Hospital—Arrival, Saturday, 6th
They are very tired. They want to be let alone. They do not care what happens to them, or to the little queer odds and ends of things in their bundles.
They were bathed in the admission room; Madame Marthe and Madame Alice were called there. Madame Madeline threw out their dirty torn clothes, and the boots of those who had boots, to Madame Bayle in the hall.
Madame Bayle made Joseph take all that away, and gave me each man's own little things to put on the night table of his bed, his képi and his béret, if it were not lost, a pipe, a tobacco pouch, perhaps a big nickel watch, some letters, the photograph of a girl or an old woman, a purse with a few sous in it. Several of them have medals, the Croix de Guerre and the military medal, and one had a chaplet that I had to hide under the photograph of an old woman in her best bonnet. "Number 9," says Madame Bayle, "Number 16, Number 8," and dumps the poor little handfuls of things into my apron.
"All your things are here," I say to the men, "look, Monsieur 8, I have put them so on the table. I will move the table to the other side because of your arm. Little Alpin, here is your béret hung on the knob at the top of the bed, waiting for you to go out into Paris. And you, my little one, here are your two medals, I pin them to the edge of your chart. How proud you must be!"
But he does not care at all. He is a little young child, of the class 16. He has a round, boy face and big, round, blue eyes like a child's. He only wants to lie with his eyes shut. He is the number 3. His right leg is amputated, and his left foot is in plaster.
They are all men from Verdun, wounded eight or fifteen days ago, who have been moved from one to another hospital of the Front. They do not want to talk about it. They want to just lie still with their eyes closed—except the one who screams, the 24.
The 24 screams and screams. He also has had a leg amputated. He is perhaps twenty years old. He is a big blonde boy. He clutches the bars of the top of the bed with his two hands, and drags all his rigid weight upon his hands, and screams, with wide-open eyes that stare and stare.
Also the man wounded in the head, the Number 6, lies with his eyes wide staring open and like glass. He has a colonial medal that I do not know, and the Croix de Guerre. They do not yet know if he can speak or not. Madame Marthe told me while she was washing her hands at the chariot that he may live quite long.
She said, "The chief is coming to see the wounds, we must cut all the dressings. Take your scissors, and begin to the right of the door."