“We are both ‘dezected’ men, except that my old woman has left me; and, too, I have been overworked.”
It was the only allusion that Revaud ever made to his conjugal misfortune and to his toiling past.
But really, why think of all these things? Hasn’t man enough to do with a troublesome leg, or this perpetual need which he cannot control?
Every evening each one prepared to face the long night with little preparations, as if they were about to set out on a journey. Remusot was pricked in the thigh, and at once he was in a dreamland bathed in sweat, in which the fever brought before his eyes things he never would describe to anyone. Mery had a large mug of some decoction or other prepared for him, and he had only to stretch out his arm to get it. Sandrap smoked his last cigarette, and Revaud asked for his cushion. It was a little cotton pillow, which was placed against his side. Only when this was done was Revaud willing to say, “That’s it, boys! That’ll do.”
And from that moment they went off into a sleep that was horrible and teeming like a forest waylaid with snares, and each of them wandered in the pursuit of his dreams.
While the mind was beating its wings, the four bodies remained still. A little night-light relieved the darkness. Then, in slippered footfalls, a night attendant came and put his head through the door and heard the four tortured respiratory movements, and occasionally surprised the open but absent look of Remusot; in contemplating these patched-up human remains, he suddenly thought of a raft of shipwrecked men—of a raft tossed by the waves of the sea, with four bodies in distress.
The window-panes continued to vibrate plaintively with the echoes of the war. Sometimes, in the course of the long night, the war seemed to stop, as a woodcutter pauses to take breath between two blows of his axe.
It was then that, in the deep and sudden silence, they awoke with queer painful sensations; and they thought of all the things that happen in battle—they thought of these things when not a sound could be heard.
Dawn broke reluctantly, those days of winter. The orderlies scrubbed the floor. They blew out the spluttering night-light which stank of burnt fat. Then there were the morning ablutions, and all the pains and screams of wound-dressing.
Sometimes, in the middle of the trivial duties of the day, the door was solemnly opened and a general entered, followed by the officers of the staff. He paused at first on the threshold, overcome by the unwholesome air, then he made a few steps into the room and asked who were these men. The doctor used to whisper in his ear, and the general replied quite simply: