representing the civilian, naval and military services of Russia, Italy, Serbia, France, Belgium and Great Britain.
At each session some subject on sanitation was discussed according to a program decided upon the previous day. Some countries had already had experiences with certain epidemics, which were quite unknown as yet to the other allied countries; in such a case the experience gained by one country in devising ways and means of stamping out an epidemic would be of great interest and practical value to the other countries.
A striking example of this was the experience of Serbia with typhus fever. Typhus is conveyed from man to man through the bites of lice infected through biting some one who already has the disease. Serbia had had a tremendous epidemic of the disease both in the army and in the civilian population, and had had to resort to all kinds of improvised means of controlling lice when their regular disinfecting apparatus had been lost or destroyed during their retreat. Naturally the experience of Serbia was of the greatest interest to all the other armies which were also lice-infected but had had no typhus fever as yet.
All the discussions were conducted in French, and curious to relate the non-French Allies understood one another more readily if possible than they did the French themselves, largely due to the fact that the latter talked so rapidly. Many scientists of great note were present, among them being M. Roux who had succeeded M. Pasteur as chief of the Pasteur Institute in Paris. He was by far the easiest speaker of all to follow,—so easy in fact that I constantly congratulated myself on my knowledge of French when he was speaking, only to sadly admit when the next Frenchman began that I had still a long, long way to go.
Every morning the five of us who were representatives of the British army, Australia and Canada, met and drafted our joint report of the previous day's meeting for submission to our respective governments when the Congress would be over; many days of labor were thereby saved since the report was complete when the meetings ended. This used up the mornings, and the regular meetings took up the afternoons till five o'clock. Every evening I took a lesson in French conversation so that there was not much time for sight seeing even if there had been anything to see. It was in reality three weeks of hard work yet I managed to see quite a bit of Paris and of what was going on in our spare half hours and the two or three half days during which no meetings were held.
Some of the delegates were very remarkable men. The Frenchmen were all scientists of note. One of the Serbian delegates had been continuously in the battle field for four years and was thoroughly tired of war. He was a handsome and very interesting man. In fact all the Serbs whom I saw in Paris were big, fine-looking men.
The chief Russian delegate was a prince, a lieutenant-general of cavalry, and a wonderfully well informed scientist. Though a man over sixty years of age and without a medical degree, he seemed to be perfectly informed in every question relating to bacteriology, chemistry, sanitation and medicine and would put the average notable medical officer of health to shame. He was to all of us a perfect marvel. He spoke English and French fluently and had the keenest sense of humour of any member of the congress, constantly enlivening the proceedings by his witty and humorous remarks.
One day the Commission visited the French storehouses in Paris, where all the drugs, medical and sanitary supplies for the French army were kept. Something of the magnitude of the war being conducted by the French could be gauged by the enormous warehouses, packed to the roof with medical supplies for the army.
We also visited the series of wooden buildings being erected to house the Red Cross supplies sent to France as gifts from other countries. The Canadian building was the only one completed and stocked and we were shown that as a sample of the others; all the French representatives were very careful to explain to me individually that Canada had been very good and more than kind in remembering France.
The Russian Prince, who objected strenuously to this trip, vented his satire during the whole of the afternoon. We would, perhaps be ushered into a huge warehouse packed with wooden boxes to the ceiling, when the Prince would adjust his eyeglasses and looking them over with a comprehensive sweep of his hand say to me, for we travelled together that day,—"Ah, yes, boxes! how very interesting! do you know, Colonel, nothing gives me greater pleasure than spending the afternoon looking at piles of boxes?" Each syllable was so clearly and distinctly enunciated that the simplest remark made by this born comedian of a Prince was perfectly delightful, and we had a joyous afternoon together.
Pasteur is a name reverenced by one and all in France. The first question asked when you are introduced as a scientist to Frenchmen is, "Do you know our Pasteur and his work?" and when you reply in the affirmative they beam on you and look as if they wanted to kiss you.
The Pasteur Institute was devoted entirely to putting up the various sera, vaccines and other material required by the army in the field. We were shown over the Institute by M. Roux, the Director. The reverence with which each foreign delegate removed his hat as he approached the rooms where Pasteur had lived and worked was most impressive to the resident of a country where there was little reverence for anything in the way of ability of any sort except that for making money. Pasteur is buried in a mausoleum in the Institute and numerous tributes from societies and great men the world over testify to the esteem in which he was held by the thinking portion of the world.
One particularly interesting feature of the work of the Institute was the manufacture of a certain poison for rats in the trenches. Rats are a great nuisance and a possible source of plague to the armies in the field. In the Autumn the rats come into the trenches where there is an abundance of waste food, and are particularly numerous where there is lots of water near which they like to breed.
The method used to kill them is quite ingenious. The rats are fed at a certain time every day for about ten days, at the end of which they will come in large numbers almost on the minute. The poisoned food is then placed for them and a large proportion of the rats are destroyed. Where poison has once been tried it is useless to make any further attempts with the same poison for a long time to come, for the rats will refuse to touch it. The wholesale method outlined has been found in practise by the French to give the best results.
Our trip to the French front in the Champagne was interesting. Leaving the station one morning at eight we arrived at Chalons-sur-Marne about eleven and visited a couple of hospitals there. The hospitals were well equipped, and some of the surgical devices in use were new and exceedingly ingenious.
The most vivid impression which remains of those French hospitals, however, was the lack of fresh air in them; seldom have I breathed a more vitiated atmosphere. Though it was a warm, pleasant day outside, every window in the hospital was closed tight.
It is another indication of the strong scientific contradictions sometimes met with. Though, in theory, the French are most excellent sanitarians and as a country revere the name of Pasteur, while we have forgotten, if we ever did know, the name of Lister, in practice they are about as poor a nation in practical sanitation as it is possible to be. Imagine a hospital, thoroughly equipped and clean as a new pin, with such bad air that one of our party fainted and another had to leave in a hurry to escape the same fate.
After an excellent lunch at the town hotel we left by motors and char-a-banc for the field hospitals. The drive of some twelve miles was made over the chalk plains of the Champagne and the dense clouds of white dust, raised by the cars ahead, half smothered us. The only trees on this rolling country were scrub evergreens and only enough of these had been left for cover, the rest having been cut for stakes, and pit props. Through these bits of woods and across the open country ran the numerous white ditches used for reserve trenches.
The field hospitals themselves were as fine as I have ever seen in equipment and appearance. They consisted of series of huts, well laid out and with walks planted with trees and shrubs from the surrounding country. That was the artistic touch that made French field hospitals look better than the British hospitals. Wells had been sunk for hundreds of feet in the chalk, pumping engines installed, and disinfection chambers and baths built with a capacity of a thousand men a day.
While there we saw German aeroplanes being shelled and were much interested to note that the anti-air-craft fire of the French gunners was just as bad as that of the British.
On our return we visited a French mobile laboratory at Chalons, and were much struck by their method of running it; like our own Canadian laboratory they carried all their equipment in boxes which were conveyed by a single motor lorry.
We arrived in Paris at midnight tired and sleepy to find my trusty "Rad" waiting for me, and we drove home a load of thankful friends, while the rest of the delegates searched in vain for taxis which were unobtainable at that time of night.
A small item appearing in the Parisian journals on the following day made us think. It read, "Chalons-sur-Marne bombed by aeroplanes." Whether the aeroplanes that we had seen being shelled had carried back word that an expedition of some sort had been seen coming and going from Chalons in a large number of motors and whether they had suspected that it was the congress including Lord Kitchener, Mr. Asquith, General Cadorna and others will never be known; the fact seemed to be that Chalons had never been bombed before our visit.
The saddest and at the same time the most inspiring sight that it was my privilege to see in Paris or during the whole war was during our visit to the institutes for the maimed and blinded soldiers.
The institute for the maimed had for its purpose the starting out in life afresh men who had lost arms and legs in battle. The French are at the bottom an exceedingly practical people even if they do not appreciate fresh air as they might. They discovered very quickly that the first thing necessary in the treatment of disabled soldiers after they were ready to leave the hospitals was to make them realize that they were still valuable and useful members of society. To this end the soldier was fitted out with the best mechanical appliances in the way of wooden arms and legs that it was possible to give him; and it was characteristic of the French people that they had these artificial limbs made by the disabled soldiers themselves. This saved the labor of able bodied men and gave interesting and necessary work to the disabled soldiers.
The trades being taught were basket making, brush making, piano tuning, draughting, typewriting, tailoring, tinsmithing and so forth; while classes in reading, writing and other subjects were held for those who were deficient in these requirements, and anxious to learn. And here the astounding observation was made that in certain cases uneducated men have been able to learn more in six months than the average child learns in as many years. In such cases the individual has an extraordinary power of assimilation and simply "eats up" everything put before him. The maimed men were all happy and smoked and sang at their work. They were heroes still.
The school for the blind was, in some ways, of quite a different character. At the time of our visit there were about 350 soldiers in the school, learning to be self-reliant and useful citizens. Naturally it is a much more difficult task to teach a blind man than a maimed one that he is still a valuable asset to his country and the first weeks in the Institute are frequently devoted to convincing him of this cardinal fact. When he has learned to dress himself, get about alone and begins to learn a trade he becomes convinced of this truth and the victory has been won. For the appalling future facing him of a life in total darkness dependent on a wife or parents is too terrible a one for any man with any self respect. Unless new hope can be given them they face the prospect of becoming drunkards, beggars and parasites on society. And the principle underlying all this work, is to make the blind man feel that he is yet a self-reliant, valuable citizen of "La Belle France."