Twenty-eight beds and ten stretcher-beds, the ward is full again. They are all from the Somme. They are not nearly so bad as those from Verdun and the Champagne. There has been only one of them, so far, who died.
He was brought in on Wednesday, they operated next morning, and he died in the night. The wound had become gangrenous.
He was twenty-five years old. He was from the invaded countries, and had no one, no one at all, who could come. He had had no news of his people since the beginning of the war, nor had he been able to send his news to them. He had never been out of his little commune, except to go to the trenches. He had no name to give of any friend.
The patronne told me to go to the funeral, for there was no one else to go. None of the real nurses could be spared, and very few of the men from downstairs would be able to walk so far. It was to be at Pantin. We would go first to the church. We would leave the hospital at half-past three.
I tell of so many funerals. But there are so many, and they impress me so. Those men die for us, and we, who may not die—how could it be but that their dying means more to us than other things? There is nothing we can do for those who fall and lie on the battlefield. But with these, here, we go a little way.
And what else is there?
I have got some decent clothes, and I go sometimes to see some one, and we pretend we are amused by bits of gossip. We say, "Oh, that's a hat from Rose-Marie!" and, "Where did you get your tricot?" But it is as if we went on a journey, and we come home tired from it, to the dark shelter of our thoughts.
One rests better following through endless poor streets after a pine-box with the flag upon it and the palms.
The people stand back, the men salute, the women make the sign of the Cross, and we keep our own small perfect silence with us as we pass. The piquet d'honneur walked with arms reversed, four on either side of him.