CONVALESCENTS—SOME PORTRAITS,
BETWEEN October and February we had more than fifty convalescent Belgian soldiers in the Hill House Convalescent Home. By profession they ranged from Univer- sity students to casual labourers, but with only one of the whole fifty patients did we ever have any serious trouble, and he was not properly a Belgian at all.
Camille Bogle was a Congolese cannibal. He was tall, perfectly black, quiet of step, and as active as a panther. Sometimes he seemed to be a smiling, good-natured creature enough—white teeth gleaming and bright eyes dancing. But the next moment, apparently for no reason at all, hie whole body would shake with passion, his wide nostrils quivering with the force of his deep-drawn breath, and his narrow, flat-fingered hands twitching and clenching in a passion of rage. "Alt, Mademoiselle, it est michant celui-la ! " He was a professing cannibaL His two top incisor teeth were drawn. He would reiterate in his barbarous French: "Dans mon pays, pas de prisonniers" (draw- ing his hand across his throat); "Coupe I Mane 1 " He had
one or two habits which I and the other nurses found disconcert. ing. He liked to watch whatever we might be doing, and he moved perfectly silently. Consequently we—believing him at the other end of the ward—would be busy with something, and suddenly looking up would find him standing close behind looking over our shoulders. Also I used to take temperatures all round every evening. He never would take the ther- mometer in his hand, but used to open a pink month into which I was obliged to pat it. His room-mates told us that he kept along knife always about him, concealed in his bed at night and on his person in the day. They petitioned that he might sleep in a room alone. He belonged to a small Congolese contingent, originally of about three hundred men, but even then (October) not numbering more than fifty. They neither gave nor asked quarter, and would take no cover. "Dans mon pays," he used to repeat, "we crack an enemy's skull, take out the brain, and stew it. Jaime guerre. Veux returner, Mitre contre lee Allemands." When he was angry his French left him. "Afore it ne parts qua COG- 'vials." This added to the difficulty of dealing with him, as it need to be impossible to explain things to him. The final scene which led to his removal was largely caused by this difficulty.
While he was downstairs I had taken some of his clothes to send to the wash. He came back, missed them, thought that they had been stolen, and went into a kind of blind rage. In vain I and a little sergeant—a patient—tried to explain that be could not keep dirty clothes in the ward. He was trembling, walking about bent double like a wrestler watching for a hold, breathing like a blown horse, and could or would understand nothing. He began to threaten, came close to us each in turn clenching and shaking his fists, talking in his own tongue, and always manoeuvring to keep between us and the door. At last, after a good deal of this sort of thing, I ignominiously went and fetched him back his dirty clothes. That night the little sergeant's temperature went up to 101, and the next day, by order of the Commandant, Camille Bogle left under escort, to the great relief of his fellow-patients. "Il avail joliment snauvais earactere Another patient who came in the same consignment of wounded as the negro was No. 12. Our great regret was that he spoke hardly any French. He was very fat, middle-aged, and placid, his face perfectly round, and his whole form almost spherical. A farthing and a penny and two matches could be arranged to form an excellent representation of his silhouette. We discovered that he was a reservist, and a market gardener by trade. He was a most industrious creature, and could be made perfectly happy by being given little jobs to do in the garden. He haltingly explained that before the war he had had two big greenhouses; then, shaking his head sadly, "2daintenant tout mad, Mant'selle." Like the sad majority of our patients, be had entirely lost sight of his wife and children. He knew that the Germans occupied hie native village ; he hoped that his wife might have been able to take the children over the border into Holland. He could send them no money, and did not know how much they might have been able to save out of the ruins of their once prosperous little business.
He and poor Leon B— (who was trying to find out his sweetheart) used to be indefatigable in writing to every possible Consul in Holland, and to the Mayors of frontier villages who might conceivably give them information. They were forced for want of better to follow the most elusive clues. The letters had to be most carefully written in case they should fall into the hands of the Germane. As B— explained, if the Germans knew a woman to be the wife of a soldier, her position became worse than ever. They used to spend hours in writing, the tears running down their cheeks. There were most ingenious ways of getting letters or messages through into villages which were in the hands of the enemy, but as these methods are, no doubt, still in use the less said about them the better.
Alas ! Lion B— never could trace his sweetheart, though be believed that she had probably got over the Dutch frontier, but one day No. 12 had the great happiness of hearing from Lie wife. I shall never forget the change that came over his round, placid face and his patient eyes when he opened hie letter. "Mam'selle ! Mam'selle ! c'est use femme !" But an even greater happiness awaited him.—" Whiles like a doe I go to find my fawn."—A week later she found her way to him. How she got here Heaven knows, for the Home is in a country house far from any village. Come she did, however, from Holland, speaking not a word of either French or English and knowing nothing but the postal address. She was a comely, plump, black-eyed woman. They used to walk about the garden hand in band, rather silent. She could only stay a few days, as she had left the children in Holland.
The convalescent home was a curious little community. Life in it was rarely tedious. I think that the characteristic of the Belgian soldier which made the most for movement and variety was his love of rows. Disputes with the authorities were entered into absolutely without ill-feeling and from a pure sense of the dramatic. "Art for art's sake." The Belgian went into battle with a light heart and all imaginable blowing of trumpets. . . .
"Miss Harris, No. 2 says that he won't go to bed. Could you come and speak to him ?" I went, "Mademoiselle, this bed is so hard that 1 could not possibly close my eyes upon it; I who but three weeks ago underwent an operation. Could you not give me a softer one ?" I considered; the bed was certainly hard. " Very well, No. 2, to-morrow it shall be changed." "Does Mademoiselle mean that I must sleep upon it to-night P The agony I should suffer ! No, if you will not change it to-night,'I prefer to remain all night in this chair." He pulled his dressing-grown about him as one prepared for a. vigil. "No, that you cannot do, I am afraid; you would certainly catch a chill. Be sensible and go to bed. See, it is far less hard than the chair." He folded his arms resolutely. "Impossible, Mademoiselle. Yes. I shall catch a chill, and in my state it will kill me. Then you will be rid of me. But remember, Mademoiselle, that to your account there will be laid a widow and two helpless orphans." Yet the end of the matter was that he went to bed quietly enough—merely pro. testing by drawing the clothes completely over his head—and there slept so soundly that his snores wakened his room-mates (as they informed me next morning with some slyness). He bore me no grudge even for the unlucky circumstance of his sleeping eo well, and we remained excellent friends till the day
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