With An Ambulance During The Franco-German War Part 16

The patient named Rudiger, a young fellow of seventeen, and a volunteer, whose leg was fractured, became a particular favourite with his nurse and with Mere Pauline. He had not a hair on his face, which was of a ruddy hue, and wore a perpetual smile. He spent his time mostly in learning the French Grammar, a task in which he was helped by Soeur Leopoldine during her spare moments. Most of the others were Bavarians, and, I must say, a sleepy uninteresting lot.

Schroeder was the son of a wealthy tobacco and wine merchant in Hamburg.

He had one brother, who was captain in an infantry regiment. Their mother was still living. He told me with pride that he had supplied Bismarck with many a cigar; and promised me a case of them and a barrel of oysters, when he returned. Poor fellow, he little knew what was coming; for at this time he was comparatively strong, and, in the opinion of many, out of danger. But, from my conversations with him, I learned that his family history was very bad; and from the first had grave misgivings about his case, which, however, it was my duty to disguise from him. When, occasionally, without being able to help it, I looked serious, he used only to laugh, and chaff me, singing, in the most comical way possible, the well-known English ditty, "Champagne Charley is my name". I liked Schroeder.

I now put two of my men from Ste. Euverte into No. 44 Rue de Bourdon Blanc. They were Martin Dilger, my old patient--the survivor of the railway-shed--and Jacob Venheiser. There they received the kindest care and attention from their good host and hostess, M. and Madame B----.

By 4th January I had removed all my worst cases into private quarters in the town; leaving only about a dozen in the church, all of which were now on the high road to convalescence, and fit to be removed to Germany by the next ambulance train. On this happy disposal of my patients I had greatly to congratulate myself; for just now pyaemia and hospital gangrene of the worst type, showed themselves in the church; and we knew from our experiences at Sedan and the railway station how sure they were to be attended by terrible results, where such a number of wounded were kept together.

And so it proved now. In a few days, blood-poisoning made great havoc among the men, and its victims lay piled one above another in the dead-house,--truly a sorry sight for those who had spent so much care on them! We determined at once to evacuate the church; for even the convalescent were not safe from this dread malady, which some of the savants in our profession tell us is preventable; such, however, is not my experience. Disinfectants and carbolic-acid dressings were used unsparingly. Fresh air, as I have said, is of paramount importance in the management of this disease; and it must come to the patient in a continuous current,--moreover, to be effective, it must be dry air, while about the patient it requires to be warm, or at least the patient himself must be warm, and at no time suffer a chill. Every day the members of our staff eagerly sought new quarters for their wounded in the private houses of the town, which was now not a difficult task, the garrison not being very large, for Orleans had ceased to be that theatre of war which heretofore it had been.

As time rolled on, and fresh arrivals did not come in, we had more leisure. And well for me that it happened so! I had begun to find the work tell upon my health, and now a little relaxation was as necessary as it was agreeable.

During all this time no startling event happened, save an attempt that was made by some demented person at Orleans to a.s.sa.s.sinate a Prussian soldier. For this offence a fine of 600,000 francs was levied on the town; and to show the amount of trade which was carried on by the French with the invaders, out of this sum imposed, 400,000 francs were paid down in Prussian money. The fine was demanded on the 16th, and paid up fully on the 23rd of December.

Now, as I was daily beginning to feel more and more exhausted, and feared my health was becoming undermined, I determined to seek leave of absence for a few weeks. Dr. Tilghman, who was again _loc.u.m tenens_ during Dr. Pratt's absence on business for ten days, knew how much I wanted a change, and did not hesitate to give me leave, under condition that I would report myself again before that day month. A matter of urgent private business obliged Dr. Sherwell to start for Hamburg on the next day, and I resolved to get ready that evening, 7th Jan., 1871.

I went with Dr. Fritz to the Commandant of the place and the Head Military Surgeon, from whom I obtained sick pa.s.ses all through France and Germany, and Railway and Hotel billets free. The Northern parts were still in the hands of the French, so that I had no chance of getting home in that direction. I handed over my cases to the care of Dr.

Parker, who, with his usual good nature, promised to give them his best attention in my absence. I made as little as possible of my departure to them, merely saying that I should be back at the end of some days.

At six o'clock next morning Dr. Sherwell and I were at the Railway Station, where we found that a train full of wounded was to be put under our charge as far as Corbeil. Our way of getting on was a novel one, for we were to be drawn by horses the whole distance. After much confusion and waiting we started. The entire train was composed of goods trucks, in which the wounded were laid on straw, using their rugs to cover them.

There were many officers among them who took pot luck with the men, for there was no special accommodation. Every three trucks were drawn by four horses, and thus it was that we took the train to Corbeil,--a distance of some fifty miles.

The morning was bitterly cold, and a dense fog hung about, which made it hard for us to keep ourselves warm; but matters mended when we came to Artenay, where hot soup and bread were awaiting us.

In one of the trucks sat Martin Dilger and one or two other of my patients, all in high spirits at the thought of getting back to the Fatherland, though minus a limb each. In another carriage we had a company of soldiers as an escort to the cavalcade, and these made themselves useful when required.

Thus we went along at a snail's pace; but Sherwell and I got out now and then, and ran ahead of the train to warm ourselves, for the weather did not mend, and many of our charges suffered severely from it. During the journey I fell into conversation with the sergeant of our guard, a mere lad, like so many others, and a volunteer. He spoke English well, with hardly any accent, and had lived and studied in London during the past two years, hence his knowledge of the language. He had been at Gravelotte, of which tremendous affair he gave me a most interesting account.

He was a gentle youth, with a soft musical voice, and plainly of position, as well as education. He said that he had been recommended for the Iron Cross. Here was the third volunteer I had met under the age of twenty, and all three were of good social standing.

There was one old wounded colonel who had a large flask bottle of chartreuse, with which he repeatedly plied Sherwell and me during the journey. I think we neither of us disliked it just then. The next stop we made was at etampes, where we remained half an hour to have some hot coffee served out. At dusk we had got as far as Juviose, where we changed lines, and in due time arrived at Corbeil about 8 P.M. Our convoy excited notice and wonder among the country people in the districts which we pa.s.sed, and in many places they came out in crowds to see us go along. When we arrived at Corbeil, we called on the Etappen-commandant, got our pa.s.ses checked, and went to the major for our billet and rations,--in other words, our requisition for board and lodging, which he gave us on a very snug well-furnished little house in a central part of the town. Having dined off a piece of coa.r.s.e beef and some bread and beer, we strolled out for a short time. Next morning we were up betimes, and went out to see the town, which is a quaint old place. We stood on the ruins of the bridge, which we had crossed over on piles and planks, in the parts where it had been damaged by the French explosion. It formed a pretty sight when seen at a little distance.

What struck me most about the place was that all the trade of the town seemed to be in the hands of German sutlers, princ.i.p.ally Jews, who had followed in the footsteps of the army. Few of the inhabitants kept establishments open for the sale of merchandise. In one of these shops where we turned in to buy some trifles, we met a friendly German civilian, who told us that our best route eastwards was by Lagny, beyond Paris,--a station some forty miles from Corbeil--which was in direct railway communication with the Rhine. He added that a convoy of provision was to leave at noon for that place, and advised us to secure a seat in one of the waggons. Accordingly, we found out the conductor, promised him a couple of thalers for the lift, and secured places in one of the least uncomfortable of these vans. It was, by the way, of very simple construction. The body, made of osier-work and tapering to a point, rested on a heavy beam which ran lengthwise, and which rested, in turn, on the pair of axles, the upper part being supported by stays which went from the main ribs of the boxes of the wheels; in short, the whole resembled a boat resting on a piece of timber, which again found support on the axles. Then there were twists of osiers overhead, covered with canvas which made the thing like a gipsy's tent.

In this queer turn-out we started from Corbeil, drawn by two Dutch ponies; but, though our horses were fresh and spirited, our progress was very slow, the ground being as slippery as ice. Just before nightfall it began to snow hard, and when we came to the hamlet of Brie, our conductor would go no further. The roughing on his horses' shoes was worn, and it would be too dangerous for us to travel at night on such unendurable roads.

We got down, therefore, rather unwillingly, with our traps in our hands; and going about in quest of lodgings for the night, as fortune would have it, we espied at the further end of the village a line of waggons similar to that which we had just left. Upon hailing the conductor, we found that they also were for Lagny, and starting at once; so that again we took our seats, this time in a waggon load of hay, which helped to keep us warm, or, at all events, prevented us from being thoroughly frozen. It was snowing fast, and by now was quite dark. We thought the cold fearful. As we went along the horses seemed to take it in turns to fall; but sometimes our ponies would be down together; happily, they were not enc.u.mbered with harness, and soon righted themselves. Yet, once or twice it took the united ingenuity of us all to extricate them from the rope-traces, in which their legs had become entangled.

We had a lantern hung out over the front of our waggon, by the dim light of which we were barely able to see the road before us. In time, to our great relief, the snow-storm, which had lasted for hours, cleared up. We had been afraid that our steeds would either miss the road, or tumble us into a ditch. At one place I got out, and trudged through the snow for a couple of miles. There was a part of this road turning round the crest of a hill, from which we could see the flashes from the forts round Paris, and hear the booming of the cannon distinctly. Several times I saw the little thin streak of sparks rising into the sky, which the fuse of the bombsh.e.l.ls threw out on their journey, while sudden flashes in the air, followed by a loud report, signified that a sh.e.l.l had prematurely burst.

It was a splendid sight, and resolving to get the best view possible, I climbed into an apple tree by the way side, where, kneeling on a huge bunch of mistletoe, I could see every few minutes a shot directed from the forts and one in reply, each leaving its comet-like train of fire behind it. Though the besiegers and the besieged were many miles distant, I could hardly realise that they were not close at hand. So little, at the time, did I comprehend the magnitude of the siege guns, and the remoteness at which they could be heard. Much as I should have liked to linger on the scene, I could not tarry; I had to come down from my apple tree, and trot along until I had rejoined my waggon. Such was my second glimpse, and that at night, of the siege of Paris. My first, if the reader has not forgotten it, showed me the a.s.sault which ended in the burning of St. Cloud.

CHAPTER XXVII.

TRAVELLING IN FROST.--AMMUNITION TRAIN IN DIFFICULTIES.--FERRIeRES.--THE CAMP OF CHaLONS.--HOW GERMAN OFFICERS TREAT JEWS.

The snow-storm had given over, but it was freezing hard, and the road was now almost impa.s.sable. Our horses were constantly falling, and we were getting on very slowly indeed. At last we came to the hamlet of Chivry,--it does not deserve the name of a village. We could see no inn; it was stark midnight; and, except a lonely candle in one small cottage, there was not a light in the place. At the cottage, therefore, we knocked. A regular parley ensued; and after much explanation and fair promises, the door was opened by an old woman, who admitted us into a warm room, as clean and neat as any room could be, though everything testified that the owners were in humble circ.u.mstances. The only other inmate of the house, an old man, was in bed. All we asked was a cup of coffee, and a mattress to lie upon, both of which our hostess readily provided. As to eatables, we had brought a loaf of bread with us, which we finished without delay, then took a pull at our flasks, and so made a meal which for my part I relished as much as any I had ever eaten.

Next, divesting ourselves of our outer clothing, we threw ourselves on our mattresses, and slept a deep and refres.h.i.+ng sleep until seven next morning, when we made the acquaintance of a well in the yard, at which we performed our ablutions, after the manner of professional tramps.

This done, we notified to the old lady that we were still hungry, and asked her to get us some bread and meat. She replied civilly that she had neither the one nor the other;--an unpleasant piece of news, for we were famished. I enlarged to her on our inward sufferings, and at the same time slipped four francs into her hand, bidding her get as good a meal as she could, and as soon as possible.

This douceur had its effect. Madame, or "la bourgeoise," as country-folks say, disappeared, only to return with a loaf of fresh bread, though a few minutes before I had been a.s.sured by a peasant that none was to be had for love or money. The truth was, that we were taken for Prussians, and treated accordingly. After a while, the dame announced that breakfast was ready, mentioning that she had a pot of stewed rabbit for us, which we set about demolis.h.i.+ng with the loaf of new bread. As we sat devouring, neither of us spoke; but morsel after morsel of the rabbit disappeared, and we eyed one another significantly, for the same horrid suspicion was pa.s.sing through our minds, that this white, insipid stuff was not rabbit at all, though what it might be we could not guess. Our natural history declared it to be cat, but we could not tell, nor did we much care. However, I inquired afterwards whether rabbits existed in the neighbourhood, and was a.s.sured that never a one dwelt within ten miles of it.

Just as we were wis.h.i.+ng ourselves at Lagny, who should pa.s.s through with his waggon, but the driver of the convoy with whom we had started from Corbeil? An accident to his waggon had delayed him on the road, which was a great piece of luck for us; and we thanked our hostess at once for her equivocal, but nouris.h.i.+ng breakfast, put our traps in the buggy, and drove off. It was the 10th of January. We found it still very difficult to travel, but lest our driver should pull up as he did before, we plied him with brandy and liqueur out of a stone jar, that I had bought at Orleans. In consequence, he was in the best of humour all through the journey, and not in the least disconcerted when the horses fell or stumbled about.

Some miles of our route lay through the Forest of Champigny; but here the road was impa.s.sable, for it had thawed during the small hours and frozen again, making the causeway one solid sheet of ice. Wherever we could we travelled along the edges; but it was dreadfully slow work, and the horses themselves, poor beasts, were afraid. While we were loitering at this funeral pace, I witnessed a sight that I never shall forget. We fell in with an ammunition train, about half a mile in length, conveying war material of all kinds to the positions before Paris. Our own waggon we had to draw in among the trees for safety, as the horses were falling every minute; and now when we looked along the line, we could see as many as ten horses on the ground at once. Sometimes two of the animals would slip down side by side, and fall again and again whenever they attempted to pull on their traces. Nay, more, I saw a team of four horses all come down simultaneously, not once, but twice. No description, indeed, could exaggerate the confusion of the scene,--drivers shouting, waggons slipping, and horses falling in all directions; while the more their guides interfered the more they fell, until the poor brutes became so terrified, that they trembled all over from fright.

The ground was amazingly hard. In one place I saw a heavy ammunition waggon drawn by four horses, when coming down a slight incline, slip five or six yards along the road, and then glide off into the ditch, without a single wheel having turned on its axle. As it was now evident that they could not proceed through the Forest without inflicting grave and perhaps fatal injuries on their cattle, the men began to pick out the middle of the road where the horses trod, and strewed along it coal dust, which they carried with them on purpose. This made the road sufficiently pa.s.sable to allow of the train to advance. But, meanwhile, it was about two hours before we of the convoy could move, though when we did we rattled on at a spanking pace. From time to time we met numbers of newly organised cavalry,--with droves of horses led by halters; and of these steeds I was ready to lay any odds that some were Irish bred. Men and horses were on their way to the front to replace the maimed, killed, and wounded, and to contribute themselves to a similar contingent.

Early in the afternoon we came to Ferrieres, where having dined, so to call it, we paid a visit to the splendid chateau of M. de Rothschild.

Unheeded and unhindered, we roamed through this lovely demesne, marvelling at the beauty of house and grounds which, as all the world knows, would not disgrace the abode of royalty. The mansion of cut stone, the terraces with their marble statues, the flower-gardens, shrubberies, stables,--these last, a wonder in themselves,--all were in perfect preservation. Not a stick or a stone in the whole place had been touched by the Prussians, nor did a soldier set foot in it. Such was the good pleasure of William I. who had taken up his quarters here, such the reverence paid to the kings of finance by the House of Hohenzollern!

We started again on our journey, but had proceeded only half a mile, when we fell in with a train of siege guns, some of them drawn by six horses. They were on the road to Paris, and would do service there. I remarked that some of the smaller guns were of bra.s.s, and shone in the sun like gold.

The country we pa.s.sed through was charmingly wooded, and looked pretty enough in its garment of snow. It was night when we arrived at Lagny. On demanding our billet, we were directed to the sick officers' quarters, in the upper portion of the station house, where we should find plenty of room. There we came upon two of our friends who had been quartered at Orleans. They, also, were on their way out of France, and we engaged to make a party of it. At four o'clock next morning a couple of soldiers called us, and at five we started. There were several officers in the carriage, from whom Sherwell and I received every civility. Pa.s.sing Meaux we arrived at epernay, and later on traversed the great camp at Chalons, which now presented a vast and beaten plain of enormous extent.

By way of Vitry and Chaumont we came on to Toul and Nancy, of the fortifications round both of which we got an excellent view, in particular at Nancy, where we halted for some time, and were able to look about us.

None of these places, however, was of so much interest to me as the little town of Luneville. I knew nothing of the famous treaty concluded there by the First Consul, and had never heard of the Court of King Stanislaus, or of Voltaire and Madame la Marquise du Chatelet, in connection with it; I simply admired the view. Luneville is situated on a hill, with some of its fortifications overlooking a steep precipice which serves as a natural protection for perhaps a third of its extent.

From the railway which runs along the flat country, below the town, it appeared to be an impregnable stronghold; for where nature's protecting barriers were wanting, there were huge embankments, deep fosses, and steep artificial declivities. A picturesque place too. The face of the cliff and the old turreted walls were covered with ivy, a broad stream ran beneath the hill, which on the lowest slope was well wooded all round,--and now imagine all this clad in new-fallen snow, and you will have as lovely a scene as I remember.

Close to the town we pa.s.sed a bridge which had been blown up, but was now reconstructed on timber piles. It had been destroyed, not by the regular army, but by a band of Francs-Tireurs. This I learned from one of the officers who knew all about the place.

I had seen Ferrieres, the palace of a Frankfort Jew, with admiration, all the more that it had been respected as a sanctuary by orders from the Prussians. Yet it was during this same journey that I witnessed an incident in which a Jew was the hero or the victim, that filled me with astonishment, as it may do my readers who happen not to be acquainted with the ways of the Fatherland. I had frequently heard the Jews spoken of by my German friends in language of supreme contempt; but never did I realise the depth of that feeling until now.

In the railway compartment in which I travelled, all were German officers except myself and one civilian. The latter had got in at a wayside station, and sat at the furthest corner opposite me. My companions began without delay to banter and tease him unmercifully, all the while addressing him as Lemann. He was a small stunted person, in make and features an Israelite, and not more than twenty-five. The behaviour of his fellow-travellers seemed to give him no concern; as they fired off at him their sneering jests, he scanned them with his sharp eyes, but did not move a muscle.

I inquired of the officer next me, who spoke English well, how it came to pa.s.s that they knew this stranger's name. He explained that Lemann was the common term for a Jew in their language, going on to describe how much the sons of Jacob were detested throughout Germany; and for his part he thought they were a vile horde, who laid hands on everything they could seize, in a way which we English were incapable of fancying.

The officers, he added, were all getting down to have some beer at the next station, and by way of ill.u.s.tration he would show me what manner of men these Jews were; and as he said the words, he took off his hairy fur-lined gloves, and threw them across the carriage to our man in the corner, remarking, "There, Lemann! it is a cold day". The Jew picked up the gloves eagerly, which he had missed on the catch, and pulled them on. When we were nearing the station, the officer who had thrown the gloves at him, took off his fur rug, and flung that also to the Jew.

Once more he accepted the insulting present, and quickly rolled the rug about him. Finally, a third threw off his military cloak, and slung it on the Jew's back as he was pa.s.sing out. This, again, the wretched creature put on; and their absence at the buffet left him for the next ten minutes in peace.

Presently the horn sounded, and our Germans came back. One seized his rug, another his cloak, and finally, my first acquaintance recovered his gloves by one unceremonious tug from Lemann's meekly outstretched fingers. My own face, I think, must have flushed with indignation; but the others only laughed at my superfluous display of feeling; and Lemann, shrugging his shoulders,--but only because of the sudden change of temperature when his wraps were pulled away,--took out of his pocket a little book with red print, which he began to read backwards, and, turning up the sleeve of his coat, began to unwind a long cord which was coiled round his wrist and forearm as far as the elbow. Every now and then he would stop the unwinding, and pray with a fervour quite remarkable, then unwind his cord again, and so on till the whole was undone. For a time the officers resumed their jeering; but, seeing that it was like so much water on a stone, they turned the conversation, and allowed the unhappy Jew to continue his devotions unmolested till he got out at Strasburg.

What would these officers have done, had they travelled in the same railway carriage with M. de Rothschild?

CHAPTER XXVIII.

STRASBURG AFTER THE SIEGE.--ALONG THE RHINE.--HOME, AND BACK AGAIN TO VERSAILLES.--CAPTAIN BRACKENBURY.--I LOSE MY PAPERS AND HAVE TO GET FRESH ONES.

At half-past nine we arrived at Strasburg, and were all billeted together in the most central part of the town, at a grand hotel, where we had the best of living and accommodation. There were about thirty officers quartered there, with whom we messed. I strolled out in the evening through some of the busiest streets. They were brilliantly lighted up; the shops were open, and as much bustle and business seemed to be going on, as if we were in the heart of a peaceable country, and no siege of Strasburg had just taken place.

However, before long I learned that a large section of the inhabitants looked upon the Germans with anything but friendly feelings.