Complete Text (Part 6)

HOSPITAL vellously, and nothing is more touching than the social comradeship that was established forthwith between grey moustache and beardless chin. The young soldiers treat their elders fraternally in a way, but always with a shade of respect, too. Tact is a French quality, and the younger men know quite well the meaning of such words as husband and father of a family ; know how significant they are of responsibilities and pain and care, of tears shed on their departure. The brave territorials, on the other hand, look admir- ingly on the feats of their young brothers in arms. The other day a group of grizzled soldiers was going through its manoeuvres with great application under the direction of a little twenty-year-old corporal, who had a chubby face like a pink-and-white baby, adorned, however, by some glorious scars. An old campaigner, passing by, called out: "Well, well! Look at the company baby they sent down there to learn things so he could teach the territorials." IN A FRENCH HOSPITAL 87 UNDER MARTIAL LAW Declarations of war sometimes have un- expected consequences. A poor woman, very- unhappy at home, was crying yesterday, and kept repeating: "If only soldiers were the police. Oh, if soldiers were the police I" When she was asked the meaning of this ex- clamation she replied: "Well, you see, dur- ing the mobilisation, one evening my hus- band was beating me in the street, as he often does, and a patrol of Turcos passed that way. " 'What are you doing there?' they asked my husband. "He answered them: 'Leave me alone. She's my wife. It's nothing to you.' " 'Indeed it is something to us. When soldiers are police, people don't beat their wives any more, and to prove it you're going to come along with us to the station.' "And as they were leading him away, they said to me : 88 IN A FRENCH HOSPITAL " 'That never happens where we come from.' " The Turcos make some rather hardy state- ments. But in the presence of the enemy they have shown so well their ability to defend our rights that we mustn't question too curiously whether they apply them strictly in their own homes. OUR PRIESTS They are everywhere, but at the front especially, and the most diverse opinions are reconciled on the subject of what soldiers our country has in them ! A higher will vic- toriously pursued its ends in bringing to- gether again, in the closest and most unex- pected brotherhood, across what a chaos of tragic developments, the Catholic priest and the French soul. "I will punish thee because thou hast for- gotten my name," said the Lord in other times, in vengeance against his chosen peo- ple. Alas, dear France, wast thou not the IN A FRENCH HOSPITAL 89 eldest of his daughters, and hadst thou not forgotten and denied his name, that terrible, protecting name which comes back so natu- rally to thy lips to-day? Not on the battle- field do we women see our priests in their activities, but at the hospital, at the bedside of those who suffer and die for France, every- where, every day. The ones who have not gone to the front devote all their time, wholly and unreservedly, to the soldiers, especially to the wounded soldiers. The personal measures to which the administration is not equal, overwhelmed as it is by its duties, have been taken upon themselves by the priests; if there are letters to write, sad news to be related, confidences to be received, encour- agement to be given, everything you can think of — all are laid upon the priests. The importance of their role touches the very mysteries of the soul; no one has the right to measure it. But who knows what our priests will not do to maintain this fire of self-sacrifice and enthusiasm in the 90 IN A FRENCH HOSPITAL soldier's heart, this fire which must go on burning to the end in France, in the least ambulance, and for which those who work and worry, far back from the common field of danger, far from the captains and the shouts of conflict, are more tried than by the rude life of camps. The soldier divines unerringly that with the priests succor of a human kind and at the same time a superior power are given him; and also he loves him and wants him and relies on him for every- thing. Recently I noticed a new orderly at the hospital, and observed that he was par- ticularly kind and thoughtful with the pa- tients. A soldier saw that I was gazing at this man, with a bit of astonishment, and said to me, motioning toward him: "But, madame, it's a priest !" His accent was un- translatable. Verily no terrestrial power could ever rob them of this mysterious influ- ence, this "heavenly fire" that comes to them from God himself. From their chief down to the most humble among them, they are IN A FRENCH HOSPITAL Ql indeed the successors of those to whom "all power" was given, "in heaven as well as on the earth." THE LITTLE FRENCHMEN One fighter who had "come back from down there" told me it often happened, when families moved away from the unhappy, devastated regions, that boys from twelve to fifteen refused to follow their parents in their flight, thinking themselves big enough to get a place among the soldiers. The troops give a good welcome to these young Frenchmen. They present them to their captain, and, their identity once established, the boys have the right to be named as of the regiment, and share its destinies. They eat at the soldiers' mess, and are not held to account for any- thing, free to do as their fancy wills. But this fancy never varies, they say; in the wreckage of the battlefields they speedily pick up arms for themselves, and shoot them 92 IN A FRENCH HOSPITAL incessantly, with an incredible boldness that promptly wins the enthusiastic affection of their elders. Oh, these little Frenchmen of 1914! There will be powder mixed with blood in their veins. What generations they are preparing for the future! WHAT WE RECEIVE FROM THE FRONT Complaints about the bad weather, the cold, the rations? Not a bit of it! You don't know the souls of our militants if you suppose that. What we receive from the front is either heroic stories, or programmes of fetes, such as this: CONCERT GIVEN NOVEMBER 22, 1914 Behind the Trenches During Our Regiment's Three Days' Rest With the assistance of the soldiers whose names follow: Tharaud of the Opera-Comique ; Kanony, Nimes Theatre; Dupin, Municipal Theatre, Nancy; Trantoul, Grand Theatre, Lyons; Barthe, IN A FRENCH HOSPITAL 93 Brest Theatre; Escudie, Crystal Palace, Mar- seilles; Josthan of the Kursaal, Reims; Gubret, prize man of the Paris Conservatory; Sizes, pro- fessor of the violoncello, Limoges; Sergeant Du- mail, character singer (amateur) ; Sergeant Moucdoues, Lafayette Theatre. Programme 1. What the Stones Say (Joubert). 2. The Dream Passes (Krier). 3. Carmen, Air de la Fleur (Bizet); The Masked Ball (Verdi), etc., etc. And so on for twelve numbers, ending up with the soldiers' chorus from Faust. CORRESPONDENCE IN WAR TIME The subjects people write of, like the things they talk about, have undergone a transformation to-day. No, indeed, one doesn't write banal letters any more, that tell you nothing at all. The very existence of the nation, the dearest lives, the secret hero- ism of which they have been capable, re- vealed magnificently in the face of death — such are the subjects on which one exchanges 94 IN A FRENCH HOSPITAL one's hopes, one's feverish anxieties, one's felicitations to-day. Energy, patience, daily sacrifices, supreme resignation to our coun- try's cause, such are the sentiments one cher- ishes, on which one seeks to keep up courage. Marvellous letters of war time I One can cite from them anywhere; they will all give the same sound. The country has only one soul now. There was a young widow, Mme. de V , whose husband, an officer of great valour, promoted with the most flattering distinction, had expired in the hospital at Epinal some hours before his wife's arrival. "In these hours of distress, my thoughts go often toward you," she wrote to a friend. "What shall I say to you? I am proud, with a sorrowful pride, but crushed amid the ruins of my happiness that was only yesterday so complete. There are moments when I can- not believe the terrible thing that has made me suffer so is true. It is indeed true, never- theless. God has caught me back, after let- IN A FRENCH HOSPITAL 95 ting me enjoy for five years that rich intelli- gence, that fine spirit from which I was so proud to take my lessons. I find myself alone again, facing emptiness. Pray that I may have the strength to go on with the task we two began, of bringing up, as his father would have done, this son whom I should like so much to be a soldier." There was a little infantryman from Africa, a volunteer, who wrote to his broth- ers under arms : "You are fighting, you are giving your blood, and I, here I am, doing exercises, with nothing to be afraid of. Oh, what jealousy I feel! Happily they are putting our instruction through very rapidly. I have hopes that we shall leave soon, be- cause they're already choosing those of us that are to serve as scouts. If only I can be chosen! I put my name down at once." There were so many then, though one did not know it, so many of the youth of France, who dreamed of giving their lives for their 96 IN A FRENCH HOSPITAL country. In many other letters still I find the proofs. Mile, de F , true French- woman of the French, told me thus of her brother's death: "Thank you for your compassionate pages; it is a sweet comfort, in our great woe, to find it so unanimously shared by all France, where everyone may be prepared, alas, for the same supreme sorrow. Our Robert that we loved so well had the glorious death of which he had always dreamed. He was lead- ing his brave infantrymen for the third time that day in a heroic bayonet charge, in a forest in the Vosges, when he fell, struck by two bullets full in front. His men saw him stretched on the moss beneath a great pine tree. They would have gone to fetch his body, but a furious charge of the enemy obliged them to retire. Seven officers, in- timate friends of Robert, fell that day, with the battalion chief. What will the bar- barians do with his dear remains? Shall we never find his grave again? Our eyes at IN A FRENCH HOSPITAL 97 least follow him in the skies, where his soul, that was so ardent in its heroism, no doubt has taken a place among the martyrs. My poor friend, you divine how much we suffer, and yet, we are happy and proud to have given him to France. He made a victorious campaign at the outset; we had enthusiastic letters. Afterwards they had to fall back and back, and he came to die near his dear garrison at St. Die, in the forest of Ram- bervilles, without having seen success. On August twenty-fifth, the eve of his death, he wrote us a letter full of courage, even of absolute faith in victory. Our dragoon took part in the grand battle of the Marne. Now •he is fighting in the Aisne night and day. He has had two horses shot under him. May God keep him for us! Hearty and tender greetings to you, and confidence in victory so dearly won." Victory — they think of that always and before everything. "I hope," a mother in mourning had the courage to write, "I hope 98 IN A FRENCH HOSPITAL our dearly loved son, who has so often dreamed of dying for France, with God's will may win the final triumph, and help protect those who struggle still. I read in the paper the names of your five sons, all wounded, and yet going back to the firing line. You ought to be proud, and I share your glory and anguish. May God spare you the grief I suffer, and save your brave sons for you, who will be so happy to bring back their laurels to you." When one begins to talk about the moth- ers, the documents pile up — intimate docu- ments, damp with tears, that pay for glory without hunting for it. Thus Captain de S wrote to one who had very spe- cially and silently filled this heroic role of mother : "No monuments, you see, are built to mothers* woes; And if one tried, as by all rights one should. To mark by bronze or marble what they suffer. The passers-by could not endure to see their tears." IN A FRENCH HOSPITAL QQ Again this is what Mme. de C wrote from a corner of France that was rich in heroes : "My grief is unutterable. My beloved son was my pride, the greatest source of happi- ness to me in this world. God has taken him from me in the full bloom of his youthful career and soldierly zeal, and the sacrifice is so much beyond my mother's strength that I can bear it only at the foot of the cross, trying to imitate his courage. He was made captain on the battlefield for deeds done un- der arms and a mission valiantly carried out, though he enjoyed his reward for it only a little while; but what glory consoles a mother in the loss of such a son^ He fell near Nancy and I was able to recover his body, but while I was away my youngest son, Louis, eighteen years old, who was en- rolled at the beginning of the war, was called out too. I did not see him again on my return, and already he is fighting. Our hearts, dear friend, are being put to the tor- lOO IN A FRENCH HOSPITAL ture. We must pray that our sufferings may purchase victory." To acquire this so much desired victory few women would have given ten fighters, like Mme. de L . "My J has just fallen for his coun- try," she wrote last month. "I offer up my great grief and all my tears to God and France. You knew my son; you know what I have lost. The only thought that can lighten this terrible blow is the knowl- edge that my boy had realised his dearest dream: he had always yearned ardently for this heroic death. He wrote to me the day of the mobilisation: 'If it were not for the memory of your face, this would be the hap- piest day of my life.' I was told that he said to one of his comrades, half an hour before he was struck full in the breast by a bursting shell : 'I have just made my act of contrition, my preparation for death, as I do each day. Out here you must always re- member that the next moment may be your IN A FRENCH HOSPITAL 101 last.' He was the first of my ten sons to fall. How many more will France ask of me? I gave them to her with all my heart when they went off, but my soul is torn." A LITTLE REFUGEE As I was going one day to visit one of our patients who had had to be moved into the contagious ward, I was rather surprised to perceive in the middle of the long range of white beds a little childish face that con- trasted strangely with the military visages all about it. It was that of a delicious child of seven years, with big eyes full of intelli- gence and candour. He himself gave me his name and qualifications — not without a shade of disdain of me as a provincial. "I am a refugee from Paris, madame; and who are you*?" I introduced myself in turn, and we chat- ted together. My little interlocutor soon gave me his confidence. He told me, smil- 102 IN A FRENCH HOSPITAL ing, as if he were telling the happiest of stories, a childish, lamentable history of neg- lect and abandonment. "I was almost always alone at Paris," he told me; "mamma worked out somewhere. As for me, I was the cook; I polished the furniture; indeed, I did as well as I could, for I was beaten when it wasn't done right." "And how did you happen to go away alone?" "Oh, well, a woman who lived near us came back from the station, and was telling about a train of emigrants that was going off that evening. Then mamma said: 'All right, here's a good way to send the boy on a journey that may be a long one.' "It made her laugh, but I cried and wept. I wanted to stay in Paris; I was so happy thinking the Prussians were coming there, and that I could fight them. I've got a gun, you know, and I've been at the garrison and seen the soldiers exercising. For a month I did it on the pavement by our house when- IN A FRENCH HOSPITAL I03 ever I had a spare moment. Fortunately the neighbour woman promised me that the Boches would come as far as this; but you don't see them often." "And didn't your mamma go away with you?" "No, indeed she didn't. She had her eat- ing good and sure in Paris; so she stayed there. You can't blame her." All this he said in his little clear voice,