 Chapter 21, and 22, of A Surgeon in Arms by Robert James Mannion, this LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Chapter 21. Paris in Wartime At this period of the war, the restaurants of Paris, and no other city is so famous for its restaurants, were not appreciably curtailed in their food supplies. They still served the well-seasoned, dated dishes of the French chefs, though their clientele was considerably smaller in numbers. You could still get a delicious cut of the joint at Berve la Mode, dear the Palais Royale, or you could have a choice of many luscious dishes at Voix-Zon, a well-known dining place. If you preferred French society, you could still go to La Rue's aristocratic restaurant opposite the Madeleine, patronized by the Society of Paris. Brunier's oyster house was apparently as busy as it had been in the piping times of peace and tourists, and the most deliciously-cooked fish in Europe, according to my taste, was still being served at Margerie's under the title So-la-la Margerie. The less pretentious eating places of the modest diner, such as Duval's dining rooms or the Bouillon-Boulon, served good meals at reasonable prices. These latter are akin to the child's restaurants in America, but already the food question was beginning to cause some anxiety throughout the world because of the lessened production and increased consumption due to the millions of men taken from productive occupations who had to be kept fit as fighters. For this reason I decided one day to see how cheaply I could obtain a satisfying meal during wartime in Paris. The aduné de Paris advertised exceptionally cheap meals and they seemed to be well patronized, so I entered one of these eating places. The large dining room was filled to overflowing with a well-dressed throng, no doubt mostly clerks from the adjoining business blocks. Here I partook of a tasteily-cooked meal of soup, roast pork and potatoes, apple pie, and a bottle of milk, all for the munificent sum of twenty-six cents, plus the regulation tip of two cents, most certainly a reasonable price for a good meal in the principal city of a country with the invader on its soil. Unfortunately, since that time the food situation in all the countries of war has become much more complicated. The hotels of the first class still kept open doors, and a few of them seemed to have an air of prosperity, but these were very few. Many of them who in the season considered it enfredi to have more than a small card in the hotel columns of the daily papers, which card never hinted at their prices, had descended to the habit of advertising special rates during the war. But others still preferred their small selectly intel and deficit to accepting prosperity obtained by any such plebeian method. One point noticeable was the fact that unless the traveller carried them himself he saw no gold louis or half louis so much in evidence and times of peace. I had brought with me some English gold, but once it disappeared from my hand it never returned. A journalist friend of mine told me he was collecting the equivalent of one hundred dollars in gold to keep for an emergency, and was delighted when I gave him a few sovereigns in exchange for French money. The gold was being gathered in by the government, and today in France only paper money is used in exchange. All the smaller cities issue paper currency and denominations as low as one quarter franc, or five cents. Among my letters was one of introduction to the director of a large hospital in La Rue de la Chasse. This hospital was supported by funds collected by La Presse, a daily journal of Montreal, and so it was partial to any Canadian visitors, though it received as patients only French officers and soldiers. The institution was doing much good work, all of which was done by Paris medical men, Dr. Forêt, a well-known surgeon performing most of the operations. My reception was cordial, and I became a regular visitor to its operating theatre during my stay in the city. On one of my early visits I was watching Dr. Forêt remove some dead bone from an old wound of the leg when a tall, distinguished lady entered. She had donned a sterilized gown over her street-dress and was apparently a visitor like myself. Noting that Dr. Forêt's English and my French were both trifle laboured, she, during my visits, acted as interpreter for us, her English having the soft intonation of the educated Britisher. She informed to me that she was neither doctor nor nurse, but was simply learning something of nursing in order that she could be a service to her country and its need, though she had a little son and daughter of her own to care for. That was the extent of my knowledge of her, though I saw that she was treated with more than ordinary consideration by surgeons and nurses, one of the younger surgeons, by the way, being a step-son of the idolise Joffre. The last day I visited the hospital she was not there, and as I was leaving Paris the following day I left my card for her with one of the sisters with a word of thanks scribbled upon it for her kindness to a stranger. That afternoon I went to Cook's to get my railway tickets, and as I came out of the door this lady stepped from an automobile to enter Cook's. Recognising me she told me that she had been at the hospital after I had left and had been given my card. She was leaving the following day for Switzerland for a two weeks rest and hoped that when I returned to Paris I would call and meet her husband. I should be delighted, madam, but I do not know your name. Comtesse, countess, de son lac, she replied. All the French women were doing their bit. A very clever, cultured woman journalist whom I met at the home of a high Canadian official in Paris was leaving in a few days to take a position as Cook on an ambulance train in the north of France. At night the streets of Paris were well lit up even more brightly than those of London, though a little later, after the Germans had made a couple of zeppelin raids the lighting was dimmed. When a raid was expected the police warned the people by the blowing of sirens and the hurrying about of motorcars under police direction tooting foghorns. The warnings were given when word had been received that zeppelins had been seen going toward Paris, and on receiving these warnings the street lights were extinguished and all other lights that could be seen, including the headlights of motorcars, had to be switched off. The opera was closed, but most of the theatres were in full swing, for it had been found that the people must have some recreation, and the order issued at the beginning of the war closing all places of amusement had been rescinded. The far-famed, somewhat notorious Moulin Rouge musical, well known to all visitors to Paris, had been burned a short time before, and had but recently reopened its doors at the folie dramatique in the Place Bré publique. Wandering one evening along the boulevard, I came to it and entered. A very ordinary vaudeville was in progress, equaling neither in quality nor in gaiety the performances at the original red mill in Montmartre. Here and there throughout the evening skits and English were put on in a compliment to their British allies. As French playlets are common today in the London theatres, a social touch to the entente cordiale. After 10.30, I tired of the rather tawdry performance and made my exit to find the streets in pitch-black darkness, only broken here and there by the small side lights of a flitting automobile or a dim light far back in a boulevard café. A chanton with whom I accidentally collided as I strolled solely along the street told me that a warning had been sent out that the zeppelins were coming. Rain was pattering on the pavement, which glistened as the automobile hurried by, and occasionally searchlights swept overhead, flashing from étoiles. The people were good-naturedly jostling their way along, and as someone near me struck a match to help him grope his way, a giggle was heard, and a bright-eyed French girl pulled herself back from the escort who had just kissed her. They apparently were not worrying about the zeppelins that were coming, and so far as I could see, neither was anyone else. As the people collided in the dark, jokes and friendly banter were bandied to and fro. Someone on the opposite side of the boulevard knocked something down, which hit the pavement with a crash, and a gay voice cried, C'est un oboe, les boshes, les boshes, it's a shell, the bosh, the bosh, and a roar of laughter greeted the remark. All took the expected raid as a joke, and yet a few nights before the zeppelins had reached Paris and had done some damage to property and life by dropping what the Parisians gaily call a few visiting cards. But this attack reached only the outskirts of the city, though the inhabitants had no way of knowing that such would be the case. The following day I had dinner with some friends who live en le champs-élysées, and the hostess was envying one of her maids who had had the good fortune to be spending the previous night with her family on the outskirts of the city and had seen the zeppelins. In the more than two years since that time I have been in London during a number of air raids, some by zeppelins and others by aeroplanes. The last was on July 7, 1917, on which occasion twenty-two planes sailed over London, dropping bombs and doing considerable damage in broad daylight. The people of London accepted these raids as spectacles too precious to miss. I was writing a letter in the Overseas Officers' Club in Palmel at the moment when I received my first intimation that anything out of the ordinary was happening. This intimation came to me by my noticing that everyone in the club, men and women alike, was rushing into the streets to see the German planes overhead, surrounded by the bursting shells of our anti-aircraft guns. Only in the immediate neighbourhood of the exploding bombs was anything but curiosity shown by the populace. The spots where the bombs struck attracted the curious during the rest of the daylight hours, all of which goes to show that human nature is much the same the world over. Except in Germany, whereby some kind of perverted reasoning, the people seem to imagine that these child-mutilating, women-killing raids cause widespread terror amongst the English and French people. The real result is disgust for such barbarous methods, hatred against the Huns who employ them, and a more firm determination on the part of the Allies to continue the war until the German perpetrators of these atrocities, realising the enormity of their offences against the laws of civilisation and real culture, decide to honour their treaties, abide by the laws of nations, and keep faith with the other people of the world. On Sunday morning I visited Napoleon's old church, the Madeline, noting as I walked along the streets that any business-houses with German names had an extra allowance of French and Allied flags across their fronts. These air raids made them nervous. The Madeline was a jam to the doors, many of those present, being, like myself, strangers in the city. The service was an elaborate high mass, and I found it high in more ways than one, for four collections were taken up. The first for the seats, the second for the clergy, the third for les blessés, the wounded, and the fourth for the soldiers. I could not help but think that they should have taken up a fifth from the soldiers, the clergy and the wounded, for the rest of us, for when I got outside I possessed only my gloves and a sense of duty well done. That afternoon I visited the Bois de Bayonne. Thousands were there. It might easily have been a Sunday during any of the previous forty years of peace. On superficial inspection one could not see any sign of the injury done to the trees due to many of them being cut down at the beginning of the war in preparation for the defense of Paris. The tea houses of the Bois were doing their usual business, and it was just as difficult as at other times to find a table. Two of the famous sites of Paris to which the tourist always goes are Napoleon's tomb in the Antelide and Notre-Dame. At the former, in ordinary times, one will always find a crowd of sightseers of various nationalities admiring the beauty of the immense porphyry sarcophagus and its surroundings, dreaming of Napoleon's days of greatness as a youthful general in Italy or as a dictator of the whole of Europe except Britain, or giving a pitying thought to his last days at St. Helena. Today, as I strolled in, few were there, and they were mostly the veterans who live in the Antelide, and I have no doubt their thoughts consisted of hopes that another would arise with the military genius of Napoleon to drive the invader from the soil of France and to once more dictate terms from Berlin. On my return I went for a moment into the Louvre from which most of the art treasures, such as the Venus of Milo, have been removed to underground vaults, safe from bombs dropped by the destruction loving Anne. And a painting that I looked for but did not find was Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa, the Lady of the Mysterious Smile, the stealing of which had caused such a furor in the world of art. It had just been returned before my last visit to the Louvre. The following day I wandered across the Seine and viewed again that magnificent Gothic pile, the Church of Notre-Dame de Paris. It happened to be a holy day, and immense crowds were entering. Someone said to me that the war seems to have brought back religion to the spirit of France. After all, there are few people in the world who, when beset by troubles, do not glance upward at times and utter a prayer that the Supreme Being will take notice of them and have pity on them. I joined those entering and mingled with them as they made their way into the solemn interior of the great edifice. It seemed that thousands were there. Those entering were directed in such a way that they passed in order before two immense lifelike paintings arranged on one side of the church, one above the other, the last supper, and the crucifixion. Before these paintings, myriads of candles were burning, and as the people passed, each took one or two or three more candles and lit them. It was a splendid, solemn, and impressive spectacle. To send telegrams or cables from France was the most troublesome procedure. You had to get the written consent of the military police after they had interviewed you as to your objects in sending the message, and had scrutinized the message carefully to find if, per chance, you had hidden somewhere within it information that might be of service to the enemy. But even this was an easy matter compared with getting out of Paris once you had entered, for to get out was very much more difficult than to get in. You had first to report to the police station nearest to your hotel that you were leaving the city. Then you had to go to the office of the consul of the country to which you were going, explain the purpose of your change of residence, and have the consul or his representative visa your passport. Then finally you had to call at the prefecture of police, again to our central police station in a large city, and again get your paper certified. Each of these moves met considerable time lost, sometimes as much as a day, since long lines of people were at each of these places hours before they opened for business. On my departure during my visit to the British consulate I had an amusing experience that is worth relating. As I turned into the court of the building in which the consulate is situated an automobile drove up and outstepped a stylish and pretty woman of perhaps thirty years. She followed me into the court, and after looking about her doubtfully for a minute she turned and asked if I could direct her to the office of the British consul. I had walked there the day before to learn the ropes and so knew my way about. I replied that it was up a couple of flights of stairs, but as I was just going there I would be pleased to show her the way. We went up the two flights of stairs and reaching the waiting room found some thirty or forty people ahead of us. We took our place in the line to await our turn, which meant a delay of an hour or two. As the people waited the conversation was quite free, as was also criticism of the consulate for not having more help at a time of pressure such as the present. The lady whom I had shown up was next to me in the line. She looked upon me as an American compatriot for she was from New York and apparently felt quite safe in carrying on a conversation with a stranger in a strange city. She mentioned that she was on her way back from Spain to England. Spain, I said in some surprise, might have been curious enough to ask why a young woman like yourself should be traveling in Spain in times like the present. Oh, I'm a eugenist, she replied readily, and I have been in Spain studying the effects of the war on the Spanish people in relation to eugenics for a book I am preparing for publication. I am going to spend some time in London, in the British Museum, looking up some data to complete my manuscript. And then quite voluntarily she went on to criticize the majority of all the cherished institutions of society, and as she became more enthusiastic her criticisms became more free, more radical, almost nihilistic. She ended in a tirade against civilization as we know it, not by any means becoming at all boisterous, but simply youthfully animated in her fault-finding with the world in general. I could hardly believe my ears, here was a pretty American woman of thirty, highly educated, whose outlook on life was more nihilistic than that of the most extreme German Socialist. But finally she capped the climax by telling me frankly that she was an anarchist, had taken part in two anarchistic plots in Italy, and promised me that the next ruler who was going to pay the death penalty for his tyranny was a king Alfonso of Spain. Beginning to feel certain that she was ragging me, I asked her jokingly if she expected me to believe her. Does it sound like something that a young woman would claim were it untrue? She asked, and I was forced to admit that it did not. I will tell you something further, she continued, I dare not return to New York at the present time, or I should be put in jail. For the last time I was there, I was jailed for some of my writings. I obtained my freedom on bail of three thousand dollars, and hearing that I was to be railroaded to prison, I jumped it. Why do you tell a stranger like myself this story? I asked, how do you know that I am not going to report you to the police? I know you are not going to report me to the police, she answered coolly, because if you did, I would shoot you. Do you carry much of your artillery on your person, I asked, laughing, and seeing that I was taking it all as a joke, she joined in, the lamp. It's your turn, madam, said the porter to her, and she passed out of the line into the office of the consul, giving me a charming smile and curtsy as she left. Whether her story was the result of mischief, insanity, or conviction, I really have no idea, but I do know that I have in my life passed many more tedious and less interesting hours than the one I passed while waiting my turn at the office of the British consul that day. End of Chapter 21. Chapter 22. In a Chateau hospital. Early in the conflict, after the Germans had been pushed back from their rush on Paris, the French were in a bad way for many of the necessities of a country of war. Among the necessities that France lacked was sufficient hospital accommodation for the sick and wounded of her armies. And for the first year of the war, this shortage was partially supplied by voluntary ambulances, the word ambulance in French being employed for a field hospital. Many rich Americans gave valuable service at this time to their sister republic, the American ambulances at Nuit and Julie, being among the most noted of the war hospitals. It was not at all difficult to get staffs for these hospitals, for thousands of young Americans with red blood in their veins and the love of romance in their hearts were only awaiting the opportunity to do something useful anywhere between Paris and the firing line. Between the people of the United States and the French, there has always been a deep sympathy, possibly engendered up to half a century ago by their common antipathy to England, a sentiment forever removed by mutual suffering and common interest and ideals in this war. A witty writer one time said that good Americans, when they die, go to Paris, jokingly showing the love which the people of the southern half of this continent have for the French. But no matter what the reasons, the greatest republic in the world was early in responding to the call and so placed her sister republic France under deep obligation for assistance of surgeons, nurses and hospitals long before Mr. Wilson led the United States to join with the other civilized peoples in their fight against barbarism. The British were very early up and doing in the same manner and not many months after Kitchener's contemptibles, a name now revered in Britain, had made their heroic retreat from Mons, many well-equipped hospitals manned by Britons were doing excellent work behind French lines. It was my good fortune to serve at the beginning of 1915 in one of these, the Château de Rambeleux, just three miles from the point at which the German lines came nearest to Paris and seven miles north of Compiègne where a little over 100 years ago, Napoleon for the first time met Marie-Louise of Austria when she came to replace the unhappy Josephine. I obtained the position after much searching for an opportunity to be of service. Going across from New York to London, I had been refused a position by the British unless I could enlist which personal reasons prevented at the time. Then after two days interviewing, tactic-habbing, vis-y-ing, pleading and explaining I obtained a permit to go to France. At Boulogne, the authorities of the British Red Cross and St. John's Ambulance Association told me they were oversupplied with surgeons and I decided to go to Amiens where I had a surgical friend. I could not get away till the following morning so I spent the afternoon wondering about. The streets were filled with a cosmopolitan throng of soldiers of all shades of color, white, black and brown and of various nationalities, British and Canadian Tommies and their khaki, French poilus in their blue-grey uniforms, Gurkhas from India in their picturesque dress and French Sudanese with strange accoutrements. The better hotels were all occupied by the military authorities as headquarters and the harbor was filled with hospital ships and transports. Walking about the streets, one had to look sharp to avoid being run down by hurrying Red Cross ambulances or lumbering motor lorries. I strolled to the beach whereon the sands, Tommies, were lounging, gazing longingly across at the shores of England, dimly visible in the distance. One of the soldiers turned to me with a smile and said, I was just taking a last look at the old home, sir. Of course I hopes to see it again sometime if I don't happen to stop something and it was all said most cheerfully. I added my wishes for his luck to his own. On the slow train from Boulogne to Amiens, we passed many military camps with their white tents and orderly rows. Here and there, oxen were being used by old men and women on their farms and in one little brook, some boys were fishing. I could hardly believe that 40 miles or less away, two armies of millions of men were contending for the mastery with civilization depending on the outcome. When later I was much nearer to the front, I was struck again and again by the matter-of-fact manner in which the French peasant accepts his or her military surroundings. He works coolly in the fields into which at times enemy shells are dropping or over which long range guns are firing into some semi-ruined town of northern France. Something which is always a cause of wonder and admiration to the observer is that despite the fact that all the young and able Frenchmen are in the trenches, the women, old men and children who remain succeed in cultivating the farmlands of France right to the lines. At Amiens, my surgeon friend who had over 1200 war operations to his credit in the past six months, much regretted that I could not be used at the moment, much regretted, but still regretted. I began to feel that the gods of ill luck were camping on my trail. I went on to Paris. Here my letters of introduction were looked at with anxiety and I was suspicion for in the early months of the war some foreign surgeons were found to be giving information to the enemy. At any rate, though courtesies and promises were showered upon me, I remained a useless guest at my hotel in the rue de Vivili until I reached an almost desperate stage realizing that though surgeons were urgently needed, I could not be of service. Sickly visions of returning home after a futile attempt to be of use came to me when suddenly luck changed. The director of the ambulance anglo-française in the château de Rimbolieu came to Paris in search of assistance. Being an Englishman, he looked in at the British Red Cross in the Abenu de Léna where they told him of this forlorn Canadian who had been haunting their offices but of whom they had lost track. By a bit of luck their commanding officer met me that afternoon on the Place de l'Opera and gave me the director's address at the Hôtel de Creon. I hurried at once to call upon him and offered to take any position from chauffeur to surgeon. There is a biblical quotation that the meek are blessed where they shall inherit the earth. I inherited the urgency, not a lucrative inheritance, it must be admitted, for it carried no salary, no railway fares, no uniform, all of which must be supplied by the inheritor. After obtaining a sauf conduit from the military authorities to take me as far as Creilly, I left on the train that afternoon for Compiègne, 60 miles to the north, accompanied by an affable young Red Cross orderly of English parents and Paris birth, who in civil life was a dry good salesman. At Creilly, which was the beginning of the war zone, our troubles began. I was in civilian dress, my uniform not being completed. The French military officers here were almost adamant, my passport, director's letter, Red Cross authority, all proved and no avail to get me further. Rather strangely, the letter which obtained the desired permission to proceed was an ordinary letter of introduction from a prominent French-Canadian parliamentarian which I had in my pocket. Presto, the officer knew his name, and by I went. We arrived at Compiègne about midnight and for the first time we heard the sound of the guns 10 miles away. As we were now only seven miles from the Chateau, we thought our troubles were over, but we had reckoned without the souperfee de police who said in the morning, when we called, that we could go no further without a special permit. That chaps of Ivanoas remarked my young friend, expressing my sentiments to a nice city. However, about 10 a.m., the director whirled into town in his 60 horsepower Rolls-Royce, and learning of our troubles, he smilingly said that he thought he could get around that difficulty. He pulled from beneath the rear seat a military overcoat and cap, which I put on, and out of the town we whirled, past centuries at crossroads and railway crossings, to whom the director yelled the password. It was Clermont that day. The password changes daily at a certain hour and anyone without the new word when required is hailed before the authorities. The director ran some slight risk and thus smuggling me through the lines, but nothing ever came of it, and I gave a sigh of relief when we at last swung into the spacious grounds of the Chateau. The house was a large stone building used in peacetimes as the summer home for the family of the Count de Bethune, one of the oldest titled families in France. His two daughters, the Countess de Pontch and the Marquise de Chabois, lived in a small corner of the building and gave their time to help us in our nursing work. They did everything in their power and it was much to make life pleasant for the patients and for the staff. The building was ideal for a hospital with room for a couple of hundred patients. The reception hall was used as a general reception room for patients as well as a lounging room for us in our spare time. Its immense exquisitely carved mahogany mantle was one of the artistic ornaments that had not been removed to avoid injury. The drawing and reception rooms and the dining hall had been transformed into wards called the Joffre French and the Cassonneux wards as were also the larger of the bedrooms on the next floor. The surgeons, nurses and staff occupied the servants' quarters on the top floor. The oak paneled library and smoking room had become the operating theater and the x-ray studio. Our dining room was the original servants' dining room in the basement. The French officers and men who were cared for here received as they deserved to receive the best we had to give. The staff gladly taking second place in all things and at that our life was so much easier than that of the boys in the trenches that we often felt a bit ashamed of the difference. The chateau was surrounded by some 200 or 300 acres of well-laid out gardens, artificial lakes, fountains and woods. These grounds had been cut up to a certain extent by trenches, wire entanglements, dugouts, funk holes and gun emplacements, all in order and ready for use if the enemy should drive the French back in this direction. The fighting trenches were only three or four miles to the north of us. This chateau being said to be the nearest hospital to the lines in the whole theater of war. We worked, slapped, ate and killed time to the sound of the guns and shells. The latter often bursting well within a mile of us. The really interesting part of the hospital was the personnel of the staff. There were four surgeons, a French military medical officer, Vilchets, Alwood, a Jamaican, an old college friend of mine whom I had neither seen nor heard of for 12 years until the day I arrived at the chateau when he came forward to give an anesthetic for me to a case which General Berthier had ordered me to operate upon. King, a Scotsman and myself. And we four were practically the only members of the staff who were not paying for the privilege of being allowed to serve. The rest of the staff were well-to-do society people who not only financed the institution but also did the nursing and orderly work, gave their automobiles as ambulances and their personal servants and chauffeurs to act as servants in the hospital. Besides the conteste and the marquise we had as nurses a niece of an ex-president of France, a grand-niece of Lord Beaconsfield and another was a sister-in-law to Lord Something-A-Rather in Scotland. The latter nurse had a pal, Miss C, who had stumped her father's constituency for him during the last general election in England. She was a clever girl of 23, an exceptionally good nurse, but oh, what a Tory! She had all the assurance of her age and Mrs. Pankhurst and her palmiest moments could not put Lloyd George where he belonged as could this charming girl of 23. The son of a prominent Paris lawyer, a young black-eyed chap of 17, who was doing his bit there till he became old enough to join the army was one of her great admirers and when he was not scrubbing floors or performing some other necessary work he sometimes wrote poetry to her. The last four lines of one of his rhymes I remember. May your years of joy be many, your hours of sorrow few. Here's success in all ambition to the man who marries you. A Mr. and Mrs. G of Cambridge, originally of Belfast, were two of the most pleasant, kindly and useful people the hospital possessed. Their automobile was now an ambulance which their chauffeur handled at their expense. They paid $200 per month in cash. They were continually buying luxuries for the patients and necessities for the hospital. Mrs. G acted as nurse in a most capable manner and her husband as an orderly. A Mr. and Mrs. R from Cairo, Egypt were also with us. In Cairo he was a professor in the university. Here he acted as chauffeur on his own automobile ambulance and his wife looked after the checking and arranging of the laundry for the whole hospital. One afternoon I went into Compiègne with him in his car and he delighted some French African troops by chatting to them in Arabic after which they followed him around like little boys. Mr. R also paid a goodly sum toward the upkeep of the hospital. The director of whom I have already spoken and the direct dress were both heavy donors to the hospital as well as giving automobiles and servants as assistants. A godly clergyman from York acted in the triple capacity of Chaplain, chauffeur on his own auto ambulance which his parishioners had given him when he left and general chore-boy. One of my finest recollections of him is on Sunday evening when he held services while outside the guns roared and shells from the enemy burst a mile or so to the north of us in plain view from the windows of the room in which the clergyman was interpreting the word of God. It was a most impressive ceremony. My last recollection of him, and it's just as fine, he had thrown aside his tunic and was working with pick and shovel digging a dump for the refuse of the hospital, the sweat rolling down his honest face. The above people are only among the most interesting of the staff. There were also a sheep farmer from the north of England, a journalist of London, a student from Oxford and many other ladies and gentlemen who gave of their best, all of them giving the French soldier scientific, sympathetic and kindly attention. Those names mentioned will illustrate the personnel of hospitals such as this, for there were many of them on the Western front in the early months of the war. Ours was a part of general Castelnaud's army and while nominally under the Red Cross we were under the discipline of the French army. General Birche, who had charge at that time of the medical arrangements of that sector of the line, visited us daily inspecting the whole institution, ordering this, advising that and perhaps insisting upon something else. More ether and hydrogen peroxide were used by the French military surgeons in wounds than appealed to my ideas, but one little trick they had of sterilizing basins by rinsing them out with alcohol and touching a match to it, flammer they called it, was both rapid and thorough where steam sterilizers were not too common. Sometimes we were also inspected by civilian surgeons on behalf of the military authorities. Dr. Tufier, a famous Paris surgeon who is as well known on this continent as in Europe came to make one of these periodical inspections. I had first met him at a surgical congress in Chicago before the war. Then in Paris I had called upon him. Oh, he said with a smile, I've met you at one time in Chicago and then I have meet you in Paris. Now I meet you here. Perhaps the next time it may be at the North Pole when we meet and with a friendly slap on the shoulder he passed on. He had been very courteous to me in Paris but had not given me the position that I desired so much. In fact, I had found myself sometimes wishing that the French authorities had given me less politeness and more opportunity to be of service. In our spare hours of the day we watched the shells bursting in our neighborhood. By night we often sat and smoked in the dark while we watched the flashing of shells and guns and the flares sent up in the lines to prevent surprise attacks. We often saw aero planes being bombarded as they sailed to and fro along the lines directing the fire of the artillery. One soon got to recognize by ear the puff puff puff of the anti-aircraft shells bursting about the planes. Why the enemy did not shell our institution, I know not, for we were well within range. In passing it may be mentioned that no Red Cross flag flew from our roof and when I inquired the reason I was told that it would only serve as a target for German shells. Our work alternated as it always does on the battlefront between days of strenuous labor and days of ease. When the work was heavy all went to it with a will. In the hours of leisure the ladies who in civil life knew nothing of danger and strife begged and sometimes vainly insisted on being permitted to go with the ambulances as far as the trenches. We were all civilians and knew little of discipline and our lack of it at times was troublesome to the French military authorities and some irritation arose because of it. For example lights were ordered not to be shown in the windows after dark till all the shutters were closed and curtains drawn. This rule was occasionally so carelessly obeyed that the military would at times sneeringly call our hospital the lighthouse. One afternoon there drove up to our entrance a cream-colored limousine and outstepped an English society girl saying that she had come to nurse. Some of those who were already there were friends of hers but the authorities decreed that we had enough assistance and that she must return to Paris the following morning. In the morning she started in the limousine ostensibly to return to Paris taking the sister-in-law of Lord Something or Other as company for a short run. When outside the grounds she told the chauffeur to turn toward the lines instead of toward Paris. With a military pass which she had obtained through influence in Paris they passed century after century till they were only a few hundred yards from the trenches. Here they were overtaken by a pursuing military motorcyclist who ordered them put under arrest and they were taken before a high-up officer who told them he was forced to confiscate their automobile and send the ladies under arrest to the rear. But beauty in distress and one of them was a real beauty made him relent. They were allowed to proceed rearward after a severe reprimand and a considerable fright. A few weeks later I met the lady of the automobile in a train near Paris and she told me that she had just sent up a big box of real cigarettes not French ones to the officer who should have confiscated her car but didn't. I did not inquire how she had obtained his address. There was another occasion when a plot was hatched to duck a disagreeable officer in the artificial lake at the lower end of the grounds. Fortunately the saner heads prevailed and averted any further complications and it would have served a creature badly well right. For what right had he anyhow to insist so strongly on his old rules as one of the hotheads expressed it? It was a trifle irritating at times to have a nurse in reply to your order to give such and such a patient massage say that she would do it presently as she was just going for a short tramp in the grounds. Mais que voulez-vous? As the French say with that delightful shrug. Were they not paying to be there and should not that fact have given them some rights over those horrid rules of discipline and we men were the same on occasion for discipline cannot be had outside of the trained army. But the breaches of discipline were small in comparison to the really excellent work that the hospital was carrying on. So they were overlooked and as they occurred only at wide intervals they but served to give a touch of humor to the life which was monotonous enough at times. The French realized full well the sacrifices that were made daily by these aristocrats who had given up their luxurious homes, their autos, their servants and their money to live in the servants' quarters of this old chateau and to wait hand and foot upon wounded poilier with at any moment of the day or night the chance of a shell coming through the roof and stirring things up. No praise is too high for the self-sacrificing work of these men and women, all voluntary workers and untrained in this type of labor. The women were members of the VAD, voluntary aid detachment, which has been the target at times of course jibes and criticisms spoken by those who do not know whereof they speak. I have worked with members of this corps of women workers in hospitals in England and France and I know that taking it all in all their work is beyond praise and their nobility of character beyond estimate. This is vouched for by many a lonely hard-hit common soldier sick in a strange land far from his home and his loved ones. A field telephone line ran from the chateau up to the rear trenches. The cases were brought out of the trenches to a sheltered spot and one of our ambulances was telephoned for. One of us medical men accompanied the ambulances on these journeys and they were often very interesting. On one of the trips on which I accompanied the ambulance we came to a ruined village, Gourry by name, from which the civilian population had been sent away. It was occupied by French soldiers, not in the front line. This village had just been shelled rather heavily by the Huns, 150 shells having been dropped into it. After the first shell, which hit one of the houses but injured no one, the soldiers took shelter in the cellars and when the smoke had cleared away, just before our arrival, it was found that the only damage done was the killing of a cow and a pigeon. The soldiers were hilariously laughing at this waste of shells. An officer showed us the remains of a brass bed in a wrecked house saying that he had been sleeping in that when the shelling began. We were then taken to see a battery of the famous 75s, Swassuankins, perhaps the finest field gun on the western front with which they said they were going to pay back the Germans for their audacity. They were like so many boys at play. The guns were set up in a cavity in the ground, a roof built over them on which solid had been placed in such a manner that from enemy planes it appeared like the surrounding fields. Dugouts led down from the gun position so that the artillerymen could come up from their disturbed slumbers at a moment's notice and send across a few rounds of their death-dealing shells. Roundabout were laid out flower beds with the flowers forming in French the words groix aux alis, glory to the allies, honneur aux Swassuankins, honor to the 75s. Wherever a man lives, he must have something to care for and to love and these flowers gave the poilus an outlet for their affection. Every few miles away from us in all directions except the north were other hospitals of the same type as our own. One very good example, 10 miles away at Fayelle, was under the direction of Contès H.G., a cousin of King George. She came sometimes to visit some acquaintances in our institution and I spent a very pleasant afternoon on her first visit showing her our grounds, trenches, gun positions, wire entanglements and other things of interest. She was as kindly mannered and democratic as anyone could desire, though she was King George's cousin and wore a number of ribbons for previous service in South Africa. Since that time, she has served with the Italians in Italy and has been decorated by King Victor Emmanuel. In Compiane was another very interesting hospital presided over by that wonderful Frenchman, Alexis Carroll, of the Rockefeller Institute of New York. Here he has done research work that has made his name familiar in every scientific circle the world over and here in Compiane, in this newer field, his researches have brought forth new methods of treating wounds which have been adopted in hospitals throughout the war zone. His hospital was a government institution, not one of the voluntary ambulances, of which our chateau was an example. At the time of writing, two years from my period of service at the chateau de Rameleu, it is still doing good service as a hospital, though now it is entirely directed by the French military authorities. But a number of the original people are still there, performing the same generous deeds which they performed in my time, though they are performing them many miles from the scene of fighting. For early in 1917, at this point, the French happily pushed back the invaders for many miles. End of chapter 22. Chapters 23, 24 and 25 of A Surgeon in Arms by Robert James Mannion. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Chapter 23, On a Transport. Since the war began and the Germans undertook the drowning of women and children by the submarine method, I have crossed the Atlantic four times. Two of these voyages were on troop transports. Traveling on a transport is really a pleasure voyage, except for the military discipline, always a bit obnoxious to the Anglo-Saxon of the North American continent, but absolutely necessary if an army is the thing desired, not a mob. On a transport, the food and sleeping quarters are all that anyone could desire in a time of war, and they satisfied all from the various Batman to the highest military officer, whose duty it is to maintain discipline. On my first transport experience, we took the ship at an Atlantic port some days before sailing, and no one knew the date or hour of our intended start, except the first officer of the ship who received his orders from the Admiralty. Our crowd was an immense one made up of men from all the different departments of the army and women who were either trained nurses or members of the voluntary aid detachment going overseas to do their bit in the hospitals or the convalescent and rest homes in England and France. Until the boat started on its voyage, dances were held nightly on the main deck, but once we put out to sea, the ship traveled in darkness. No one was permitted on the decks at night except the guards, and they were forbidden to smoke for fear of attracting attention that was not desirable. We were not long away from land till a fairly heavy swell made some of the uninitiated sea voyagers feel all the pangs of that nauseating illness, mal de mer, sea sickness. One of the nurses sitting in a deck chair looking away off over the swelling billows said languidly, if the Germans torpedoed us now, I wouldn't even put on a life preserver. And another traveler, Tommy, with a markedly Jewish cast of countenance, as the ship took a more pronounced dip than here to four, exclaimed loudly, my God, she's a submarine. The usual sympathetic roar of laughter was the only solace that he received. But one of his pals who saw him leaning over the ship's side, giving an excellent dinner to the fishes, stepped up to him and giving him a resounding slap on the shoulders, said, what's the matter, poor old Ike, are you sea sick? Am I sea sick? Ike roared, glaring at him, what a hell do you think I'm doing this for, Farnatten? We had not proceeded far on our voyage when a cast iron order was issued that almost wear their life belts at all hours of the day. And shortly, lifeboat drill became a daily occurrence at irregular hours. A bugle call to drill would be given, a call that might be real for all that anyone knew, and each company, section and unit took its apportioned part of the deck to be inspected by the higher officers. Lifeboats were kept conveniently hanging over the sides of the ship for emergencies, and certain officers were detailed to each boat, whose duty it was, in case of mishap, to maintain order during the loading and launching of that boat. Before long, this drill was carried out with the most exact precision. There were a few other parades at Ailey for the different sections. A sick parade was held each morning and a hospital established for those too sick to stay up and about. The medical officers and nurses were detailed and turned to do duty in this institution, but nothing of a very serious nature turned up on the voyage. Otherwise, time was wild away much as usual on shipboard. Some of us took to the gymnasium, drying out all the exercises from throwing the medicine ball to riding the horse, at which some of the cavalry officers would give that excellent piece of advice to those beginning to learn to ride. Keep your head and your heart up, your hands and your heels down. Keep your knees close to your horse's side and your elbows close to your own. The regular stewards who were serving on the ship as in peacetime amused themselves by telling tales that they were supposed to have heard in competence from the wireless operator and which they would whisper into your ears in a supposedly friendly manner at any and every opportunity. They were tales to the effect that just ahead of us last night, such and such a ship was torpedoed and sunk by the Germans with all on board and not a soul was saved. They would add that the Germans had a most intense desire to get our boat. Why? It was common talk in New York, so a friend had written to them that a sub would get us this trip. As a matter of fact, sir, betting is five to one that they will sink us. What a ghastly sense of humor some of these stewards have. However, the days slipped by and no one seemed to be at all worrying as to his or her safety. The last couple of days out from England, the guns for an aft were gotten ready for business in case the Hun dared to show the nose of his periscope in our neighborhood. Eyes looked in all directions, searching for the telltale trail of a torpedo, and though many were called out, few chose to materialize. Suddenly one morning, someone spied out a couple of those fast, dangerous looking torpedo boats which swung about and crossed our boughs and thenceforth accompanied us like a pair of faithful bulldogs accompanying their master on horseback. Though no one had expressed a word of fear of the submarines and no person, man or woman, on board had seemed to worry in the least as to the possible dangers from torpedoes, it was noticeable at once that a pressure or tension had been withdrawn. In the smoking room, the hum of voices rose to a much higher pitch than it had attained during the previous 24 hours of the voyage, during which we had felt that a danger might lurk unseen about us. The gaiety on deck became appreciably more merry. These torpedo boats accompanied us till we reached the safety of the harbor, and as we once again placed our feet upon the soil, we felt that in war, as in peace, the end of a voyage is often the most welcome part of it. But was it the end of the voyage? Ah, no, it was about the beginning. Because for the men there are many hard roads to travel, ere they reach that which they set out to attain, a goal of peace and liberty for the small and the large nations protected by the democracies of the old and the new world. And the women who accompanied us will soothe many a poor boy's pain or ease his troubled mind and will write many a letter of comfort to his loved ones at home ere they join us at that peaceful goal we all desire to reach. End of chapter 23, chapter 24, Decorations. To sneer at decorations is often much easier than to earn them. It is true that more decorations from the Victoria Cross down have been awarded in this war than in the hundred years before it. It may be stated that for each of these distinctions given a man, 10 others should now be wearing the bit of ribbon which signifies the award if justice could only be done. Many a high-minded chap is lying out there with only a small wooden cross to mark his last resting place, who, if the truth were but known, earned the finest that we had to give. And thousands of gallant others there are with naught but their khaki to distinguish them as soldiers of liberty who have with a smile on their lips and with no thought of awards or rewards in their minds performed the feats of the noblest courage and self-sacrifice. It was an inspiration of genius that made Napoleon Institute the Legion of Honor. By that act he proved himself a student of human nature as well as the greatest military leader of perhaps any age. For most men who are normally constituted would rather receive a decoration honestly earned for gallantry on the field than accept a reward and money for the same deed. While it is true that ambition has but one reward for all a little power, a little transient fame, a grave to rest in and a fading name. A large proportion of humankind are so constituted that for a little transient fame they are willing, even anxious to risk getting only a grave to rest in. The difficulty lies in deciding who is most worthy of these coveted awards for in the excitement of battle courageous acts are common and often unobserved. For the occasional man who has unjustly received a reward they are thousands whose bravery should be rewarded but who for one reason or another are overlooked. All who show courage and resource cannot be chosen for that bit of ribbon so the attempt is made to choose the most conspicuous examples and in this choosing it is inevitable that fallible human nature must often err but the erring rarely goes to the extent of recommending someone who is wholly unworthy. Someone has nearingly remarked that the surest way to a decoration is to court the favor of one's commanding officer who usually puts in the recommendations for award but there must be few officers commanding units who would be so unwise as to alienate the loyalty of their men by picking favorites in this manner and men are not so depraved that there are many who would desire the recognition of the multitude without at least fair grounds for that recognition and praise. You might suppose that at the base or at home where recognition is given rather for general good work than for special acts of honor favoritism is more common but it may safely be stated that decorations in all fields are usually honestly earned. The saddest mistake is when a man has performed some lofty noble self-sacrificing act yet receives no reward but his consciousness of duty well done. I was one day assisting Colonel B to hold a board on a disabled officer to decide the amount of his disability and his right to pension. His left arm was missing and Colonel B in his sympathetic manner asked him how he had lost it. The facts were that he and his officer being one night out on a scouting trip in no man's land were both wounded by rifle fire, the officer the more seriously. The private put his officer on his shoulders and carried him through a shower of machine gun bullets to a place of safety in a shell hole near their own parapet, one of the bullets smashing the man's arm on the way. In the morning both were pulled in by comrades and sent to the hospital. The officer died on the way without regaining consciousness and the private's left arm had to be amputated. He alone knew the details of his heroic work and he received an ordinary pension for a VC deed. He told his story at the Colonel's request in a quiet modest, uncomplaining manner which gave it the stamp of truth. His case is one of many like it where no adequate reward has been given for great heroism but their total avoidance is impossible. Sergeant Major D took part in the Battle of the Somme and did such excellent work under dangerous surroundings that he was recommended for a decoration which recommendation was approved. In the usual course of events it was published in divisional orders that Sergeant Major D had been awarded the military medal but then the powers be thought themselves that he being a warrant officer should have been given instead the military cross and as a result the whole order was canceled and he was given nothing. However at the Battle of Vimy Ridge he was a lieutenant in our battalion. Some months previously he had been given his promotion really against his own desires as he said that he could do better work in the junior position a not very common form of modesty in the army. After this battle he was chosen for courageous and able work and was awarded the military cross. Thus he at last came into his own. The Black Highlanders held the lines to the right of a certain Canadian battalion. They planned to put on an important raid but being short a certain necessary section they asked the loan of an officer and 20 men of this section of the Canadians on their lap. The Canadians were glad of the honor of aiding this well-known Scottish unit in their raid. 20 men gaily joined them but for some reason the men were sent in charge of two officers the regular officer of the section and a subaltern. The officer in charge remained at the Scottish headquarters while his subaltern took part in the raid. So effectually did the Canadians aid the Scots that the latter were very high in their praise of the Canadians and put in a recommendation that the officer in charge of this Canadian section be awarded the MC for gallantry intending the award for the subaltern who had assisted them on the field. But the officer in charge of the Canadian section was he who had remained at the HQ. By some twist in this recommendation he received and accepted the MC which had been meant for his junior who had really done the gallant work for which the decoration was given. The subaltern did not get even a mention in dispatches and at a later date he was killed while fighting bravely. The Canadian battalion to which the two officers belonged were so annoyed and so ashamed of the decorated officer that no word was said of the mistake to their Scottish friends. The officer was allowed to wear without comment his unearned award but his stay with his battalion came to an abrupt end shortly afterward. But it may be repeated safely that mistakes such as the above are very, very rare and that most of those who win recognition on the field may wear their ribbons with pride and without shame. End of chapter 24. Chapter 25, On a Hill. Just before the great Vimy Ridge offensive a crowd of us stood on a small hillock beside our camp which is a wood six or seven miles behind our lines to watch the earthquake that was to open on Thelus at 3 p.m. and of which we had been told by Brigade. The earthquake was to take the form of a bombardment of Thelus a small town one mile behind the German lines opposite our front and which from the lines we could see very distinctly with the naked eye by every gun of ours that could throw a shell into it. As guns here are much more numerous to the square mile than they were even at the Somme and as others are going forward day and night some so large that it takes eight or 10 horses to pull them and as ammunition goes forward at the rate of 300 or 400 motor lorries full daily for each mile of front this means indeed an earthquake. We stood on the hillock at the zero hour and on the stroke of three shells began to burst on the skyline. Some high explosives probably caused those immense black upheavals of earth which except for their color remind one of nothing so much as the spouting of a whale at sea. Others bursting higher in the air shrapnel very likely left large white fleecy clouds just above the skyline and a third type burst with a flash of flame and left brown clouds of smoke in their way. Higher in the air all along the front some near some far some ours and others the enemies hung nine immense observation balloons and soaring in and out among them were 21 aeroplanes by actual count at one moment. Some of them were being shelled for fluffy clouds of smoke were about them showing the bursting shells from anti aircraft guns and while we watched two machines engaged in one of those ever interesting air duels out of which one of them came nosing down into the earth whether it was our machine or an enemy we could not tell at the distance. Even the sights on the earth were of interest. The tall gothic towers on the hill at Mount St. Eloi were silhouetted against the blue of the sky on our right on the extreme left was an emaciated forest standing out against the horizon and between these two landmarks were countless acres of cultivated ground just about to give forth the first sprouts of the hoped for harvest. Here and there the white walls of the limestone farmhouses with their red tile roofs broke the monotony and about the center of the picture a group of them with the shell shattered spire of a church in their midst formed the village of Villiers Au Bois to the left of this latter place lay a peaceful cemetery with some 2000 graves of British, French and Canadian soldiers who had given up their lives on the bloodstained soil of France in the cause of liberty. Distinctly we could see through glasses a pottery saying prayers for the dead over the bodies of some of the allied soldiers which were being laid in the newly dug graves. Beyond the cemetery a road twisted here and there and along it hurried from time to time motor ambulances with the large red cross on their sides. Motor lorries full of food and munitions, limbers painted in very colored patterns and looking like a calyphthumpian procession to make them inconspicuous against the earth to the German aviators, large guns drawn by strings of horses, pack mules with their burden of shells and motorcyclists hurrying forward or rearward with messages and all this in the cause of the great God, Mars. End of chapter 25, End of A Surgeon in Arms by Robert James Mannion.