It was a source of deep regret to me, during this campaign, that I was not better posted on military matters; for, had I been acquainted even with the rudiments of war tactics, the numerous and important military operations which were carried on immediately under my observation would have been intelligible to me without the aid of an expert, and that blank which now must be left in this slight record might have been filled up with many most interesting details. The few convalescents who had acted as our _infirmiers_ and attendants, and with whom we had been working the Hospital since the evening of the 8th,--at which time, as the reader will not have forgotten, all our regular nurses and _infirmiers_ were drawn away for active service--were now sent off to Pau as prisoners of war. This we thought unwise and intolerable; but it was done in spite of remonstrances on our part that such dealing was nothing less than a violation of the Geneva Convention. What did we get in their place? Simply a scratch company of French _infirmiers_, whom we had much difficulty in knocking into shape, and whom we found by no means so ready to submit to discipline as had been their German predecessors. One of the new arrivals was a little fellow named Jack, by birth a native of Flanders, but who had been all his life on board a ship in the British Merchant Service, and who had had the top of a finger shot off. He had joined the Foreign Legion, not, as he told us, from any liking for war or for France, but in order to be with an old companion who had joined that corps. He was quite a little dwarf, and unsuited to hospital work; but his superiors, deeming him, I daresay, no great ornament to his regiment, had handed him over to us as an _infirmier_. Besides his native language, he spoke English, French, and German fluently, and professed to be able to converse in Spanish and Italian. This might have been of service to us in an emergency; but the following anecdote will show what a treasure we had got in our Fleming. One night Dr. Mackellar and I were on duty with Jack when a case of extensive contusion (with compound fracture of the leg) began to bleed; and Mackellar came to the conclusion that immediate amputation was the only course possible. We therefore set about removing the limb. Dr. Mackellar operated, and I assisted and gave chloroform, while Jack was to hand the sponges, carbolised water and other requisites. In the middle of the operation, our good dwarf, getting nervous at a sight to which he was so little accustomed, lost his self-control and while endeavouring to effect a retreat, fell on his head to the ground in a swoon. I am afraid we both laughed at the prostrate brave, who was a regular lion in his own opinion. Left to ourselves to do the work, we had some difficulty in finishing the operation satisfactorily. But that was the last occasion on which Jack figured as an assistant in the operation room. CHAPTER XX.