Another opened his vest and showed a jagged wound upon which the blood had congealed.
“They are slow up yonder, but then they are not in pain, Herr Major. As for me, I do not count. I shall never stand again.”
“Do not talk so,” cried an old sergeant, whose arm had been scarred and broken by a shell from Froeschweiler; “we have our duty to do, and all this is nothing. The doctor will laugh at us for troubling him. A cigar would cure me, Herr Major—ah, you are all too kind to a useless old man.”
Brandon distributed his cigars among them, and called to a trooper to fetch them water from the village and to send the ambulance. The place wherein they lay was a very pit of blood and agony; he turned from it quickly when he saw the white face of the girl at his side. He knew that she had all the desire and pity to serve them, and he understood the helplessness she realised and blamed.
“It is a doctor’s work, Beatrix—you would only make things worse. The ambulance will be here just now, and they have already been looked after in some sort of way, as you see. You need a lot of training to stand this sort of thing, and remember you have had none at all—”
He stopped abruptly, for there were tears in her eyes.
“Brandon,” she said quickly, “do you not despise me—”
“Because you are not a doctor? Certainly not—”
“No, not for that, but for all that I have been talking about. As if anything mattered when those poor fellows suffer! And I am doing nothing, nothing. I have never done anything all my life—”
“You can begin now by going back to Madame Hélène. She is alone in Strasburg. She will have need of you in the days to come. I am afraid they will be terrible days, Beatrix.”