The poor fellow looked at me, and this time believed me. He raised himself a little, made the sign of the cross, and whispered—
"You must pray for me."
He closed his eyes in prayer, and I could no longer see him, for the tears in my own. To comfort him, I placed my hand on his breast.
He winced. "Forgive me, father, I've had a bullet through there, too."
Not only had he a shattered leg, but a bullet had gone through his breast, and another had gone just above his heart.
His shirt was red with blood which had oozed through the dressings. Somehow it did not occur to me to think of his great suffering. He seemed more like a martyr broken on the wheel, with a halo round his head. This young boy, who knew how to suffer so well, must have fought magnificently.
And I thought as I raised my hand to bless him: "How fine he is!"
Four medals hung round his neck, and he held them out for me to kiss them.
They tasted of blood, and I still have the strange taste on my lips of those medals which had lain over the wound, which bled above his heart.
"That one, the biggest, was given me by a priest down there in the ambulance, which was an old farm once, and whose walls are riddled with shells. What a night it was! and what an amount of blood there was about!"