I had been about three weeks in Switzerland when the penalty for all the excitement came in a complete nervous breakdown. It lasted for about three weeks, during the greater part of which I was unable either to sleep or read. The heart-beats kept up in the neighbourhood of 92, about twenty over normal, and I have the strongest conviction that it was chiefly the tender devoted nursing of Mrs Doubleday and her family that pulled me through.29
Although at the outbreak of war the sympathies of the Swiss people were largely with their near neighbour, the Bosche, all that has changed, and the change came long before it was evident that Germany was beaten, so it is not quite a case of shouting with the biggest crowd. It was mainly the atrocities and infamies of the Bosche that first turned them against him, the convincing evidence that Germany was the enemy of the smaller nations, whose cause France and Britain championed. Of the two it is undoubtedly France whom they most love and respect. Yet at a New Year function to which we were invited, a Swiss Captain in eulogising the Allies especially singles out Britain, and referred at length to Australians. At and after Gallipoli the Swiss people, he said, began to regard the Australians as altogether a new type of men. He mentioned that before hostilities commenced there were enquiries from Germany as to what would be the attitude of Switzerland, if Germany wished to send an army across their territory. The reply was that they would resent it.
‘And if 200 000 men are sent along with application?’
‘We have 300 000 men to say “No” to it, and they all fire bullets from their rifles.’
The point of that last observation is that the Swiss claim to be the finest rifle shots in the world, and are especially proud of their reputation. We were told in confidence that they would not be at all surprised if the Germans, even as late as the beginning of 1918, tried to force a passage, and the Swiss professed to be quite ready for the contingency.
Their position as an isolated buffer State is peculiar, since for so many things, the essentials of everyday life and work, they are absolutely dependent on neighbour nations. France largely supplies them with meat and wheat in exchange for milk, chocolate and goods of that sort. For coal and timber they are wholly dependent on Germany, and the Hun, always looking ahead, was careful never to let them accumulate large reserve stocks of either. In the event of war, the Swiss railways would be at a standstill in about a fortnight. Just before I left Switzerland there was some trouble about deserters, largely Russian, German and Italian, who had taken sanctuary. The Socialists, who are apparently strong, sent a demand to the Swiss Federal Council that these deserters should not be compelled to work, as they were the guests of the country. The demand was ignored; the council insisted that they should work, and in one district at least the deserters, chiefly Russian, armed themselves with old scythes and weapons of that kind to resist the ordinance. Garrison troops were immediately called out and sent to the affected districts, and on the first sight of them the Russians threw down their weapons and went to work.
The district between Montreux and Lausanne was a Socialist stronghold. I was told that both Lenin and Trotsky lived there at one time, and it was from there that, in co-operation with Germany, they worked up the revolution.
After I had been more than once x-rayed by Swiss surgeons, one of whom stands in the forefront of the profession, they told me that nothing could be done. All the right hip bone had been blown away, including the socket, and the femur was too short. I suggested amputation, but the surgeon said, ‘Oh no; that would kill you!’
As an indication of Swiss feeling in the war, the street hoardings were illuminative. It was quite a common thing to see such a rough inscription as ‘Bosche sale cochon’ which meant ‘dirty pigs’. There was a big German contingent in Switzerland, official and otherwise, and the rival camps did not mix.The majority of the Swiss seemed to take it as a settled fact that the Kaiser was mad. In referring to atrocities they mentioned the Lusitania crime, which the Germans pleaded was justifiable as a war measure. It was in Switzerland that I first saw one of the medals struck in Germany to celebrate the sinking of the Lusitania.
On New Year’s Eve, having been out at a party, I was hobbling back to my hotel when I came upon a party of Swiss youths, who, on seeing me, make a rush, got around me on every side, and insisted upon shaking hands, while they shouted, ‘Vive l’Angleterre!’ They praised the British, who, they said, were fighting a Swiss as well as an English war, escorted me home, and finished up with, ‘God Save the King.’ Then they marched off, singing ‘It’s a long way to Tipperary.’
The chief conditions of internment were restriction to an area within five miles of the billet, and we were supposed to be in by midnight. It was a request that we should stay at one hotel, and if one wished for any reason to leave the area he made application to the Swiss authorities, and had no difficulty in obtaining leave for three days and two nights. A Swiss Board, having considered German reports upon any case, was given the right to say whether prisoners should remain there or be repatriated to England. All interned prisoners of war, in moving about, got concession tickets both by rail and tram, at half the usual cost. The wounded were both publicly and privately shown every possible consideration. If you wished to enter a tram the passengers would jump down to assist you, and where there was no room available both men and women stood up to offer you a choice of seats. In railway trains it was the same—everyone very thoughtful and courteous. The impression one got was that Switzerland enjoyed greater social equality, fewer class distinctions than any other land I have known. That applied to those who were wholly Swiss. In the very large resident French colony, where the parentage on both sides was French, the social code was more noticeable.
The amazing thing to me was that everybody seemed to be able to speak English, and took special pride in the accomplishment. That is no doubt an outcome and a necessity of the tourist business, in which so many are interested. All the stores had three prices for their goods: the lowest for their own people, a higher charge for all the tourists, a third charge, highest of all, for the British officer. The British officer of the old school generally had money to burn and no hesitation about burning it. He never priced things, so paid more than anybody else. As the interned soldier colony grew, the casino was started for the officers again, but many of them gambled so heavily and continuously that it was soon declared ‘out of bounds’. By this time a good many who saw and suffered out the war in German compounds have discovered that a great many affections and habits of old days went into the melting-pot in their absence, and that even the rich must find a new a practical purpose in life, will be relieved from the old mental distress of killing time. In another way it was almost time that the casino was closed down, for the bank was having much the better of the deal in chances. One shop paid eight to one; then they reduced it to seven to one, making it, by mathematical law, a certainty for themselves.
It is not realised, perhaps, that during the war and because of it the Swiss were rationed in bread, butter and fats. The allowance of bread, 225 grams, was enough, but the ration of butter was frugal, and at the restaurants a very tiny pat was served with afternoon tea. Cakes made of potato meal were particularly good, and these could be got without a ration card, while one might buy as many rusks as he pleased—at a price. All goods were dear. For a pair of brown walking boots I paid £2/10/–.
With many of us compound habits became so fixed that, for days after we reached Switzerland, prisoners sitting patiently in their rooms suddenly realised, with a gasp of astonishment, that they were free to go outside. It took several days to accustom myself to liberty, to remember that there was no sentry and no barbed wire blocking the way.
Another strange experience came in relation to pain. In Germany I was never free from pain, at first a pain so intense, so agonising that, coupled with the long solitary confinement I had an ever-present horror of it driving me mad. There was always the consciousness of a double fight at Bochum, one for recovery, one for reason. As the wounds improved, began to close, and the pain decreased, I often found myself at night unable to sleep, and suddenly realised the reason. I was not in pain, and I needed pain, liked a little of it, so I would press upon my shattered leg, get some pain, and then fall asleep. When I mentioned this to a member of the Swiss Medical Board for interned prisoners, and added ‘I suppose you will call me a fool,’ he said, ‘Oh no; pain has grown upon you, has become a habit, just like the morphia.’
In going finally before the Medical Board, I understood that both legs must be ‘dud’ before one had any chance of repatriation, so was naturally anxious. Several of those examined before me had to strip, but when it came to my turn the senior medical officer said, ‘Oh! This is Captain Cull. You need not strip Captain.’
While being examined I asked whether I should mention the wounds received on Gallipoli.
‘Oh, not at all Captain Cull. The only thing that worries us is that your injuries are so very bad.’
When the Board rose, Dr Chasse kindly came down in his car to say that I was one of two out of thirteen applicants passed for repatriation to England. In one sense only the decision was discouraging, because no prisoner was sent to England if it were possible to do anything for him in Switzerland. In consumption cases it was much better, of course, that they should remain in Switzerland, whatever their desires might be; but, apart from such special cases, it seemed to me that there was an understanding that as many wounded as possible should for the time be kept in Switzerland, English war hospitals being, without much doubt, overcrowded.
By coincidence I left Switzerland on the very day that the great German offensive in northern France began, the long stern battle which few of us then realised was the end in the utter defeat and downfall of the Hun. There was a great crowd to see us off, bands playing and much cheering, so that my first and last impressions of Switzerland were warmed by that friendly fervour which mellows even misfortune. Crossing the frontier into France, we were transferred to a British hospital train, and so went by way to Dijon, Amiens—which later was one of the pivotal points of the great battle, the scene of undying glory to Australian arms—Abbeville to Boulogne.
Amiens, on the old fighting front, completed a circle of many emotions. It was strange to find oneself just where he had begun, saddening to realise that in the great struggle impending he could no longer lend a hand. There was all the old cruel signs of a Hun offensive, the fugitives flocking south again, crowding the roads; old men, old women, children, all the unhappy martyrs of France, and every conceivable sort of vehicle from wheelbarrows to country carts. The genial spring which, with its new leafage, was to bring new hope for Europe, had yet to come. It was winter, and my heart ached for those unhappy victims of war who had gone forward at the heels of their armies to reoccupy their old homes only to find that once again they must trek for refuge—whether they knew it or not. There was nothing in that sad spectacle to reassure one as to the early dawn of victory. The civilians came one way, toiling slowly through mud and rain; in the other direction, often it seemed in hopeless congestion, went the troop trains with singing soldiers. No doubts or doleful imaginings there! The British soldiers, and they seemed to be almost all British, were flocking forward to throw themselves, as at Mons, against the foam of the second great German wave that was sweeping over France, and they went to hobnob with death as merrily as if he were Father Christmas and theirs a holiday excursion.
Had I but known what was to come, no bit of that battle smitten country about Amiens would have been overlooked. I would have tried to make such a mental map of it as would last through the life of a man, and in the history of his country endure forever. Perhaps I looked upon that very spot where our divisions passed through the broken lines of French and British never, until they reached the Rhine, to look behind them again. There was nothing obvious then, but the sign of a great struggle, and, for the moment, an uncertain end. Only that Master Strategist, who held in his hands all the threads of far-flung battle, could have given us the hopeful word.
Next to all the great signs, men flocking to battle as doves to the windows, and the continuous, distant rumble of that cannon fire once so familiar, I noticed the novelty of the little things, the abundance of white bread, of butter, all those ordinary things of life which to a prisoner had become important and unusual. We thought we had been well fed, well cared for in a neutral country, until we realised the splendid fare of the hospital trains, the care and companionship of the nursing sisters, so sympathetic, so beautiful. Had we not been prisoners of war we would have taken it all as a matter of course, part of the privileges we were entitled to expect, but being what we were, knowing what we knew, it was all wonderful.
At about ten o’clock at night we arrived at Boulogne, and had barely reached the station when the air raid alarm sounded. We had not yet lost touch of war. The German Gotha bombers came over in relays, and for about two hours, bombed the French port heavily, while we sat in the train as onlookers. Shrapnel from the aircraft guns was showering all about us. Two heavy bombs dropped on the line within a short distance of the train. I was looking out of the window at the time, and the blast of the bomb seemed to take my scalp off, so that I impulsively grabbed at my head with both hands. It was all there. As a matter of fact, nothing had come near me, but the force of the explosion seemed to set the old Gallipoli wounds tingling, and for a time my head felt peculiarly hot. As soon as ‘Raid off’ sounded we were placed in ambulances and taken to the convalescent home, where there was another cordial reception and all sorts of kind treatment. Early next morning the ambulances took us to the boat, and without any event of interest we were landed in Dover.
Here this story properly ends. The home coming was saddened somewhat by the early consciousness that there were still too many eligibles drifting about. I could not forget that, amongst my brother fighting at the front, ‘The Kiddy’, too young to be accepted when war broke out, had been ten months in the trenches. As one of the recruiting staff who sought day after day to make men realise their duty, redeem their honour, one sickened often before the conviction that far too many Australians had neither visualised the war nor realised their own obligations. To have been one in that great companionship of Anzac and afterwards is full compensation for suffering. I have heard a hundred men, broken in body but not in spirit, say that it was worth all the suffering of the past, all the pain of the future, to have been with them, to have realised the Australian as a century of peace could never have discovered him. The task to which he put his hand is done.
Not once or twice in our fair island-story
The path of duty was the way to glory.
He, that ever following her commands,
On with toil of heart and knees and hands,
Thro’ the long gorge to the far light has won
His path upward, and prevail’d,
Shall find the topping crags of Duty scaled
Are close upon the shining table-lands
To which our God Himself is moon and sun.
THE END