"Are we still far from the ambulance?"
"No, not far now. If you feel faint let me know and I'll put you down. Does it hurt much?"
"Yes, and it's bleeding.... Look at the blood on the road!"
"That's nothing. Hold on to the mane!"
An ambulance passed full of seriously wounded. Instead of being laid down they had been propped up against the sides of the carriage so that it should hold more. Under the green tilt I caught a glimpse of one man with a face the colour of white marble whose head was rolling on his shoulders, and of another who was streaming with blood. A huge and swarthy corporal was sharing the box with the driver. His gun between his knees and one hand on his hip, he was sitting bolt upright with a grave and determined air, his head enveloped in a turban of crimson lint. Blood was trickling into his right eye, which, in its red-rimmed orbit, looked strangely white, and from thence ran down his drooping moustache, matting the hairs of his beard, and finally dropping on to his broad chest in black splashes and streams.
One of the wounded who had been waiting for a long time, sitting by the roadside, caught hold of a carriage which dragged him on.
"Please stop and let me get up!"
"We've no more room, I'm afraid!"
"I can't walk."