Pte. R. Anderson.
L.-Cpl. M'Donald. Mme. Buquet. Pte. James Prime.
British Soldiers at the "106."
Prime represented all that is best in the typical English soldier. He came from the Midlands, the heart of England. It was a treat for me to sit and listen to the story of his short battle experience, which, a plain and common tale in these times, acquired enthralling interest from the graphic language and quiet humour of the speaker.
Irish, Scotch, and English, we all gathered in the Salle cinq and forgot our troubles, present and impending.
Prime was a born story-teller. He possessed the rare faculty of making pictures in the minds of his hearers. He showed me a photograph of his wife and children, and I can well remember the description of his home in England. We found a subject of mutual interest in the keeping of poultry on the "intensive" system, and discussed the respective merits of Wyandottes, Leghorns, and Buff Orpingtons.
"Bob" Anderson, when I first saw him, was sitting dressed in blue coat and red kepi at the refectory table with Prime, M'Donald the Irish Lance-Corporal, and half a dozen French soldiers. Right glad I was to hear the familiar accents of my native land!
Anderson could give me no news of the battalion, as he had been knocked out at the same time and place as myself. On the whole, the Germans had so far treated him fairly well. "It was surely the whole German army," said Bob, "that marched along the road near Audencourt when I was lying in the ditch with a broken leg, smoking my pipe. They didn't take much notice. At one of the halts a German stepped out of the ranks—'Hullo, Jock, what's ado wi' you?' said he, and gave me a drink out of his water-bottle. This was a German who had lived for fifteen years in Glasgow! The next halt was a different story. Several of the Germans gathered round, shook their fists at me, and one of them snatched the pipe out of my mouth and threw it away."
M'Donald, who soon after died a hero's death at Wittenberg, was a young fellow not more than twenty-one or twenty-two, quiet, sad, and delicate-looking. He had quite recovered from a dangerous wound in the chest, though he was still weak and walked with difficulty.
A photographer came and took a group of the British soldiers, who were mostly dressed in French uniform, and next day they were all taken off to Germany. Their departure for Germany was such a day of sadness for us who were left behind, that it seems as if we must have had some premonition of the future. The men went off loaded with as many parcels as they could carry—shirts, socks, tobacco, food, a bottle of wine in each greatcoat pocket, and five francs each from the Hospital Funds.