The German: "You have French soldiers."
"Yes, we have French soldiers, but they are wounded. They have no arms."
One of them, mighty, with a truculent air, pulled out his sword.
"They have their arms," he shouted, and he brandished his sword.
"They won't hurt you. Enter," I said.
A Lorraine to say to a German "Enter," that means mischief. (Un Lorraine dire à un Allemand "Entrez": Que cela fait mal!)
Two of the officers dismounted. Each of them hid a dagger somewhere in his breast. That thought that they could harm my poor little wounded men made me turn my look a few seconds on the action. And as they took out their revolvers at the same time, I did not see where they had hidden the daggers.
The finger on the trigger, they nodded their head for me to go on in front of them. I went in front and led the way into this room where there was nothing but four walls, and no furniture except the thirteen beds of my wounded. I entered by this door, not knowing in the least what they wanted to do. Imagine this room with the first bed here, and then the second here, et cetera, et cetera. I went automatically to the first and, more involuntarily still, placed my hand on the bed of wounded Number One, a dragoon wounded by a horse.
See, now, what took place: the imposing one of them walked in with his dagger in his left hand (son poignard, la gauche); the other man with his revolver was there, ready. With his dagger in his left hand, the first man stripped the bed for its full length, lifting the sheet, the coverlet and the bedclothes. He looked down in a manner evil, malevolent, ill-natured (méchante, malveillante, mauvaise).