"Blast yer, Bill… Carn't yer give a bit of elber room? Gord almighty, 'ow d'yer think I can get in there?"
Women came out into the yard, their white caps touched by the light of their lanterns, and women's voices spoke quietly.
"Have you got many this time?" "We can hardly find an inch of room." "It's awful having to use stretchers for beds." "There were six deaths this afternoon."
Then would follow a silence or a whispering of stretcher-bearers, telling their adventures to a girl in khaki breeches, standing with one hand in her jacket pocket, and with the little flare of a cigarette glowing upon her cheek and hair.
"All safe? … That was luck!"
"O mon Dieu! O, cré nom! O! O!"
It was a man's voice crying in agony, rising to a shuddering, blood- curdling scream:
"O Jésus! O! O!"
One could not deafen one's ears against that note of human agony. It pierced into one's soul. One could only stand gripping one's hands in this torture chamber, with darkness between high walls, and with shadows making awful noises out of the gulfs of blackness.
The cries of the wounded men died down and whimpered out into a dull faint moaning.