II
OXFORD
February, 1917
The “Schools” building, though modern, is one of the stateliest on the Main Street. Here, in old peaceful times, the university examinations used to be held. Now it is transformed into a hospital for the wounded men from the fighting front of freedom.
Sir William Osier, Canadian, and world-renowned physician, is my guide, an old friend in Baltimore, now Regius Professor of Medicine in Oxford.
“Come,” he says, “I want you to see an example of the Carrel treatment of wounds.”
The patient is sitting up in bed—a fine young fellow about twenty years old. A shrapnel-shell, somewhere in France, passed over his head and burst just behind him. His bare back is a mass of scars. The healing fluid is being pumped in through the shattered elbow of his right arm, not yet out of danger.
“Does it hurt,” I ask.
“Not much,” he answers, trying to smile, “at least not too much, M'sieu'.”
The accent of French Canada is unmistakable. I talk to him in his own dialect.
“What part of Quebec do you come from?”
“From Trois Rivieres, M'sieu', or rather from a country back of that, the Saint Maurice River.”
“I know it well—often hunted there. But what made you go to the war?”
“I heard that England fought to save France from the damned Germans. That was enough, M'sieu', to make me march. Besides, I always liked to fight.”
“What did you do before you became a soldier?”
“I was a lumberjack.”
(What he really said was, “J'allais en chantier,” “I went in the shanty.” If he had spoken in classic French he would have said, “J'etais bucheron.” How it brought back the smell of the big spruce forest to hear that word chantier, in Oxford!)
{Illustration: “I was a lumberjack."}
“Well, then, I suppose you will return to the wood-cutting again, when this war is over.”
“But no, M'sieu', how can I, with this good-for-nothing arm? I shall never be capable of swinging the axe again.”
“But you could be the cook, perfectly. And you know the cook gets the best pay in the whole shanty.”
His face lights up a little.
“Truly,” he replies; “I never thought of that, but it is true. I have seen a bit of cooking at the front and learned some things. I might take up that end of the job. But anyway, Im glad I went to the war.”
So we say good-by—“bonne chance!”
Since that day the good physician who guided me through the hospital has borne without a murmur the greatest of all sacrifices—the loss of his only son, a brave and lovely boy, killed in action against the thievish, brutal German hordes.