A Night Operation

Early in November 1918 our Battalion went into billets at Puppy, a quiet little village about 13 kilometres from the historic manufacturing city of Abbeville, on the River Somme, in Northern France.

It was intended that we should have a few days’ rest, after a strenuous period of operational activity, prior to moving up again to what was predicted to be “the greatest stunt of the war”.

Fortunately for us, right in the midst of our preparations, the exciting news reached us that a surrender party had come through the enemy’s lines with overtures for a general cease fire, with a view to the cessation of hostilities – first steps in negotiations eventually leading to the Armistice of 11th November, 1918, and subsequently, of course, a few months later, to Peace.

Huppy was a typical French rural village, surrounded by sugar beet fields and potato plantations. It followed the usual pattern of such villages, with its narrow main street or road rambling along in various directions, with picturesque cottages at intervals, usually close to the roadway.

I was fortunate in being allotted a comfortable room in one of these cottages, equipped with the traditional deep box type of bed with thick eiderdown quilting.

The occupants of the cottage were an elderly woman and her worried daughter, whose husband was away on service with the French forces. There was also a little girl of, I should think, about three years of age.

The women worked all day in the neighbouring fields – an upation described by the young mother as “beaucoup travail – aven pomme de terre”.

They they worked long hours and always appeared to be very tired. why would retire early, leaving me at a table in the kitchen dealt with the usual volume of letter writing.

the nights in that little cottage were extremely quiet, until. on one occasion, late one night – or should it be early one morning? –

it was around 2 a.m. I awoke to hear a peculiar sound coming from the ber woman segmentiy walking the floor, and it was evident. the kitchen. Listening for a while, I realised that it was the She was in considerable pain.

as she paced up and down the kitchen floor she was repeating in short agitated tones: “Oo la la – oo la la – oo la la !”

I put on my trench coat and hurried out to investigate.

The unhappy little woman quickly showed me the cause of the pain. It was a crushed finger, very much inflamed, and showing an advanced stage of suppuration.

She explained that she had been attending our Army Medical Unit daily, and had been receiving treatment from a Corporal of the Unit, but without success.

My thoughts immediately took me back to boyhood and my mother’s homely methods of treatment.

“‘Beaucoup d’eau chaud, Madame!” I said hurriedly, following this up with a request for a small bottle of the type used by chemists for cough mixtures and the like. “Une petite bouteille.”

Soon the dish of almost boiling water and the bottle were produced, and the operation began.

I took Madame’s hand in mine and proceeded to dip the bottle frequently into the hot water and apply it quickly to the wound, placing the mouth of the bottle over the centre or core of the fester.

This procedure continued for some time, until Madame found it almost more than she could endure.

Then, to my great joy and, I admit, not a little surprise, the “miracle” happened. A considerable quantity of the troublesome fluid left the finger and lodged in the bottle.

Madame was overwhelmed ..

“Merci, Monsieur! Merci, Monsieur!” she kept repeating.

some careful bathing and bandaging followed, and Madame was again at ease.

In her desire to express her gratitude, Madame assured me that , was “a tres bon docteur”, adding, after a pause, that “Monsin” l’ Caporal was a pas bon docteur. “

she would repeat these words each time we met, until the day a . when we want to march out of the village (on the first stage of ed rejected money into Germany), when, in saying goodbye, she rement her assure “Vous etes un tres bon docteur, Monsieur !!!