On the Fringe of the Great Fight Part 15

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 G.o.d 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 battles.h.i.+p 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 a.s.sistance 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 pa.s.sing 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, "h.e.l.lo 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."

"d.a.m.n 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.

CHAPTER XIII.

PARIS IN WAR 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 a.s.sistance 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 finis.h.i.+ng 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 suns.h.i.+ne 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 pa.s.ses we were asked no questions.

Paris seemed cleaner than ever in the spring suns.h.i.+ne 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 airs.h.i.+ps 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 cla.s.s. 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.