A soldier came in and started the fire in my fireplace. When he went out I drew my code-book from my breeches-pocket and tossed it into the fire. After it followed my commission, my memoranda, and every scrap of writing. The diamonds I placed in the bosom of my flannel shirt.
Toward one o’clock I heard the shrill piping of a goat-herd, and I saw him, a pallid boy, clumping along in his wooden shoes behind his two nanny-goats, while the German soldiers, peasants themselves, looked after him with curious sympathy.
A little later a small herd of cattle passed, driven to pasture by a stolid Alsatian, who replied to the soldiers’ questions in German patois and shrugged his heavy shoulders like a Frenchman.
A cock crowed occasionally from some near dunghill; once I saw a cat serenely following the course of a stucco wall, calm, perfectly self-composed, ignoring the blandishments of the German soldiers, who called, “Komm mitz! mitz!” and held out bits of sausage and black bread.
A German ambulance surgeon arrived to see me in the afternoon. The Countess was busy somewhere with Buckhurst, who had come with news for her, and the German surgeon’s sharp double rap at the door did not bring her, so I called out, “Entrez donc!” and 112 he stalked in, removing his fatigue-cap, which action distinguished him from his brother officers.
He was a tall, well-built man, perfectly uniformed in his double-breasted frocked tunic, blue-eyed, blond-bearded, and immaculate of hand and face, a fine type of man and a credit to any army.
After a brief examination he sat down and resumed a very bad cigar, which had been smouldering between his carefully kept fingers.
“Do you know,” he said, admiringly, “that I have never before seen just such a wound. The spinal column is not even grazed, and if, as I understand from you, you suffered temporarily from complete paralysis of the body below your waist, the case is not only interesting but even remarkable.”
“Is the superficial lesion at all serious?” I asked.
“Not at all. As far as I can see the blow from the bullet temporarily paralyzed the spinal cord. There is no fracture, no depression. I do not see why you should not walk if you desire to.”