In the early days of the war there were Belgian refugees at Alexandra Palace. M. Cyon was a journalist, and took his notebook with him to put down interesting facts. He wished to confine himself to facts, however, which not all journalists do. He found the women full of stories about atrocities, but they were always terrible things that had happened to _someone else_. The student of war atrocities indeed finds this to be a very general feature of the stories told. It by no means follows that atrocities do not occur. Certainly they do, but the number undergoes extraordinary exaggeration in the excited minds of the people. M. Cyon, therefore, as a serious observer, asked for one person who could speak at first hand. One of the refugees, he was told, was a woman whose little boy had been branded on both cheeks by the Germans. He was directed to this woman. He asked for her experiences, but she had nothing startling to tell. “But,” he asked, “was not your little boy very badly treated by the Germans?” “Little boy!” she exclaimed, in astonishment, “I have no little boy, I have no son at all.”
Madame Cyon had various patients at Lille. Her 24 Germans, she told me, gave her no more trouble than any ordinary patients. She had, however, four French Moroccan soldiers to nurse, and she describes them as extremely savage. She was sometimes afraid of them, and of one especially.
Madame Cyon was often overworked, and patients are not always reasonable. One evening she brought her German patients some mutton stew, and one of the wounded men made a dissatisfied remark about it. Madame Cyon was feeling very tired and the remark hurt her. She remained outside in the corridor instead of coming to the men as usual during their meal. Presently one man who had acted as interpreter came out. “Madame, you are cross.” “Yes, I am.” “Why are you cross?” “The men have been well treated, I have done all I could, and now they grumble about nothing.” The man was very sorry, he went back, and presently all who could walk came out and apologised. How strangely alike, after all, we human beings are! But our rulers could never lead us out in armies to kill each other unless they persuaded us somehow that we only were wonderfully fine chaps, and the others were brutes. Yet the appeal of kindness and devotion tells everywhere. So when the German science student, Albin Claus, mentioned in Madame Cyon’s account (p. 262), found her much overworked, he said, “You go to sleep, and I will keep watch,” and he helped in all ways to keep things right.