"Sprechen Anglais?" I asked, floundering in the mud of Franco-Germaine interrogation. He shook his head; the bullet had blown away part of the man's jaw and he could not speak.
I dressed his wound in silence, an ugly, ghastly wound it looked, one that he would hardly recover from. As I worked with the bandages he brought out a little mirror, gazed for a moment at his face in the glass, and shook his head sadly. He put the mirror back in his pocket, but after a second he drew it out again and made a second inspection of his wound.
The dressing done, I inquired by signs if he wanted to sleep; there was still some room in the cellar. He pointed his finger at his tunic over the breast and I saw a hole there that looked as if made by a red-hot poker. I cut the clothes off the man with my scissors and discovered that the bullet which went through the man's jaw had also gone through his chest. He was bleeding freely at the back near the spine and in front over the heart.... The man brought out his mirror again, and, standing with his back to a shattered looking-glass that still remained in the building, he examined his wound after the manner of a barber who shows his customer the back of his head by use of a mirror.... Again the German shook his head sadly. I felt sorry for the man. My stock of bandages had run short, and Ginger Turley, who had received a parcel of underclothing a few days before, brought out a new shirt from his haversack, and tearing it into strips, he handed me sufficient cloth for a bandage.
"Poor bloke!" muttered Turley, blushing a little as if ashamed of the kind action. "I suppose it was my shot, too. 'E must be the feller that went crawlin' into the buildin'."
"Not necessarily," I said, hoping to comfort Ginger.
"It was my shot that did it, sure enough," Ginger persisted. "I couldn't miss at two 'undred yards, not if I tried."
One of the men was looking at a little book, somewhat similar to the pay-book we carry on active service, which fell from the German's pocket.
"Bavarian!" read the man with the book, and fixed a look of interrogation on the wounded man, who nodded.
"Musician?" asked the man, who divined that certain German words stated that the Bavarian was a musician in civil life.