“One lady to whom I carried a fowl was prostrate in bed, her physical powers reduced by starvation to an extremely low ebb. When I told her that she was simply dying from want of food, her reply was that she really had no appetite; she could not eat anything. Yet when I gave her some savoury morsel to be taken at once, and then the fowl to be cooked later on, her face brightened; she half raised herself in bed, and pressed the little articles I had brought to her as a child presses a doll. I was told also that the nurses in an ambulance which I had aided with the British supplies danced round the tables, and invoked blessings on our heads. As regards myself, what I most craved for was fried fat, bacon, and fruit, and, above all, apples.”
Besides the wild animals of the French Zoological Gardens, most of the domestic pets had been eaten. A story is told of one French lady who carefully guarded her little dog Fido, feeding him from her own plate with great self-sacrifice. One day the family had the rare treat of a hot joint, and in the middle of dinner the lady took up a small bone to carry to Fido in the next room. She returned in trouble, saying:
“Fido is not in the house; he would so have enjoyed this bone. I hope he has not got out. They will kill him—the brutes!—and eat him.”
The members of that starving family exchanged uneasy glances; they were even now engaged upon a salmi, or hash, formed from a portion of the lady’s pet!
“From Memoirs of Dr. Gordon.” By kind permission of Messrs. Swan Sonnenschein and Co.
[CHAPTER XIX]
METZ (1870)
Metz surrounded—Taken for a spy—Work with an ambulance—Fierce Prussians rob an old woman—Attempt to leave Metz—Refusing an honour—The cantinière’s horse—The grey pet of the regiment—Deserters abound—A village fired for punishment—Sad scenes at the end.