He cried and cried. He had borne everything without giving way—the continual nearness of death, the so hard life in the trenches, the incessant physical suffering; but the death of his friend crushed him and brought him down to earth. And while I murmured words that, alas, were futile for any change they made in his sorrow, but which did some good, just the same, I heard him sobbing in his pillow:
"My friend was killed. My friend was killed."
His friend—when one knows what the word comrade means to them, one divines all that word friend may mean, too.
Sister Gabrielle, whose infallible instinct brings her always to the cots where the sickest of her children are, passed near Number 25 and stopped a moment. She did not ask him anything. She just put her hand caressingly on his brown head, so young and virile, and said in her firm, sweet voice:
"All right, my boy, all right. Courage. Remember all this is for France."
Then turning to me, she said:
"Before night-time wouldn't you like to play a game of dominoes with this good boy? He'll represent the French forces, and in the morning he must be able to tell me that he has won."
In the midst of his tears the young soldier, his heart swelling in his distress, smiled at finding himself thus treated like a child. They have such need of it, the soldiers, after having done so valiantly the work of men!
III—STORIES OF THE SOLDIERS FROM THE AISNE