General Bramble Part 11

"Unhealthy spot that," said the general.

"So unhealthy, sir, that while I was there a whizz-bang hit my dug-out and blew my sergeant into small pieces, which remained hanging on the branches of the trees. It was a pity, for he was the best forward in the brigade football team. I put all I could find of him into a cloth, announced the burial for the next day, and then, as it was my turn to be relieved, I went back to the ambulance headquarters.

"My return was distinctly lively. On leaving the splendid trench which is called Zillebeke Road, I was silly enough to cross the exposed ground near the railway embankment. A machine gun thought it rather amusing to have a pot at me from Hill 60----"

"All right, doctor," said General Bramble, "spare us the details."

"Well, just as I left Ypres, I came across a Ford car which took me back to camp. In the mess I found Church of England and Church of Scotland arguing away as usual, while Roman Church was reading his breviary in a corner.

"'Satan, whence comest thou?' one of them asked me.

"'Well, gentlemen,' I replied, 'you ought to be glad to see me, because I really am back from h.e.l.l this time.'

"And I told them my adventures, putting in a lot of local colour about cannonades, explosions, whistling bullets and hailstorm barrages, in a style worthy of our best war correspondents."

"You old humbug!" grunted the colonel.

"'By the way,' I concluded, 'I've got a job for one of you!

Freshwater, my sergeant, has been blown to bits, and what I could collect of him is to be buried to-morrow morning. I'll give you the route--Messines gate, Zillebeke----'

"I saw the two padres' faces fall swiftly.

"'What religion?' they both asked simultaneously.

"'Baptist,' I replied carelessly. 'Have a cigarette, padre?'

"The two enemies gazed attentively at the ceiling; Roman Church kept his nose in his breviary and his ears well p.r.i.c.ked up.

"'Well,' said Church of England at length, 'I wouldn't mind going up to Zillebeke. I've been in worse places to bury a man of my own Church. But for a Baptist it strikes me, O'Grady----'

"'Excuse me,' interrupted Church of Scotland. 'Baptism is the most conservative form of British Christianity, and the Anglican Church itself boasts----'

"'I dare say, I dare say,' said the other, 'but is not the Baptist Church a democratic one, like the Presbyterian?'

"They might have gone on in this strain till the poor beggar was in his grave, had not Roman Church suddenly interrupted in a mild voice, without taking his nose out of his little book:

"'I'll go, if you like.'

"Hatred of Popery is the beginning of union, and they both went up the line together."

CHAPTER XIII

THE CURE

"Le _Schein_ et le _Wesen_ sont, pour l'esprit allemand, une seule et meme chose."--Jacques Riviere.

"The only decent whisky," said the doctor, "is Irish whisky."

Whereupon he helped himself to a generous allowance of Scotch whisky, and as they had just been talking about Ludendorff's coming offensive, he began to discourse upon the Germans.

"One of the most astounding things about German psychology," he said, "is their pa.s.sion for suggesting the appearance of results which they know they are powerless to attain. A German general who is not in a position to undertake a real offensive deludes himself into believing that he will strike terror into his opponent by describing an absurd and appalling attack in his reports; and a Solingen cutler, if he cannot manufacture really sharp blades at the required price, will endeavour to invoke a sort of metaphysical blade which can give its owner the illusion of a useful instrument.

"When once this trait of the national character is properly understood, all the German shoddy which is so much talked about seems no longer the swindling practice of dishonest tradesmen, but is simply the material expression of their ingrained Kantianism, and their congenital inability to distinguish Appearance from Reality.

"At the sanatorium at Wiesdorf, where I was working when the war broke out, this method was practised with quite unusual rigour.

"Doctor Professor Baron von Goteburg was a second-rate scientist, and he knew it. He had made a lifelong study of the expression, clothes and manners which would most successfully impress his clients with the idea that he was the great physician he knew he could never be.

"After innumerable careful experiments, which do him the greatest credit, he had decided on a pointed beard, a military expression, a frock coat and a baron's t.i.tle.

"Everything in his admirable establishment bore the impress of the kind of scientific precision which is the most striking hall-mark of ignorance. The Wiesdorf sanatorium extracted from the human carcase the maximum amount of formulae, scientific jargon and professional fees which it could possibly yield. The patients felt themselves surrounded by a pleasant and luxurious apparatus of diagnoses, figures and diagrams.

"Each patient had a suite of rooms furnished, in spite of a rather obvious Munich atmosphere, with a sense of real comfort and order.

Each floor was under the supervision of a doctor, a lean, athletic Swedish _ma.s.seur_ and a qualified nurse in a white ap.r.o.n. The nurses were nearly all daughters of the n.o.bility, whose happiness had been sacrificed to the extravagance of their brothers, who were generally captains in the Guards. The one attached to the floor I was in charge of was a French Alsatian with an innocent, obstinate face, whom the Germans called 'Schwester Therese,' and who asked me to call her 'Soeur Therese.'

"The place was only opened in the spring of 1914, and from the very first season its success had testified to the excellence of the system. Photographs were published in all the fas.h.i.+onable papers, and wealthy clients rushed in with alarming and automatic rapidity.

"On my floor I had an old American, one James P. Griffith, an English lady, the d.u.c.h.ess of Broadfield, and a Russian, Princess Uria.s.sof.

None of these three patients displayed symptoms of any illness whatsoever; they just complained of depression--nothing could amuse them--and of an appet.i.te which no dish could tempt. When the American arrived, I considered it my duty to inform the professor of the excellent health in which I found him.

"'O'Grady,' he said, staring hard at me with his brilliant, commanding eyes, 'kindly give yourself less trouble. Your patient is suffering from congestion of the purse, and I think we shall be able to give him some relief.'

"The d.u.c.h.ess of Broadfield longed to put on flesh, and wept all day long. 'Madam,' Sister Therese said to her, 'if you want to get stouter, you ought to try and enjoy yourself.' That caused a nice scene! I was obliged to explain to the nurse that the d.u.c.h.ess was on no account to be spoken to before eleven in the morning, and that it was improper to address her without calling her 'Your Grace!'

"As to Princess Uria.s.sof, she had been preceded by a courier, who had burst into indignant exclamations at the sight of the Munich furniture and had demanded genuine antiques. The professor smiled, and summoned a furniture dealer and his cas.h.i.+er. Followed the princess with twenty-three boxes and six servants. She was enormously stout, cried the whole day long, and yearned to reduce her figure.

"When the lift that was to take her down to the bathroom was not in front of her door at the very second when she left her room, she used to stamp her foot in anger, pull her maid's hair and shout:

"'What? _I_ have to wait; _I_, Princess Uria.s.sof?'

"That was the kind of patient we had. Only once there came to my floor a young fellow from the Argentine who really had something wrong with his liver. I said to him, 'You are not well; you would do better to go and see a doctor.'

"Towards the 24th of July the newspapers seemed to cause the n.o.ble clients of Wiesdorf sanatorium considerable anxiety. The note to Servia, the letters they received from their homes, the clatter of arms which was beginning to be heard throughout Europe, all began to point to a vague danger which could not, of course, affect their sacred persons, but might possibly hinder them from peacefully cultivating the sufferings which were so dear to them.

"The d.u.c.h.ess of Broadfield telegraphed to her nephew at the Foreign Office and got no answer. Princess Uria.s.sof began to hold mysterious confabulations with her courier.

"The German doctors soon restored every one's confidence; '_Unser Friedens-Kaiser_ ... our peace-loving Emperor ... he is cruising on his yacht ... he has not the slightest thought of war.'

"The barometers of refreshment vendors are always at 'set-fair,' and Professor von Goteburg temporized with such authority and diplomacy that he managed to keep his international _clientele_ for another six days.

"However, the peace-loving Emperor returned only to send threatening telegrams, and on the 27th the danger became evident even to our guests' bird-like intellects.

"Princess Uria.s.sof announced her departure, and sent her courier to the bank to cash an enormous cheque. He came back with the message that the bank no longer cashed foreign cheques; whereupon he disappeared, and was never heard of again. The Princess was beside herself with rage, and cried that she would have him knouted. She summoned her German valet, but he was busy buckling on his _Feldwebel_ uniform. She ordered her French chauffeur to be ready to start instantly; I went down to the garage with the message myself so as to get away from her, and discovered that the fellow was a reservist from Saint-Mihiel, and had left with Her Highness' car to join his regiment.

"That morning for the first time, the d.u.c.h.ess and the Princess condescended to notice the presence of James P. He had a magnificent 100 H.P. American car, and represented their only hope of getting across the frontier. But James P. had no more petrol, and the Germans refused to supply him with any, because his car had already been earmarked for General von Schmack's Staff.