Wounded men drag themselves along, without equipment or rifles, their chests bare, uniforms tattered, hair wet with perspiration, white-cheeked and bloodstained. They have improvised bandages out of their handkerchiefs, shirt-sleeves or towels. They walk stoopingly, heads bent, hunched to one side, by reason of broken shoulders or arms that hang listless and heavy. Some are crawling, some are hopping on one foot, some with the aid of two sticks drag behind them a lifeless limb, smothered in bandages. There are faces so swathed that only the eyes appear, feverish and distressed; others in which only one eye is visible, the other hidden beneath dressings through which the blood percolates and trickles down bristly chins. And here are two wounded men on stretchers, their faces waxlike and shrunken, nostrils pinched, eyes closed and shadowed, bloodless hands clutching the sides of the ambulance; behind them huge drops mark their course through the dust.
"An ambulance! Where can I find an ambulance?" ask some of the other wounded of the bearers.
"Where are you going to be sent to?"
"I say, you fellow there! Have you got any bandages?"
"Give him your flask, I say; give it to him!…"
Looking upon all which sights, the nerves of my men begin to suffer as I can plainly see.
"… (Censored)…!"
"…!"
Some of the wounded joke light-heartedly:
"Eh! Binet, now were you careful to number your giblets?…"