A Surgeon in Arms

by R. J. Manion

The less pretentious eating places of the modest diner, such as Duval's dining-rooms or the Bouillon Boulant, served good meals at reasonable prices. These latter are akin to the Child's restaurants in America. But already the food question was beginning to cause some anxiety throughout the world, because of the lessened production and increased consumption due to the millions of men taken from productive occupations who had to be kept fit as fighters.

For this reason I decided one day to see how cheaply I could obtain a satisfying meal during wartime in Paris. The Diner de Paris advertised exceptionally cheap meals, and they seemed to be well patronized, so I entered one of these eating places. The large dining-room was filled to overflowing with a well-dressed throng, no doubt mostly clerks from the adjoining business blocks. Here I partook of a tastily cooked meal of soup, roast pork and potatoes, apple pie, and a bottle of milk, all for the munificent sum of twenty-six cents, plus the regulation tip of two cents, most certainly a reasonable price for a good meal in the principal city of a country with the invader on its soil. Unfortunately since that time the food situation in all the countries at war has become much more complicated.

The hotels of the first class still kept open doors, and a few of them seemed to have an air of prosperity, but these were very few. Many of them who, in the season, considered it "infra-dig" to have more than a small card in the hotel columns of the daily papers, which card never hinted at their prices, had descended to the habit of advertising "special rates during the war." But others still preferred their small, select clientèle—and a deficit—to accepting prosperity obtained by any such plebeian method.

One point noticeable was the fact that unless the traveler carried them himself he saw no gold Louis or half-Louis, so much in evidence in times of peace. I had brought with me some English gold, but once it disappeared from my hand it never returned. A journalist friend of mine told me he was collecting the equivalent of one hundred dollars in gold to keep for an emergency, and was delighted when I gave him a few sovereigns in exchange for French money. The gold was being gathered in by the government, and today in France only paper money is used in exchange. All the smaller cities issue paper currency in denominations as low as one-quarter franc, or five cents.

Among my letters was one of introduction to the director of a large hospital in the Rue de la Chaise. This hospital was supported by funds collected by La Presse, a daily journal of Montreal, and so it was partial to any Canadian visitors, though it received as patients only French officers and soldiers. The institution was doing much good work, all of which was done by Paris medical men, Dr. Faure, a well-known surgeon, performing most of the operations. My reception was cordial, and I became a regular visitor to its operating theater during my stay in the city.

On one of my early visits I was watching Dr. Faure remove some dead bone from an old wound of the leg, when a tall, distinguished lady entered. She had donned a sterilized gown over her street dress, and was apparently a visitor like myself. Noting that Dr. Faure's English and my French were both a trifle labored, she, during my visits, acted as interpreter for us, her English having the soft intonation of the educated Britisher. She informed me that she was neither doctor nor nurse, but was simply learning something of nursing in order that she could be of service to her country in its need, though she had a little son and daughter of her own to care for. That was the extent of my knowledge of her, though I saw that she was treated with more than ordinary consideration by surgeons, and nurses, one of the younger surgeons, by the way, being a stepson of the idolized Joffre.

The last day I visited the hospital she was not there, and as I was leaving Paris the following day I left my card for her with one of the sisters, with a word of thanks scribbled upon it for her kindness to a stranger. That afternoon I went to Cook's to get my railway tickets, and as I came out of the door this lady stepped from an automobile to enter Cook's. Recognizing me, she told me that she had been at the hospital after I had left, and had been given my card. She was leaving the following day for Switzerland for a two weeks' rest; and hoped that when I returned to Paris I would call and meet her husband.

"I should be delighted, madam, but I fear I do not know your name."

"Comtesse (Countess) de Sonlac," she replied.

All the French women were doing their bit. A very clever, cultured woman-journalist whom I met at the home of a high Canadian official in Paris was leaving in a few days to take a position as cook on an ambulance train in the north of France!