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CHAPTER XX
TRENCH LIFE
SATURDAY the 31st of October was spent quietly and
peacefully. Duke Adolf Friedrich conducted me in
the morning to the chateau of Vélu east of Bapaume.
We followed the great main road to Cambrai a few kilometres
and then struck off on to a by-road leading to this handsome
chateau, built in 1719 and taken over in 1883 by a gentleman
named Goer. It is still tenanted by a Madame Goer. The
magnificent apartments were still haunted by an old French
butler, and in the dining-room the table had just been laid for
the officers who had been lucky enough to have found this
comfortable billet. The house is surrounded by a large park,
and we wandered up and down its neglected alleys on the
softest of carpets of decaying leaves. Here we strolled and
chatted about our travels in Africa and Asia, and about
the new colouring that the world’s map would certainly be
given at the end of this war—^when we were disturbed by
the rattling of heavy rifle fire in the neighbourhood. We at
once made for an open space in the direction of the firing, and
espied a French airman who was being hotly attacked by the
German infantry, but seemed entirely unperturbed by the
interest he was arousing.
On our return to Bapaume we dined at the mess with
General von Plettenberg and his usual set. Among the com-
pany was the famous surgeon. Professor Hildebrand of
Göttingen, a sociable, learned and altogether charming gentle-
man, and an old friend of the family of the late Professor
Gyldén of Stockholm. Professor Hildebrand told me among
many other interesting things that the cardinal principle of
modern surgery in the field is not to amputate except in cases
of the utmost urgency. Formerly arms and legs were ampu-
tated in a far larger measure than at present ; now the surgeons
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