In these wagons some groan, others call for their mother; there are the ravings and delirium of fever, sometimes curses and blasphemies.
The least interest shown to these unhappy men, a kind salutation, gives them pleasure and they return it at once with expressions of gratitude.
In all the villages along the road leading to Brescia, the women sitting before their doors, silently prepare lint. The Communal authorities have had prepared, drinks, bread and nourishment. When a convoy arrives the women of the village go to the wagons, wash the wounds, renew the lint compresses, which they moisten with fresh water. They pour spoonfuls of bouillon, wine or lemonade in the mouths of those who have not the strength to raise their heads or extend their arms.
In Montechiaro, three small hospitals are under the care of the women of the people, who nurse with as much wisdom as kindheartedness. In Guidizzolo, about one thousand invalids are placed in a large castle. In Volta, some hundreds of Austrians are received in an old monastery which has been transformed into barracks. In Cavriana, they establish in the church a number of Hungarians who had been forty-eight hours without help. In the field-hospital of the headquarters, chloroform is used in operating; this produces, in the Austrians, almost immediate insensibility, and in the French nervous contractions, accompanied by exaltation before unconsciousness results.
The people of Cavriana are entirely without provisions; the soldiers of the guard feed them by sharing with them their rations and their mess; the country has been laid waste, and almost everything edible, cattle, garden produce, etc., has been sold to the Austrian troops. The French army has campaign food in abundance, but only with difficulty can it procure the butter, meat and vegetables necessary for the ordinary food of soldiers.
The wounded of the Sardinian army, who have been transported to Desenzano, Rivoltella, Lonato, and Pozzolenzo, are in conditions less disadvantageous than the French and Austrians temporarily established in Castiglione—Desenzano and Rivoltella not having been occupied at a few days interval by two different armies. Food is still to be found there; the hospitals are better kept and the inhabitants, less troubled, actively support the nursing service. The sick are sent to Brescia in good carts provided with thick beds of hay. They are protected from the sun by arches of interlaced foliage which support a strong linen cover.
The feeling that one has of his own insufficiency in such solemn circumstances, is an inexpressible suffering. It is extremely painful to feel that you cannot help all those who lie before you, because of their great number, or aid those who appeal to you with supplications. Long hours pass before you reach the most unfortunate. You are stopped by one, petitioned by another, all equally worthy of pity. Embarrassed at each step by the multitude of miserable sufferers who press about you, who surround you, who beg support and help. Then, why turn to the left, while on the right are so many men who will soon die without a word of consolation, without even a single glass of water to appease their burning thirst? The thought of the importance of one human life that one might be able to save; the desire to alleviate the tortures of so many unfortunate and to restore their courage, the forced and unceasing activity which one imposes on himself in such moments, gives a supreme energy, a thirst to carry help to the greatest number possible. One becomes no longer moved by the thousand scenes of this terrible tragedy, one passes, with indifference, before the most hideously disfigured corpses and glances almost coldly at sights, so much more horrible than those already described, that the pen refuses absolutely to depict them; but it happens, sometimes, that the heart suddenly breaks, struck all at once by a poignant sadness at the sight of a single incident, an isolated fact, an unexpected detail, which goes directly to the soul, draws out our sympathy, moves the most impressionable cords of our being and brings a realization of the whole horror of this tragedy.
Worn out with fatigue, but unable to sleep, I have my little carriage harnessed on the afternoon of Monday, the twenty-seventh, and go away about 6 o'clock to breathe in the open air the freshness of the evening and to find a little repose by escaping, for a moment, from the dismal sights which surround me on every side in Castiglione.
It was a favorable time, for no movement of the troops had been ordered during the day.
Calm had succeeded the terrible agitation of the previous days. Here and there are visible pools of dried blood which redden the battle-field. One meets newly turned earth, white with freshly strewn lime, indicating the place where repose the victims of the twenty-fourth.