Wounded and a Prisoner of War, by an Exchanged Officer

by Malcolm V. Hay

Mlle. Waxin had also charge of the operating-room; she was as clever as a surgeon and as strict as a gendarme with her patients. Rather under the average height, her figure inclined, but very slightly, to plumpness. Very dark eyes that could sparkle and also look severe. A young, round, rosy, but very determined face. A typical French girl.

Mlle. Debu, although without hospital training and with no previous experience of nursing, volunteered from the first day of the invasion to help in her father's hospital. Mlle. Debu showed the true spirit of France. She was only nineteen. Never for a moment did she lose courage. From the very start she worked with the skill and endurance of a trained nurse, and her face, ever quick to smile, never betrayed, even for a moment, the fatigues and worries of the day.

When the rays of the morning sun lit up the top of the glass door it was time for breakfast, and punctually to the minute Mlle. Debu appeared with a cup of chocolate which she made for me herself. "Bonjour, Monsieur le numéro sept," the brown eyes twinkled and the dimple smiled at the daily jest.

The days passed very slowly. I was too weak to read, and even the occasional visit from a wounded French or British soldier was more than my head could bear. Every afternoon, at about five o'clock, a body of German infantry marched past the hospital, singing the Wacht am Rhein in part-song, an unpleasant daily reminder of the conqueror's presence.

In the room opposite there was a German officer who spent most of the day walking up and down the corridor whistling a hackneyed and out-of-date waltz tune. He always whistled the same tune, and it got on my nerves. The nurse told me that there was nothing the matter with him except an alleged pimple on his foot. This officer must have been a delicate specimen of German militarism. He was known in the hospital as "Parapluie," owing to the fact that when setting out one evening to dine in town he borrowed an umbrella to protect his uniform from the rain.

A regular plague of flies was one of the minor discomforts which had to be endured during the day. Mlle. Debu stuck a piece of fly-paper to the gas chandelier which hung in the middle of the room, but only a few dozen flies fell victims to greed and curiosity, and the others seemed to take warning from the sad example. At meal-times there were always crowds of these uninvited guests, who, from the contempt with which they treated me, were evidently quite aware that I was unable to drive them away. One fly, rather bigger than the others (Alphonse I called him), was very persistent in his endeavours to land on my nose. When tired of this game he would leave me for a while and circle round and round the fly-paper, always about to land, and yet always suspicious of danger. The career of Alphonse was cut short by a method of attack which is probably considered by the insect kingdom as contrary to the rules of civilised warfare. One afternoon Madame la Directrice brought up a box of powder which she said was guaranteed to destroy all the flies in the room in half an hour. The windows were shut, and the powder was sprinkled all over the room and all over my bed. In about ten minutes it was impossible to breathe. The powder got into my eyes and lungs, and I had to ring and ask for the windows to be opened. But the flies had succumbed, and poor Alphonse was swept up off the floor next morning along with at least a hundred of his companions.

I gathered a great deal of information about what was going on in the hospital from watching the glazed window in the door.

One morning I said to Mlle. Debu when she brought in breakfast, "Who was it died in the ward last night?"

The nurses always tried to hide from me the large number of deaths that took place in the early days, but I knew all about it from studying the glazed window through which the outlines of passers-by could faintly be distinguished. One man followed at a short distance by another meant a stretcher was being carried past. It is not hard to guess what is the burden of stretchers which are carried out of the ward when the dawn is just breaking. At this hour the hospital is at its quietest. But in the garden the sparrows twitter and chirrup that it will soon be time to get up. An early and hungry blackbird will sometimes whistle one or two impatient notes to hasten the coming of day. When the new daylight enters my room with its fresh, clean morning air, the first picture shown on the glass door is that of two men marching, with an interval between. They wear slippers and make no noise. And many months after the name of the burden they carry on the stretcher will appear on the Roll of Honour—"Previously reported missing—now reported died of wounds as a prisoner of war."

It is usually about eight o'clock that the surgeon's visit takes place. First there is the rattle and jingle of bottles all along the corridor, which heralds the advance of the portable dressing-table. This table runs on rubber wheels, and is fitted with an ingenious basin in which the surgeon can wash his hands under a tap which is turned on by pressing a lever with the foot. Sometimes, when the door of my room has been left ajar, I can see as they pass the surgeons in their white overalls followed by the nurses and orderlies. There are one or two very serious cases which have to be dressed by the surgeons, but the visit is chiefly an inspection. Cases where the balance lies between amputation and death have to be submitted to the sure judgment of Dr Debu.