It was about four o'clock the following afternoon that Wilson approached me, and, pulling himself up to attention, said:
"Th' nurse on Saskatchewan ward, zur, ses as that German corporal ain't had any feed t'day."
"Why not? I asked him.
"Dunno, zur, but he ain't, an' she's ast me to bring th' Orderly Officer to see him."
We had laid it down as a principle that German patients, in every instance, were to be treated the same as our own Tommies, so that it was annoying to hear that one of our men had been guilty of Hun tactics. Although I despised this corporal more than any of the others, neglect, even of him, could not be countenanced in a hospital. I hastened up the stairs to investigate. The nurse corroborated Wilson's statement. The German had complained to her that he had had only a light breakfast and no dinner, although the other men in his room had received theirs.
I called the ward orderly. "Why did you not give this man his dinner?" I asked him sternly.
"The meat was all gone when I went for it, sir," he replied, without looking me in the eye, "but I gave him a dish of custard."
Evidently the orderly had made up his mind to punish the Bosche, and while I sympathised secretly with his antipathy to the individual, I couldn't condone his disobedience or the principle.
"Come with me," I commanded, "and I'll ask him myself."
We entered a room which contained only three beds. In the farthest was a burly giant of a Highlander, in the middle the wretched German corporal, and nearest to us was a Munsterite of prodigious muscle and who was but slightly wounded in the leg.