administer to the comfort and
alleviate the distress of the wounded. There was no delicate and
nourishing diet to strengthen the weak; neither did we expect it. We
were prisoners of war, and though our sufferings were great, we were
still soldiers.

But those who have passed through Ward 43 will always look back with
gratitude and admiration on one whose unselfish devotion, tender care,
and magnificent spirit was an example and inspiration to all of us.

His name was Saniez, the orderly in charge of the ward; a Florence
Nightingale, whose unceasing attention day and night, whose tender
watchfulness and devoted care and kindness made him loved and
worshipped by the maimed and helpless prisoners who were placed under
his charge.

Saniez was no ordinary man. No reward was his, except the heartfelt
gratitude of those whom he tended. The wounded who passed through the
ward left behind a debt of gratitude which could never be paid, and
with a spirit of fortitude and courage created by his noble example.

There are compensations for all suffering; and no greater compensation
could any wish for than the devotion of Saniez.

Saniez had suffered too, but would never speak of it. He had his
moments of anguish and despair. He had a home, too; but his dreams he
kept to himself, and his care he gave to others.

Saniez was a Frenchman, a big, burly artilleryman, with eyes bright,
laughing, and sympathetic.

He had been captured nearly two years before; and suffered severely
from the effects of frozen feet. Yet, painful as it must have been to
get about, he seldom sat down.

All through those long days and nights weak voices would call him: it
was always, "Saniez, Saniez!" and slop, slop, slop, we would hear him
in his slippered feet, moving down the ward, attending to one and then
another.

Saniez would be quiet and sympathetic, with a voice soft and
soothing; and the next moment, cheerful and boisterous. Captivity
could not subdue Saniez, or make him anything else than a loyal French
soldier.

He would guard his patients against the clumsy touch of a German
orderly like a tiger guarding its young. He would bribe or steal to
obtain a little delicacy for his patients.

He seemed to know but a single German word, which he used on every
possible occasion to express his disgust of the Germans. It was a
slang word, but when Saniez used it, its single utterance was a volume
of expression. It was NIX, and when Saniez said nix