"When we complained the orderlies said we got exactly the same food as they did," and he, too, added the unfailing, "Germany is starving."
A pathetic little picture he and his wife made in their shabby room, she a young, pretty, capable thing who nursed him assiduously, he helpless on his chaise-longue with yet another operation hanging over him. The wound was suppurating, it was feared some shrapnel still remained in the leg. Pension? He had none, not even the allocation. He had applied, of course, but was told he must wait till after the war. He had not even got the Medaille Militaire or the Croix de Guerre, though he said it was customary in France to give either one or the other to mutilated and blinded men.
There must be many sad home-comings for these repatriés. So many get back to find that those they loved have been killed or have died while they were away, so many return to find Death wrapping his wings closely about the makeshift home that awaits them.
"They sent me to Troyes because my husband was working on the railway there, but for a whole day I could get no news of him. Then they said he was at Châlons in the hospital. I hurried there—he died two hours after my arrival in my arms."
How often one hears such stories. And yet one day the world may hear a still more tragic one, the day when the curtain of silence and darkness that has fallen over the kidnapped thousands of Lille and Belgium is lifted, and we know the truth of them at last.
[CHAPTER XII]
STORM-WRACK FROM VERDUN