Away from the front, away from the busy haunts of men, all through France, in chateaux, in old convents and high schools, in sisters’ hospitals, conducted by the Union of Femmes de France, the Society of Dames Francaises, and the Society Secours aux Malades and Blesses Militaires, under the kindly treatment of those unswerving, unflinching nurses, he recovers his strength, then goes to the front for Freedom or Glory Immortal.
I shall not forget the many little courtesies received in the French hospitals at Saumur, Montreuil-Ballay, Remiremont, Pont de Veyle and Bourg. Suffering unites the sympathetic. Pain is the barometer that tests the human fiber. The soldier, who has been through the fire with his fellows, who has been wounded, as they were, who suffered, as they did, has an established comradeship that endures. He was interested in them and they in him. When he is low and the day ahead looks dark and dreary, he can feel their sympathy. Probably no word is spoken, but he knows the whole ward is pulling for him. He does not want to disappoint his friends. He rises to the occasion. That sympathy means the difference between life and death.
In the early days of the war, flowers, cigarettes, reading matter and luxuries, were showered upon wounded soldiers. Gradually, as private and public interests demanded attention, visitors were compelled to work for themselves, or for the State.
The faithful, never-tiring nurses patiently remain at their posts, color washed from their cheeks, hands worn, seamed by labor, dark eyes, flashing like stars of a wintry night, unceasingly, they work to bring back to health those who almost died for them. In their sweet, white uniforms, suppressing their own troubles with a jolly smile, they greet and welcome the mud-stained, lousy, dirty poilu and give him an affectionate word—far more efficient, a much better tonic, than medicine.
CHAPTER XV
AN INCIDENT
Early spring, 1916, at Boulogne, dressed, as a French poilu, I stepped off the channel boat from Folkstone, and, hurrying to the railroad station, learned that the express would not leave for Paris till 8 o’clock—a wait of five hours.
The day was cold. Snow was blowing around the street corner. The raw sea breeze cut to the marrow. Buttoning a thin overcoat, still crumpled from going through the crumming machine, sure sign of hospital treatment, I walked about aimlessly. “Fish and chips.” Yes, that was what I wanted. I wasn’t hungry, but it must be warm inside. It was also the last chance for some time to indulge in finny luxuries. Lots of water in those long, narrow trenches, skirting “No-Man’s-Land,” but no fish. Grinning, I recalled one cold, heart-breaking morning, when an unseen German yelled across:
“Hello, Français, have you the brandy?”
“No, have you?”
“No, we have not; but we have the water!”