My temperature was up two points!
That morning the Colonel was removed to another part of the hospital.
As the window of my room could not be opened, I was taken into an exactly similar room on the opposite side of the corridor. This was a pleasanter room than the other, it got the morning sun, and the window opened on to the kitchen garden. Shortly after moving into this room two visitors came to see me. One was M. le Médecin Chef, who was afterwards imprisoned at the Hôpital 106. At this time, however, he was allowed by the Germans to visit the hospitals. I was quite unable to speak the day he came to see me, but was able to recognise and wonder at the French uniform.
My other visitor was a German officer. I can only vaguely remember that he was tall, well-built, and I think wore a beard. He spoke English fluently, and said that he used often to visit Cairo many years ago, when one of the battalions of my regiment was stationed there. I asked him if he would send news of me to England. He sat down by my bed, and put my name and regiment down in his note-book.
The post-card he sent, which reached the War Office viâ Geneva, was signed von Schwerin. It may seem a small thing to be grateful for, but the sending of that post-card was a very hard favour to obtain and a very great favour to be granted.
During the first few months of the German occupation of Cambrai no messages or letters were allowed to leave the district, and the severest penalties were imposed on those who were caught attempting to get letters out of the country. It was said that two German officers were sent home in disgrace for writing to Geneva on behalf of a wounded prisoner.
On September 15 a French Red Cross nurse came in to see me at 10 o'clock in the evening. She was a tall, fine-looking woman, dressed in a large heavy coat. After asking my name, she said she had a letter to give me from an officer of my regiment.
The letter, written in pencil, on a page from an exercise book, was as follows:—
Caudry Hospital.
My dear M.,—So glad to hear you are going on all right, as I heard you had a bad wound in the head, which sounded serious. I saw a priest a few days ago who told me there was an officer of my regiment at Cambrai, and I presumed it must be you.