The wounded were indescribably dirty, and their clothes in a shocking state, all stiff with blood. Jo took charge of the clothes bags, seeing that no man's clothes were mixed with any others. The men all seemed dazed, each soldier seemed to have the same protest upon his mind. "This wasn't the idea at all, I was not to be wounded. Why am I here?" One suddenly felt the brutal inanity of modern warfare; one felt that if the ones who had started this war could only be forced to spend three months in a war hospital, receiving and undressing the fruits of their plots, they would have a different view of the glory and honour of battle.
Each man had sewn in his belt some talisman to protect him from danger—small brass or lead image or medal, bought from the village priest.
There was confusion at first, for almost all were new to their tasks; the barbers were carrying stretchers when they ought to have been barbering; the clippers were scrubbing instead of doing their proper work; but, nevertheless, it was marvellously rapid. The motor tore back to the station, and by the time it had returned its first load had been washed, shaved, arrayed in clean pyjamas, and either lay in bed in the ward, or were waiting their turn outside the operating theatre.
Mr. Berry was hard at work: there were several cases shot through the brain, one through the lungs, one through the heart, and one through the spine; this latter was paralysed.
Some wounded came in carriages; it was very difficult to get them on to the stretchers without giving them unnecessary pain, because of the shape of the "fiacres." At last all were passed through.
Do not think us heartless if we rubbed our hands and said, "Some very good cases, what!" for emotional pity can be separated from professional pleasure, and if these things had to be we were pleased that the serious ones had come to us; had not gone to a Serbian hospital.
Next day we sorted clothes. Every uniform had to be taken from its bag, tabulated, searched for money or food, and repacked. They were swarming with vermin, but we wore mackintosh overalls which are supposed to be anathema to the beasties. More operations. One of the men had been hit in the cerebellum, and was quite blind. The boy who had been hit in the lungs prayed for a cigarette and an apple, he felt sure they would do him good. We sorted more clothes. One of the men had a pocket full of scissors—evidently regimental barber; another's pockets were crammed with onions; a third had a half-eaten apple, as though the fight had surprised him in the middle of his dessert. The cerebellum man wanted his purse. We could not find it; after exhaustive inquiry found that the lung youth had stolen it. Another patient claimed he had lost thirty-six francs; so down we had to go once more, search his package—the smelliest of the lot—and at last found the money pinned into the lining of his coat, also a watch. Jan took them back to him, wound up the watch and set it. The grateful owner said that the watch was an ornament, but that he could not read it.
The French were never in Nish at all—all lies; but Austrian aeroplanes had bombed it and killed several people. The Bulgarian comitaj cut the line at Vranja, but had been badly beaten in a battle near Zaichar. The flight over Gotch degenerated into a joke, and Jo was commissioned to do a caricature of it.