Wounded and a Prisoner of War, by an Exchanged Officer

by Malcolm V. Hay

The sound of the cannonade at Arras could be heard quite distinctly, and when the wind was favourable the boom of the big guns seemed nearer than ever. "They were coming nearer," said the citizens of Cambrai with mutual congratulations. The inevitable morning salutation now became, "Bonjour, bonjour; the guns sounded nearer last night and they will soon be here—listen! comme ça roule."

A gentle westerly wind carried to our ears the sound of the distant guns, like an echo of a distant thunderstorm.

One evening, late in November, a still clear night, when the cannonade could be heard more distinctly than usual, Captain Viguié and I stood out in the yard for a long time listening. To the long loud rumble of the German cannon we could hear, after an interval, a faint and more distant answer—an answer that spoke, as it were, in another tongue. It was the French 75!

It was obvious to those who did not yield to vain hopes that the German occupation of Cambrai was being organised on a permanent basis. Very few German soldiers remained billeted in the town. Numbers of them were constantly coming back on short leave from the front, and from them the story of the new trench war gradually became known to us all.

The Military Governor of Cambrai occupied the Town Hall, now known as the Kommandantur. The French préfet having fled the city on the approach of the enemy, a successor was appointed by the Kommandant, and the administration of the city proceeded under German supervision and according to the usual German methods. Edicts were published at regular intervals declaring some new thing to be verboten, and always under penalty of death. Such things as bicycles and sewing-machines were requisitioned and might not be retained under penalty of death. Any person at Cambrai or in the district found, after a certain date, in possession of pigeons of any kind would be condemned to death.

The old Cathedral had belonged for years to the pigeons, who, suspecting no danger, fell an easy prey, and for several days afforded fine game to the German sportsmen. Mlle. Marie, who passed the Cathedral every morning on her way to the hospital, told me that there were still a few survivors who, having learnt the lesson of their comrades' fate, circled high round the Cathedral tower or remained anxiously perched on some lofty gargoyle.

The "Cambrai" pigeons were presented to the Hôpital 106 by the Secretary of the Kommandantur, and thus did not meet with the final indignity of being eaten by the enemy.

A typical illustration of German morality is afforded by an edict which was published in Cambrai towards the end of November. All able-bodied Frenchmen were ordered to present themselves at the Kommandantur on a certain date, and were to be sent to Lille to dig trenches. Only a small number of men presented themselves on the appointed day, and were offered the job of digging trenches at five francs per day. Those who refused would be sent to Germany. Not more than twenty or thirty men accepted the proffered wage, and the remainder were sent to a German prison. Owing to the failure of the citizens to respond in sufficient numbers to this demand, the town of Cambrai was fined a large sum of money.

A declaration, printed in French and German, of which I have seen a copy, was posted all over Cambrai under the heading, "Who is responsible for this Terrible War—England." Only the German mind could have produced such an extraordinary document, in which England is accused, among other crimes, of "having abandoned Belgium to her fate." Most of the French population of Cambrai were much entertained by the clumsy anti-British propaganda which emanated from the Kommandantur.

Another large poster appeared in all parts of the town stating that the British had been convicted of using Dumdum bullets. A British rifle, with ammunition, was on show in a shop window in the market-place, and the German soldier in charge explained to those who stopped to look that the hollow thumb-piece of the cut-off of the British rifle had been designed explicitly for the purpose of manufacturing dumdum bullets. By inserting the point of a bullet into the recess and giving the cartridge a rapid jerk, the pointed end broke, leaving a square ragged surface.