7 Clearing Hospital, where we were made
most welcome by the commanding officer and his staff. Colonel Wear
found billets for us in the town, and a splendid room for a laboratory
in the Hotel De Ville. This room, 22 x 36 feet, had been the banquet
hall and band room, and was well lighted by windows and gas. When
equipped as a laboratory it presented a most imposing appearance, and
from it we had a fine view of the village square, commonly called the
Grande Place. As everything going through the town had to pass by our
windows in order to cross the bridges over the canals, we could view a
continuous panorama of never-failing interest whenever we had the
leisure to look down upon it.
Captain Rankin found his billet at the top of a house on the opposite
side of the square from the laboratory; Captain Ellis found his in a
house in the corner of the square, and mine proved to be a little room
over a grocery shop on another corner of the square. My room was
reached by passing through the shop, up a very steep staircase, and
through a storeroom filled with boxes of soap, biscuits, bundles of
brooms, and other staples. The room itself was clean but without heat,
and I usually fell asleep after a couple of hours of shivering in the
depths of a damp, cold, feather mattress. Eleven crucifixes and two
glass cases of artificial flowers, together with portraits of the pope
and local cure, constituted the decorations of the room, and was
typical of the region, for this part of France was thoroughly
Catholic.
Pages:
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
72
73
74
75
76
77
78
79
80
81
82
83
84
85
86
87