There we rested on sheets over straw, getting what repose our wounds permitted, suffering, dreaming, dozing or talking with our companions in misfortune. It was the same bad luck that united us, the same need of telling our miseries urged us towards mutual understanding and goodwill. I succeeded in keeping up a conversation with my neighbour, a tanned, fair-haired boy, who was wounded in the thigh. We discussed the question of “pay,” as that was the thing which appeared to interest him most. His astonishment knew no bounds when I spoke of the daily “sou” of our soldiers. Then we spoke of our families; the numbers were what seemed to strike his peasant’s intellect. He wanted to know how many brothers and sisters I had; their ages and my own. This information took time, until, tired, weakened by pain and loss of blood, the conversation soon carried us drifting to the gates of sleep.
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The doctor came to see us. He was a tall, fair, stout man, with powerful shoulders, thin hair, light eyes and round, clean-shaven face, marked with numerous scars which bore witness to the activity of his student days. Draped in an immaculate apron, he went about good-naturedly and quite at his ease, juggling with arms, legs, heads, cutting off this, sewing up that, looking at the most horrible wound with an air of knowledge which showed the professional joy of the expert surgeon.
The first day his round was speedily made. A few words thrown to right and left, a few friendly stops, a few witty sallies and jokes, followed by a loud laugh, and there he was already liked by all of us. He looked after the wounded French with equal care; for to him the wounded had no nationality.
The doctor was helped by an attendant, a soldier wounded in the foot, who could not keep still, but went eagerly hobbling along, amongst those who were suffering. Undoubtedly the particular pains he took would not have been approved by all of the faculty; but he put so much devotion into it, and his big hands tried so earnestly to be gentle and kind, that one found strength to smile with him before making the grimaces caused by his clumsiness. Moreover, he was very valuable, and provided us with eatables during the first two days. His prolonged absences were a good sign. From these excursions, goodness knows where, he would come back smiling, excited, noisy, bringing in his pockets, in his hands, under his arm, dusty bottles of old wine. Every one shared in the distribution, and the little aluminium noggin made the tour of the room. At other times it was a bucket of milk still warm and frothy, with pears, biscuits, sweets. Where did he get them all? I pictured shop-windows burst open by blows from the butt of a rifle, houses half burnt down, pierced with shell-holes. It must be there he prowls about, pillaging for his wounded and needy comrades. He was convinced that his deeds were good; and if ever he defrauded a woman of her bucket of milk, as she returned from milking, may he be pardoned for it on account of the pure kindness of his intentions.
For some time the ambulance cars had ceased their rumbling. The castle must be full, the organisation was complete. Late in the evening they gave us a bowl of vegetable soup, slightly burnt and strongly spiced. I think this was due, despite his resourceful mind, to the limited cooking capacity of our attendant, for he excused himself for having kept us waiting.
At the hour when silence fell on the country, sentinels came on duty at the door of the garage. They occasionally glanced inside to question Karl, Fritz or Wilhelm. Night fell, and its first hours seemed interminable. Towards morning the moans were less frequent, less violent, the noise of the rustling of the straw less constant; the ravings of the delirious gradually subsided; sleep overcame us, giving relief to our bodies and balm to our souls.
In the morning, our attendant, good-natured fellow as he was, brought us, with a few of his coarse jokes, a quart of very hot black coffee. Then the doctor appeared and almost immediately went into a little room close to the garage where he could see his patients successively. One after another we passed into that little room, carried in on a stretcher by two attendants. Already there was camaraderie amongst us, and we chaffed him who was about to enter, pretending to believe he would cry out under the doctor’s scalpel. Thus it was a point of honour with each of us not to utter a sound while our flesh was probed and our blood ran. The exit of the Frenchman who was to pass first “on the billiard-table,” as they say among the “Poilus,” made a sensation. The Germans pretended to groan, to cry, to call out “Mamma.” But they were disappointed. The French determined not to utter a sound. With sweating brow and teeth clenched on the cloth of the stretcher, they gave themselves with courage, even with stoicism, to the operation. They proved that, although vanquished, they were men and knew how to endure suffering. In their turn they might have made fun of the Germans who returned almost fainting with pain; but we showed them that we French did not take pleasure from such sources as the Boches did, and that suffering, especially the suffering of an enemy, was, with us, no subject for derision.
I remember that I scored a success, completely unexpected but well deserved, I must confess. When, after the operation, I was brought back dressed in a woman’s smock of fine cambric, even I found myself such a comical figure that, forgetting the knife that I had just experienced, I joined in the laughter with the others.
Owing to the weakened condition in which we were, the hours which followed passed in semi-torpor, a torpor disturbed at times by sharp jars of pain, physical or mental.