Our work was now very heavy and our energies tasked to the utmost. Besides the evil of overcrowding, we had to contend against the innumerable difficulties consequent on our having been ordered about from one place to another without notice, or sufficient time to make preparations for departure. Then upon getting into our new quarters we had to re-establish our culinary and commissariat departments, on which everything depended, as well as to re-organise the system of Hospital management, and put the whole into working order. Until this was effected (which would take about a week) our whole day's work was nothing but a scramble from morning till night. Our chief was completely distracted from constantly receiving orders to have certain things done, and then (as in the case of the Caserne St. Charles) just when he had accomplished them, and was settled down, getting fresh orders countermanding the first. All this was thoroughly French,—at least, it was quite in accordance with our experience of their system.
For the first few days after the return of the French, the revelry and rejoicings of the townspeople were excessive. From the appearance of the streets, the bustle, and the dense crowds, one would have thought that some great festival was being celebrated. It was astonishing to hear these people talk and boast of their glorious victory of Coulmiers—the first they had gained, and, as it was to prove, also the last. But it would sadden the heart of any lover of France to witness these frivolities, these humiliating follies of her vain-glorious and light-hearted citizens, who never seemed to think seriously of anything, no matter how grave the issue.
Soon, however, the bustle in the streets subsided, and the military became comparatively few in number; many had gone to the front. But there was an evident intention of making a stand at Orleans, should the main body of the army be compelled to fall back again. I saw hundreds of men hard at work erecting barricades and earthworks across the faubourgs; while trenches and rifle pits were cut in all directions through the vineyards which lay about the suburbs of the town. An order was issued by the Commandant to leave the tall vine stakes standing, so that they might hinder the progress of the enemy, should they re-invest the place. If I may be allowed to anticipate, these very stakes were a most serious impediment to their own retreat before the Germans during the following month. Wherever they are abundant in vine-growing districts they make the country impervious both to cavalry and artillery, and form a splendid ambuscade for infantry troops in action. But the disadvantages of them from another point of view seem to have been overlooked.
It was a source of deep regret to me, during this campaign, that I was not better posted on military matters; for, had I been acquainted even with the rudiments of war tactics, the numerous and important military operations which were carried on immediately under my observation would have been intelligible to me without the aid of an expert, and that blank which now must be left in this slight record might have been filled up with many most interesting details.
The few convalescents who had acted as our infirmiers and attendants, and with whom we had been working the Hospital since the evening of the 8th,—at which time, as the reader will not have forgotten, all our regular nurses and infirmiers were drawn away for active service—were now sent off to Pau as prisoners of war. This we thought unwise and intolerable; but it was done in spite of remonstrances on our part that such dealing was nothing less than a violation of the Geneva Convention. What did we get in their place? Simply a scratch company of French infirmiers, whom we had much difficulty in knocking into shape, and whom we found by no means so ready to submit to discipline as had been their German predecessors. One of the new arrivals was a little fellow named Jack, by birth a native of Flanders, but who had been all his life on board a ship in the British Merchant Service, and who had had the top of a finger shot off. He had joined the Foreign Legion, not, as he told us, from any liking for war or for France, but in order to be with an old companion who had joined that corps. He was quite a little dwarf, and unsuited to hospital work; but his superiors, deeming him, I daresay, no great ornament to his regiment, had handed him over to us as an infirmier. Besides his native language, he spoke English, French, and German fluently, and professed to be able to converse in Spanish and Italian. This might have been of service to us in an emergency; but the following anecdote will show what a treasure we had got in our Fleming.
One night Dr. Mackellar and I were on duty with Jack when a case of extensive contusion (with compound fracture of the leg) began to bleed; and Mackellar came to the conclusion that immediate amputation was the only course possible. We therefore set about removing the limb. Dr. Mackellar operated, and I assisted and gave chloroform, while Jack was to hand the sponges, carbolised water and other requisites. In the middle of the operation, our good dwarf, getting nervous at a sight to which he was so little accustomed, lost his self-control and while endeavouring to effect a retreat, fell on his head to the ground in a swoon. I am afraid we both laughed at the prostrate brave, who was a regular lion in his own opinion. Left to ourselves to do the work, we had some difficulty in finishing the operation satisfactorily. But that was the last occasion on which Jack figured as an assistant in the operation room.