To hint that we were not entranced with their efforts, we clapped but faintly—but the musicians took it as hearty applause, and burst forth with fearful onslaught upon "Rule Britannia." When they were through you could have heard a pin fall. Not a soul risked a sound lest the players should mistake it as an invitation to renew their entertainment; so the real pipe band came on for another whirl and we were made happy once more.
Precisely at five-thirty, the concert ended, and the cosmopolitan crowd of French civilians and soldiers, British Tommies, Indians, Highlanders, and Canadians, melted away. Five minutes after, save for the presence of a few blue rock pigeons flitting about in search of their evening meal, the square showed no sign of life.
The Jail.
The town jail and dungeon is in the Hotel de Ville. Heavy barred doors open into a little dimly-lit store room, with windows high up protected by iron bars. Through this room a small doorway leads to a dungeon without light of any sort. We always knew when this prison had an occupant—in the morning a fatigue party under a corporal would appear marching across the square carrying food rations. The corporal would halt his men, step forward and give the signal on the door; it would be opened by the sentry guarding the inner cell. The food was then conveyed to the prisoner, the fatigue party marched away, and the sentry with rifle on shoulder paced up and down the front of the jail until his relief arrived. At no time was the guard off duty for a moment until the prisoner, perhaps under sentence of death, had been removed.
Once we had to report on a swab from a prisoner under the death sentence. Military law says that no man can be shot while suffering from any disease in hospital. Consequently when this man was found to have a suspiciously sore throat, it was reported by the Medical Officer and there was great excitement. Telegrams flew back and forth about the matter while I had to stay up till midnight to obtain a good culture. The culture, much to the relief of the staff officer who was waiting for the report, did not show diphtheria bacilli, and at five o'clock the following morning the poor chap met his fate.
A Canadian Graveyard.
The road to Bethune was always of interest to us, because near the pretty little village of Hinges was a hill; in fact Hinges was right on the top of this hill—our area, elsewhere, was as flat as a board. Hinges was interesting because it was full of trees and hedges and gardens, and somehow reminded one of the beautiful little sequestered villages of England, rather than a French village.
On the far side of the village, where the hill descending swept away off towards Bethune, a fine big French chateau nestled in the midst of a huge park of enormous trees. From the chateau a sweeping view of the surrounding country was obtained. Not more than two miles below it, on the La Bassee Canal, could be seen the spires and towers of the real little city of Bethune. Away beyond Bethune one could see the blue hills in which the Germans were strongly entrenched. To the right among these hills projected three sharp-pointed, pyramidal hills, indicating the location of the dumps of French coal mines, then operated by the Germans.
