The neighbourhood of the station was swarming with people. Disarmed, ragged soldiers sold cigarettes and sticky sweets; one or two asked for alms. Near the wall, on a stair covered with a waterproof, some obscene books were lying about. Dirty men sold pencils, purses, tobacco. A boy in a gabardine offered broken bits of chocolate from a tray. There was something Balkan in this noisy scene: a red cross flag floated over the murky street. People went freely in and out through the doors of the station. No tickets were required—anyhow, it would be impossible to stop the mob—the guards had gone. Russian soldiers in sheepskin caps, Roumanian and Serbian prisoners of war, like a stampeded herd, broke through the throng. These at least could go home. And my hand went to my heart.
Wounded soldiers, drinking tea and eating slices of bread, sat on the benches in the carbolic-scented, stuffy air of the former Royal waiting-room, which was lit up sparsely. It was the first time I had been on duty since the Revolution. During the many years of war so many stretchers had gone through this Red Cross room, so much suffering and moaning and knocking of crutches, that it seemed to me now as if all these turned back with reproaches and asked continually: “What good was that sea of suffering, all these deaths, if this is to be the end of the road?”
Round the low-burning gas-stove sat some sergeants of the Army Medical Corps. Further away, in a cold corner, a few disabled officers had retired. The insignia of their rank on their collars were missing. They were pale and thin. One of them leant his elbows on his knees and buried his face in his hands. Another’s head was bowed down on his chest. Never in my life have I seen men more dejected than these: they just sat there without moving. And while I looked at them I realised with an aching heart that the horrible betrayal, “the glorious revolution” has wounded the wounded, and far, far away, in the many soldiers’ graves, has killed the dead anew.
A hospital train arrived; it brought Germans. In silent line one stretcher after the other defiled through the door, and the men were laid in a gray row on the floor. Under torn, bloody, great-coats, pale patient ghosts. A hospital from the Southern front had been evacuated in haste. “The Serbians are advancing....”
The old bandages soaked with blood were dirty on the men: an awful stench of corruption spread over the place. And between the stretchers a Jewish sergeant, in brand new field-uniform, with golden pince-nez, sporting a red cockade, walked haughtily up and down. I had never seen him in the place before. “I have been delegated by the Soldiers’ Council,” he remarked. And this man, whose very appearance betrayed the fact that he had never been a soldier during the war, now stood there, his legs apart, between the wounded and spoke to them with impertinent condescension.
I told the doctor that the men required new bandages, it was two weeks now since they had been put on. “There are no bandages,” said the doctor sadly and went back to his room. I did not see him again that evening. The reeking air was now and then rent by a moan, a quiet sigh. That was all. But nobody spoke. The men thanked one with a weary look for the bad decoction and the bread that tasted of sawdust.
“Our men are still fighting against the Serbians,” a fair Bavarian mumbled, when I leant down over him. It was only when the red-cockaded sergeant had retired and the other orderly had gone to smoke outside on the platform that there was some talk between the stretchers.
“How are things at home?” the Germans asked. “We have no newspapers, we know nothing. People say that there they have made a revolution too and that they want to banish the Kaiser.”
Wounded Hungarian soldiers sat on one of the benches and talked of the Italian front:
“It was after our men had laid down their arms that the Italians began to shell us. They used heavy artillery and killed whole regiments. Whole divisions were surrounded. They report three hundred thousand prisoners and a thousand guns. All is lost.”