[Original]
The train draws up gently, soldiers appear at the doors, silent and patiently waiting, some with foreheads swathed in reddening bandages, others with their arms in slings, again others leaning on crutches. One could not judge of the number, as more wounded were lying on the seats. One saw only black and white and yellow faces peering anxiously forth, and one understood that these soldiers had no words to express their sufferings, they only wait "for help."
A young doctor, just commencing his life of self-sacrifice, his eyes heavy with fever, his shoulders drooping with fatigue, seeks the military doctor in charge at the station and hands him a list giving him some information, brief and military, on the wounded hundreds behind him. Some are so injured they must have instant help. Here are men who may travel further; seeking from station to station the promised assistance.
The more desperately wounded are removed on stretchers; the nuns bring cooling water to wash their fevered hands and faces; the nurses bring them food and hot coffee; kind hands replace their slings, awry; boys and girls bring them newspapers, cigarettes and candies. All wish to express their admiration and devotion to these humble defenders of France.
All along the vast platforms are rows of stretchers, each laden with its suffering humanity. One counts the men by the upturned boot soles. Alas! those wounded in the legs hang brokenly down. Here a wretched man with broken shoulder wanders toward the operating room, installed in every railway station. There a feeble comrade leans on the shoulders of a nurse as he struggles toward the doctors awaiting him.
The more seriously wounded must remain on the spot, and the medical director inspects him, as taking his number he encourages him with a few words: "Now, my brave one, you will not travel further; a look, a look at your wound, my friend, and then to a comfortable hospital." The wounded soldier touches his cap, lifts his covering and shows a dressing spotted with yellow and brown; but has the strength to say to the bearers, "Carefully, gently, my friends; I suffer much!" and he looks with misgiving on the motor car, for they are moving him again. Poor fellow, he has suffered so much.
They lift him tenderly and he disappears beneath the Red Cross ambulance, there to find a nurse who whispers "My little soldier, another moment of patience and thou wilt find thyself amidst cool sheets, far from noise and confusion. Thou shalt rest in peace, and thou shalt be well."
In the midst of this "empressement," this joy of helping, the German prisoners, wounded and far from home, are not forgotten. At the door of one of the wagons a little brown chap is leaning, silent, but with shining eyes. The odors of good, refreshing coffee and hot bread are wafted to him; but he does not make a sign. But how hungry he is! And those good comrades behind him who for so many days faced death and famine in the trenches—how they hunger! He glances behind him. Here a man lies on his back, his eyes closed. Another is gasping, with his hands clenched. Others are crouching in obscurity. How hungry they are! How the thirst burns. But one must not ask mercy of one's conquerors.
Suddenly a young doctor, with a nun at his side, appears at the window. Coffee, bread and meat are offered; it is the little brown wounded one kneeling at the window who brings to his fellows the hospitality of France.
The officers are crowded together, heads swathed in blood-stained bandages, legs and arms encircled in spotted bands, but their voices are lowered as they thank the nuns, and they squeeze themselves together to allow a freer space to the more injured companion. The newspaper brought to them tells them of the battles in which they have fought, and in the list of those fallen on the field of honor appears the name of many a cherished friend.