[CHAPTER XIII]
MORE STORM-WRACK
A small volume might be written about those days at the Marché Couvert, about the war gossip that circulated, the adventures that were related.
In spite of the terrific shelling of Verdun only one civilian was reported to have been killed during that first week, and she imprudently left her cellar. The bombardment was methodical. Three minutes storm, then three minutes calm, then three minutes storm again. Then the pulse-beat lengthened: fifteen minutes storm, fifteen minutes calm. A priest told Madame B. that, stop-watch in hand, he was able to visit his people during the whole of the time, diving in and out of cellars with a regularity equalled only by that of the Germans. Two women, on the other hand, ran about their village comme des fous for eight days, shells dropping four to the minute, but no one was hurt, because the inhabitants had all gone to their cellars. How they themselves escaped they did not know. They had no cellar, that was why they ran.
Another woman was in her kitchen when a shell struck the house. Seeing that her sister was badly hurt she ran out, ran all the way down the village street, scoured the vicinity looking for a doctor, found one, brought him back, and as she was about to help him to dress her sister's wound, realised that her foot was wet, and looking down saw that her boot was full of blood. Not only had the shell, or a fragment of shell, torn her thigh badly, but it had shattered her hand as well. Only the thumb and index finger can be moved a little now, the other fingers are bent and twisted, without any power, the arm is shrivelled and cannot be raised above her head.
This woman was one of several who were turned out of the Civil Hospital one bitter afternoon when the wind cut into our flesh and sharp hail stung our faces. No doubt the hospital was full, no doubt a large number of bed or stretcher cases had come in, but somehow we could find no excuse for the thoughtlessness which turned that pitiful band of ailing, crippled, or blinded women into the dark streets to stumble and fumble their way through a strange town and then face the horror of the market. Some were frankly idiotic from fright, strain and age-weakened intellect; all were terrified, cold and suffering. One, very old, sat on the ground talking rapidly to herself. "She is détraquée," they whispered, so she was tucked up on a palliasse, covered with rugs and left to her mumbling, her monotonous, wearying babble. Next morning our nurse, going her rounds, found that the unfortunate creature was not détraquée but delirious, that her temperature was high and both lungs congested. It was just a question whether she would survive the journey to Fains, where, in the Departmental Lunatic Asylum, some wards had been set aside for the overflow from the hospital.
One of our coterie, burning with what we admitted was justifiable wrath, gave a hard-hearted official from the Prefecture a Briton's opinion of the matter.
"It was inhuman to treat these women so. Some of them were wandering in the streets for hours. Why didn't you send them direct to Fains?"
"There was no conveyance, the hospital was full ..." so he excused himself.