Part 4 (2/2)
Laboreur did a wonderful etching of an officer bidding farewell to his wife at the Gare du Nord. It gave the whole tragedy of the place--the blackness, smoke, smell and crush. There, any night during an air raid, one could not help thinking what would happen if the Boche got a bomb on the Gare, with its thousands of fighting men all jambed together under its gla.s.s roof in the semi-darkness. What a slaughter!
And yet through it all, if the old Gare could only speak, it could tell some strange and amusing tales of that time--tales that would make one laugh, but with the laughter there would be a catch in the throat and a swimming in the eyes. It is extraordinary how funny sometimes the most tragic things can be.
The weather had become very bad and cold, and I worked on all impossible out-of-door days in my room in the ”Hotel de la Paix,”
which was known as the ”Bar.” My only rule was that the ”Bar” was not open till 6.30 p.m. At times it nearly rivalled ”Charlie's Bar.” At what hour the ”Bar” closed I was not always certain, as, no matter who was there, at about 10:30 I used to undress and go to bed, and so accustomed did I get to the clink of gla.s.ses and the squirt of the syphons that I slept calmly through it all. Among the regular attendants when in Amiens were Captain Maude, ”Major” Hogg, Colonel MacDowall of the 42nd G.H., Colonel Woodc.o.c.k, Colonel Belfield (the Spot King), Captain Ernest Courage (Jorrocks), Captains Hale and Inge (then of the Press), Bedelo (Italian correspondent), and Captain Brickman--a merry lot, taking them all round, and that room heard some good stories; some may have been not quite nice, but none were as (p. 057) dirty or disreputable as the room itself, with its smell of mud, paint, drink, smoke, and the fumes from the famous ”Flamme Bleue”
stove. The last man to leave the bar had to open the window. This was a firm rule. It sometimes took the last man a long time to do it, but it was always done.
[Ill.u.s.tration: XXIII. _Changing Billets._]
By this period of the war nearly every French girl could speak some English, and great was their anger if one could not understand them. I remember a very nice girl, who worked at the ”Hotel de la Paix,” came to me one day and said solemnly, ”My grandfadder he kill him.”
”Gracious!” I said, ”whom did he kill?” ”He kill him,” was the furious reply. Apparently the poor grandfather, living under German rule at Landrecies, had committed suicide.
I went back to Ca.s.sel and began to itch, mildly at first, and I was not in the least put out. My brother came to France, and I went to Boulogne to meet him. His boat was to arrive at 6.15 p.m., but did not get in till just 10 p.m. They had been away down the Channel avoiding something. Driving back to Ca.s.sel we had a fine sight of bombing and searchlights. Hardly a night pa.s.sed at this period that the Boche did not have a ”go” at St. Omer. One night, just then, they dropped three torpedoes in Ca.s.sel as we were having dinner, but Suzanne, the ”Peach,” at her desk, never fluttered an eyelid. I believe afterwards, during the summer of 1918, when things were quite nasty at Ca.s.sel, she never showed any signs of being nervous: just sat at her desk, made out the bills, and occasionally made some lad happy by a look and a smile.
On some evenings we used to give great entertainments in the kitchen of the ”Sauvage.” I would stand the drinks, and Howlett (my chauffeur) played the mouth-organ, and Green (my batman) step-danced. It was an (p. 058) amusing sight watching the expressions of those old, fat Flemish workwomen of the hotel.
The itching got worse, so one wet, black evening I went to see the M.O., took off my clothes in a dirty, cold, dark room, and he examined me carefully with the aid of an oil lamp. ”You've got lice,” he said.
”Really?” said I. ”Have you got a servant?” ”Yes,” said I. ”Well, go back and give him h.e.l.l, and tell him to examine your clothes.” I asked him about my foot, which had a hole in it about the size of a sixpence. ”That's nothing,” said he. ”Keep it clean.” So back I went, down the black cobbled street, called up my faithful boys, Howlett and Green, and told them I was lousy. I took my clothes off, and they examined them with electric torches and candles and oil lamps. Not a thing could they find. ”Do you mind my looking at you, sir?” said Howlett. So he had one look. Said he, ”If it were lice got you into that state, you'd be crawling with them.”
I stood the pain and itching another couple of days, and sent for the M.O. to come to me. As there was more light in my room, he came and had a look. ”Ah!” said he, ”I thought last time it might have been that: you've got scabies. You must leave here for X---- in the morning, and have all your bed-clothes sent round to me before you leave.”
[Ill.u.s.tration: XXIV. _The Receiving-room: 42nd Stationary Hospital._]
In the morning I broke the news gently to Madame that I was a ”dirty dog,” and that my bed must go for a bit to be purged, and went round to the A.P.M. to say good-bye. When I told him where I was being sent, he said, ”That place! Don't you do it. I was waiting there the other day to see someone, and I counted ten bugs on the wall.” That put the wind up me, so I wrote to the M.O. and said I had an important (p. 059) meeting at Amiens that evening at 6 p.m., and that I would report at the X---- hospital immediately after that. He seemed rather hurt at my getting out of his reach, but he let me go (as I mentioned having to see the C.-in-C. on the way. It was wonderful what the mention of the C.-in-C. did for one!). He gave me my slip for the hospital:
”Herewith Major Orpen, suffering from scabies. Please....”
and with this I departed for Amiens, where I reported to the Colonel of the X---- Hospital. Over a whisky-and-soda I gave him the ”slip,”
and he looked at my arm and said, ”Yes, scabies,” and I was put into the isolation ward and treated for this disease. How more people did not die in that hospital beats me. I personally never got any sleep, and left in a fortnight nearly dead. Lights were out at 10 p.m. This sounds good, but there were about eight of us in the ward. I had to have my foot treated every three hours. The man in the next bed to mine was treated for something every two hours; and nearly all the other beds were treated three or four times during the night. For all these treatments the lights blazed about twenty times each night, and some of the treatments were very noisy. At 6.30 a.m., in the dark, the nurse came round, and anyone who was not dying was turned out of bed.
Why, I know not: there was no heat in the place. If you were well enough you went off to a soaking sort of scullery and heated some water over a gas-jet and shaved. If you were not well enough, you sat in your dressing-gown on a chair. You were not allowed to sit on your bed. At 8 a.m. you were given an extraordinarily bad breakfast--porridge with no milk, tea with no sugar, bread with--most days--no b.u.t.ter. (p. 060) After breakfast you could go to bed again, but this was not allowed if you were going to be let out during the day, as I was most of the time. So there you sat again, freezing, till an orderly came and said your bath was ready, usually about 9.30 a.m.--three hours after you had left your bed. The bath was in an outhouse about fifty yards across the yard from the ward. In hail, rain or snow, you had got to go there. In it I was boiled in a bath, scrubbed all over with a nail-brush, and then smothered all over with sulphur--wet, greasy, stinking sulphur rubbed in all over me. I dressed by putting on a pair of pyjamas first. These more or less kept this grease from getting through to my other clothes, and I was allowed out to work--a sick, freezing, wet individual. But my room at the ”Hotel de la Paix” was warm, and I sat over my ”Flamme Bleue” all the morning. After I had been treated with sulphur for ”scabies” a couple of weeks, a hole came in my throat just like the one I had on my foot--a white hole with a black band round it, and all the flesh for about six inches beyond it a deep scarlet. One morning the boy who washed me said: ”I beg your pardon, sir, but what are you being treated for?” ”Scabies,” said I.
Said he: ”Don't say I said so, sir, but show the M.O. that thing on your neck. You haven't got scabies, and this sulphur will kill you soon.” So I waited for the M.O. till he did his rounds. When he came to me he said the usual, ”Everything all right with you?” ”No,” said I. ”I've got a scabie on my neck that is worrying me.” So he had a look at it and said: ”I don't think this treatment is doing you much good. I shall get you dismissed from the hospital to-day.” So I was chucked out. I happened to have blood-poisoning, not scabies, and I (p. 061) have it still. During the time I was in hospital, I got four very amusing poems from a General at G.H.Q. They were the bright spots during those days. I am sorry they are too personal to print.
[Ill.u.s.tration: XXV. _A Death among the Wounded in the Snow._]
About this time an officer told me a good story about my friend, Carroll Carstairs. The Cambrai battle was on, and the Grenadier Guards were advancing through a village. Carroll was with a brother officer, and said suddenly, ”Look at the shape of that church now! Isn't it magnificent?” Another sh.e.l.l shrieked and hit the structure, and he said, ”d.a.m.n! the fools have spoilt it.” I believe it was during this battle he earned the M.C.
My brother became very popular with those he met in France. Too popular, indeed, with the girls in the hotel at Amiens to please Maude or myself. Maude and I used to complain about it. Maude would say, ”William, here you and I have been slaving for months to make ourselves liked by these girls, and your blinking little brother comes along, and cuts us out in a few days. It's disgusting.” It was true: Maude, the A.P.M., and I, ”le pet.i.t Major,” took a back seat. We worked hard to prevent it, my brother did nothing: he kept silent, laughed, and won. It was very sad, and we were much upset.
CHAPTER IX (p. 062)
WINTER (1917-1918)
Christmas came with much snow and ice. Maude and I went to dinner at Captain MacColl's mess in the Boulevard Belfort. Maude remarked once, ”MacColl is the only intelligent Intelligence Officer I know.” We had a great dinner, and at 10 p.m. Maude and I went, in a blinding snowstorm, to the police concert. I'll never forget the fug in that place: it reeked of sweat, drink, goose and f.a.gs. They were all very happy, these huge men; all singing the saddest songs they could think of, including, of course, ”The Long, Long Trail.” American police were there also. They had come to Amiens to learn their job. We left late, but we had promised to return to MacColl's mess, so started for there, but after we had fallen in the snow a few times, we gave the idea up and went to bed.
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