Wounded and a Prisoner of War, by an Exchanged Officer

by Malcolm V. Hay

The function of le shake-hand having been re-enacted by each member of the family, they passed on to the next bed.

I had many friends whose welcome visits helped to break the monotony of hospital life. Mlle. Waxin and Mlle. Debu used sometimes to come and talk to their old "Numéro Sept," and tell me all the latest news. From them I first heard of poor Captain Lloyd, an English officer very seriously wounded, who occupied my old room in the Hôpital Civil. I wrote a short note to Lloyd, expressing my sympathy, and next morning, when Dr Debu made his daily visit to the ward, I asked him to take it back with him.

There must be some special department of the German Staff solely occupied with the task of thinking out new things to make verboten. It is incredible, but true, that the Germans had forbidden any intercommunication between wounded and dying soldiers in the different hospitals, and so my correspondence with Lloyd was carried on secretly through the kind offices of Madame Buquet. Owing to her knowledge of German, Mme. Buquet was able to obtain a permit to visit the Hôpital Civil, and every day at 2 P.M., instead of taking her daily walk, she went to visit poor Lloyd, who was feeling rather lonely, and longed, as he said in one of his letters, to talk once more to a fellow-countryman.

It was after dinner on All Saints' Day, November 1, that I made my first attempt to walk without any one's help. I got outside the ward and along to a door which led into the courtyard. The night was clear and still, the wind cold and restless. I stood awhile on the wet gravel of the court, looking up once again at the clouds playing among stars by the light of a rising moon.

"Vous n'êtes pas fou," said a voice from the doorway. "We looked for you everywhere; you will catch your death of cold out there in the dark."

"You cannot understand," I replied, "how good it feels to stand once more on the soil of the earth and look up into the heavens."

Two of the worst cases, Nos. 8 and 9, were taken away during the night to the Civil Hospital for a fruitless operation. In the afternoon, it being La Fête des Morts, Madame Buquet went to the military cemetery. Even the frozen soul of a German staff officer could not forbid the citizens of Cambrai to visit their dead.

In the military cemetery of Cambrai, visited on this day by crowds of mourners, the French and British soldiers are buried together in a common tomb, under a single wooden cross. There are several such tombs in the cemetery, and each to-day is covered with wreaths. A row of long black crosses, with name and regiment painted in white on each, marks the resting-place of the officers. The same order prevails in the German quarter of the churchyard.

In all the surrounding countryside at Caudry, at Le Cateau, in village churchyards, in open fields by country roadsides, beside the plain wooden cross which marks the soldier's grave, some one to-day has laid a wreath and knelt in prayer.

At this time large numbers of troops were constantly passing through the city, coming from the direction of St Quentin and leaving in that of Valenciennes, from which point they proceeded to reinforce actual or impending attacks on Arras and Ypres. According to the universal opinion of Cambrai, the departure of the Germans from the city was to be expected at any moment.