Together they followed the orderly into the next room, apparently a storehouse for grain. There lying upon the floor they saw three silent shapes, wrapped in grey blankets.
“This is Mcpherson, sir,” said the orderly, looking at the card attached to the blanket.
He stooped, drew down the blanket from the face and stepped back. In civil life, both Barry and Cameron had seen the faces of the dead, but only in the coffin, after having been prepared for burial by those whose office it is to soften by their art death's grim austerities.
Cameron gave one swift glance at the shapeless, bloody mass, out of which stared up at him wide-open glassy eyes.
“Oh, my God, my God!” he gasped, gripping Barry by the arm, and staggering back as if he had received a blow. He turned to the door as if to make his escape, but Barry, himself white and shaken, held him firmly.
“Steady, old boy,” he said. “Steady, Duncan!”
“Oh, let me go! Let me get out of here!”
“Duncan, there are a lot of wounded chaps out there.”
The boy—he was only nineteen—was halted at the word, stood motionless and then muttered:
“You are right, sir. I was forgetting.”