Lieutenant A.D.G. 'Grey' Alderson, 3 squadron

[Brez]

The recent spat over the 'H word' here on the 'drome made me get Ralph Barker's excellent The Royal Flying Corps in France off the shelf and re-read the story of 'Grey' Alderson. As I can't hope to match Mr. Barker's prose I'll retype it word for word;
''Shot down in March 1918 and seriously wounded, he was plied, when barely consious, with questions he couldn't answer. Eventually the interrogation officer gave him a pen and a postcard, to write a message home. With great difficulty he managed to scrawl: 'I have been captured by the Huns, will write, Love, Grey.' When the interrogator returned an hour later, Alderson was told he was going to be court-martialled.
Orderlies came in and arranged a table and chairs in the centre of the ward, and he was guarded by two sentries instead of one, both fondling fixed bayonets. What could he possibly have done? A stamping of feet and a clanking of swords heralded the arrival of a German general and his staff. After the charge had been recited in German it was translated by the interrogation officer. Alderson had insulted His Imprerial Highness Kaiser Wilhelm II by his use of the term Hun.
The bemused Alderson was quite unable to follow the proceedings, no notice was taken when he tried to protest that he had intended no insult, and eventually he lapsed into a coma. Suddenly the general in a frenzy of rage at his apparent indifference, strode over to his bed, called him a schweinhund, tore the postcard into fragments, and threw them in his face.
Alderson's worse deprivation was that they had confiscated his pipe. Transfered to a hospital in Douai, he was subjected to excrutiating pain in the wagon, which was callously driven, he believed deliberately. His wounds had not been treated, and he feared they would fester. But in Douai Hospital a nurse spoke to him with tansparent kindness in perfect English. She talked of happier days when she had been at school in England; she had returned to Germany from a sense of duty just prior to the outbreak of war. Alderton was the only prisoner in the hospital; all the others were wounded German soldiers. They called him der flieger, treated him as one of themselves, and shared their food parcels with him.
Still he received no treatment. But the nurse was engaged to the senior surgeon in the hospital, and she pleaded with him to do what he could to save Alderson's life. An immediiate operation was performed, and he recovered.''
Nice story eh?