From Triancourt we went straight to the Headquarters of General Nivelle. They had just brought him the maps rectified to mark the French advance. The advance had been made whilst we were standing on the terrace at Verdun the night before. We had seen the rockets sent up, requesting a “tir de barrage” (curtain of fire). The 75’s had replied at once and the French had been able to carry out the operation.

Good news had also come in from the Somme, and General Nivelle did not hesitate to express his admiration for the British soldiers.

He said that there was no need to praise the first troops sent by Britain to France, every one knew their value, but it should be a great satisfaction to Britain to find that the new army was living up to the traditions of the old army.

He added: “We can describe the new Army of Britain in two words: Ca mord it bites.”

The Father of his own men, it is not surprising that General Nivelle finds a warm corner in his heart for the British Tommy, since his Mother was an Englishwoman.

At lunch General Nivelle and the members of his staff asked many questions as to the work of the Scottish Women’s Hospitals. I told them that what appealed to us most in our French patients was the perfect discipline and the gratitude of the men. We are all women in the Hospitals, and the men might take advantage of this fact to show want of discipline, but we never had to complain of lack of obedience. These soldiers of France may some of them before the war have been just rough peasants, eating, drinking, and sleeping; even having thoughts not akin to knighthood, but now, through the ordeal of blood and fire, each one of them has won his spurs and come out a chivalrous knight, and they bring their chivalry right into the hospitals with them. We had also learned to love them for their kindness to one another. When new wounded are brought in and the lights are low in the hospital wards, cautiously watching if the Nurse is looking (luckily Nurses have a way of not seeing everything), one of the convalescents will creep from his bed to the side of the new arrival and ask the inevitable question: “D’ou viens-tu?” (Where do you come from?) “I come from Toulouse,” replies the man. “Ah,” says the enquirer, “my wife’s Grandmother had a cousin who lived near Toulouse.” That is quite a sufficient basis for a friendship. The convalescent sits by the bedside of his new comrade, holding the man’s hand, whilst his wounds are being dressed, telling him he knows of the pain, that he, too, has suffered, and that soon all will be well.

Lions to fight, ever ready to answer to the call of the defence of their country, yet these men of France are tender and gentle. In one hospital through which I passed there was a baby. It was a military hospital, and no civilian had any right there, but the medical officers who inspected the hospital were remarkably blind none of them could ever see the baby. One of the soldiers passing through a bombarded village saw a little body lying in the mud, and although he believed the child to be dead he stooped down and picked it up. At the evacuating station the baby and the soldier were sent to the hospital together; the doctors operated upon the baby and took a piece of shrapnel from its back, and, once well and strong, it constituted itself lord and master and king of all it surveyed. When it woke in the morning it would call “Papa” and twenty fathers answered to its call. All the pent-up love of the men for their own little ones from whom they had been parted for so long they lavished on the tiny stranger, but all his affection and his whole heart belonged to the rough miner soldier who had brought him in. As the shadows fell one saw the man walking up and down the ward with the child in his arms, crooning the “Marseillaise” until the tired little eyes closed. He had obtained permission from the authorities to adopt the child as the parents could not be found, and remarked humorously: “Mademoiselle, it is so convenient to have a family without the trouble of being married!”

What we must remember is that the rough soldier, himself blinded with blood and mud, uncertain whether he could ever reach a point of safety, yet had time to stoop and pick that little flower of France and save it from being crushed beneath the cannon wheels. I told General Nivelle that the hospital staff intended to keep the child for the soldier until the end of the war, and we all hoped that he might grow up to the glory of France and to the eternal honour of the tender-hearted fighter who had rescued him.

After lunch we stood for some time watching the unending stream of camions proceeding into Verdun. I believe it has been stated that on the average one passed through the village every fifteen seconds, and that there are something like twelve thousand motor vehicles used in the defence of Verdun. The splendid condition of the roads and the absence of all confusion in the handling of this immense volume of traffic are a great tribute to the organising genius of the chiefs of the French Army.

We left General Nivelle as General Petain predicted we should find him smiling.