Poor Touche! He easily recognised me by my voice and always had a smile for me. He was awkward at table, as a man would naturally be who is not yet accustomed to his infirmity. But he tried to manage by himself, and used to tell us in a quiet voice:
“I am doing my best, you see: I scrape my plate until I feel there is nothing more.”
Could I forget the name of the man who was brought in, one night, with his two legs smashed, and who murmured simply:
“It’s hard to have to die! But come! I’ll be brave.”
But Calmel, Calmel! No one who knew him will ever wish to forget him. Never did a man more passionately desire to live! Never did a man attain greater nobility by his endurance and resignation! He suffered mortal wounds which at every moment the light of the life within him repudiated. It was he who, during a night bombardment, addressed his hospital comrades, exhorting them to be calm, with his authoritative moribund voice.
“Come, come!” he used to say; “we are all men here, are we not?”
Such is the strength of the spirit that these words alone, uttered by such a man, were capable of restoring order and confidence in the hearts of everyone.
It was to Calmel that a plump civilian, entrusted with some business or other with the armies, said one day with jubilant conviction:
“You appear to be badly hit, my brave man. But if you knew what wounds we inflict on them, with our 75! Terrible wounds, old boy, terrible!”
Each day brought visitors to Hill 80. They came from Amiens in sumptuous motor cars. They chatted as they traversed the great canvas hall, as if at a prize exhibition of agricultural produce: to the wounded they addressed a few words that were in keeping with their personal station, their opinions and dignity. They wrote notes on memorandum-books and sometimes accepted invitations to supper from the officers. There were foreigners, philanthropists, politicians, actresses, millionaires, novelists, and “penny-a-liners.” Those who were looking for strange sensations were sometimes admitted to the “mosque” or the operation-room.