“Looking for some one?” asked a man in uniform, who must have been inside the hospital, for he hurried down the steps with a set mouth and quailing eyes.
“Yes.”
“Then don't go in—wait here.”
Louis looked in and took the doctor's advice. The dead were stored in the passages, one on the top of the other, like bales of goods in a warehouse.
Some attempt seemed to have been made to clear the wards, but those whose task it had been had not had time to do more than drag the dead out into the passage.
The soldiers were now at work in the lower passage. Carts began to arrive. An officer told off to this dread duty came up hurriedly smoking a cigarette, his high fur collar about his ears. He glanced at Louis, and bowed to him.
“Looking for some one?” he asked.
“Yes.”
“Then stand here beside me. It is I who have to keep count. They say there are eight thousand in here. They will be carried past here to the carts. Have a cigarette.”
It is hard to talk when the thermometer registers more than twenty degrees of frost, for the lips stiffen and contract into wrinkles like the lips of a very old woman. Perhaps neither of the watchers was in the humour to begin an acquaintance.