Hospital, Saturday, July 8th
Some new ones are arrived from the Somme, only ten for my ward, the orderly told me at the gate. They were brought in at four o'clock this morning. The orderly, Hamond, said, "They are nothing so bad as the Verduns."
When I came to the top of the stairs, Madame Marthe was in the corridor, waiting for Madame Bayle to come and unlock the linen-press. She looked very tired already, at the beginning of the day, and she was walking up and down between the stairs and the door of our ward, not able to keep still for a minute.
She told them off on her small fine fingers, stained with iodine: "Two heads, one of them has a bad leg-wound also; one amputé of the arm, infected; two of the leg, infected both of them; two faces; a bad chest-wound, bullet; other two slight. Zut! that Madame Bayle, will she never come! Run over to the store-house and tell them I have got to have tubes and funnels to feed the 9 and 14. See that they give them to you, whatever fuss they make, tell them it is for very bad faces. Quick now, the chief has been around, and they are going to trepan the worst head this morning."