He was killed in the Moquet action the very next day and of the five officers of the companies which relieved mine, four were killed. I had been indeed a very lucky man.
Via Gazincourt and Bologne I made my way to Wimereaux, where I was assigned to the Hotel Splendid, which had been transformed into a great hospital. For a month I had a perfect rest, rambling the sea cliffs, reading, catching up with my correspondence with old friends, playing with the pretty little French kiddies in the sands, and staring out on the restful sea, where, however, as a reminder of war, there was an island on which Napoleon in the long ago had constructed a fort and naval base in his contemplated invasion of England.
My wound gave me little or no trouble, healing nicely from the start, and in a month I was ready to return to service.
While I was at the Splendid, Capt. P. A. Hall, M. C., sent me the information that I had been officially recommended to headquarters for “capturing sky-line trench, consolidating and holding it during heavy, continuous shell-fire and rendering first aid to the injured until hit and relieved.”
CHAPTER XIV
Spies
The thoroughness with which Germany in her plotting to conquer Europe, and later the world, had infested every country with spies, the Americas as well as Europe, had organized a system spreading to the antipodes, has been written history for some time.
There is no doubt that they managed at the beginning of the war to honeycomb the armies of their opponents with these “informants”—Germany doesn’t like the designation “spies.”
Well, in the first place, I can attest to the deftness with which they tapped our telephone wires between the sectors of battle-fronts. But I can also attest that while German scientific ingenuity was sharp and clever, the German mind was frequently child-like. For we led them into many traps and serious defeats again and again by the simple process of sending false information over these wires we had learned had been tapped. The guileless readiness with which they snapped up this bait was sometimes almost comical. They were so cock-sure of their own efficiency in tapping the wires undetected, that we were able to play with them again and again—“play” that frequently meant death to hundreds and even thousands of their men.