Part 14 (1/2)

The night was spent on straw, to the stentorian snores of fifty men overcome by fatigue. Then reveille, and again, liquid mud over the ankles. As the main road was forbidden to our ambulances there was an excited discussion as a result of which we separated: the vehicles to go in search of a by-way, and we, the pedestrians, to skirt the roads on which long lines of motor-lorries, coming and going, pa.s.sed each other in haste like the carriages of an immense train.

We had known since midnight where we were to take up our quarters; the suburb of G----was only an hour's march further on. In the fields, right and left, were bivouacs of colonial troops with muddy helmets; they had come back from the firing line, and seemed strangely quiet. In front of us lay the town, half hidden, full of crackling sounds and echoes.

Beyond, the hills of the Meuse, on which we could distinguish the houses of the villages, and the continuous rain of machine-gun bullets. We skirted a meadow strewn with forsaken furniture, beds, chests, a whole fortune which looked like the litter of a hospital. At last we arrived at the first houses, and we were shown the place where we were expected.

There were two brick buildings of several storeys, connected by a glazed corridor; the rest of the enclosure was occupied by wooden sheds. Behind lay orchards and gardens, the first houses of the suburb. In front, the wall of a park, a meadow, a railway track, and La Route, the wonderful and terrible road that enters the town at this very point.

Groups of lightly wounded men were hobbling towards the hospital; the incessant rush of motors kept up the feverish circulation of a demolished ant-hill.

As we approached the buildings, a doctor came out to meet us.

”Come, come. There's work enough for a month.”

It was true. The effluvium and the moans of several hundreds of wounded men greeted us. Ambulance No----, which we had come to relieve, had been hard at it since the night before, without having made much visible progress. Doctors and orderlies, their faces haggard from a night of frantic toil, came and went, choosing among the heaps of wounded, and tended two while twenty more poured in.

While waiting for our material, we went over the buildings. But a few days before, contagious diseases had been treated here. A hasty disinfection had left the wards reeking with formaline which rasped the throat without disguising the sickly stench of the crowded sufferers.

They were huddled round the stoves in the rooms, lying upon the beds of the dormitories, or crouching on the flags of the pa.s.sages.

In each ward of the lower storey there were thirty or forty men of every branch of the service, moaning and going out from time to time to crawl to the latrines, or, mug in hand, to fetch something to drink.

As we explored further, the scene became more terrible; in the back rooms and in the upper building a number of severely wounded men had been placed, who began to howl as soon as we entered. Many of them had been there for several days. The brutality of circ.u.mstances, the relief of units, the enormous sum of work, all combined to create one of those situations which dislocate and overwhelm the most willing service.

We opened a door, and the men who were lying within began to scream at the top of their voices. Some, lying on their stretchers on the floor, seized us by the legs as we pa.s.sed, imploring us to attend to them. A few bewildered orderlies hurried hither and thither, powerless to meet the needs of this ma.s.s of suffering. Every moment I felt my coat seized, and heard a voice saying:

”I have been here four days. Dress my wounds, for G.o.d's sake.”

And when I answered that I would come back again immediately, the poor fellow began to cry.

”They all say they will come back, but they never do.”

Occasionally a man in delirium talked to us incoherently as we moved along. Sometimes we went round a quiet bed to see the face of the sufferer, and found only a corpse.

Each ward we inspected revealed the same distress, exhaled the same odour of antiseptics and excrements, for the orderlies could not always get to the patient in time, and many of the men relieved themselves apparently unconcerned.

I remember a little deserted room in disorder, on the table a bowl of coffee with bread floating in it; a woman's slippers on the floor, and in a corner, toilet articles and some strands of fair hair.... I remember a corner where a wounded man suffering from meningitis, called out unceasingly: 27, 28, 29... 27, 28, 29... a prey to a strange obsession of numbers. I see a kitchen where a soldier was plucking a white fowl... I see an Algerian non-commissioned officer pacing the corridor....

Towards noon, the head doctor arrived followed by my comrades, and our vehicles. With him I made the round of the buildings again while they were unpacking our stores. I had got hold of a syringe, while waiting for a knife, and I set to work distributing morphia. The task before us seemed immense, and every minute it increased. We began to divide it hastily, to a.s.sign to each his part. The cries of the sufferers m.u.f.fled the sound of a formidable cannonade. An a.s.sistant at my side, whom I knew to be energetic and resolute, muttered between his teeth: ”No! no!

Anything rather than war!”

But we had first to introduce some order into our Inferno.

In a few hours this order appeared and reigned. We were exhausted by days of marching and nights of broken sleep, but men put off their packs and set to work with a silent courage that seemed to exalt even the least generous natures. Our first spell lasted for thirty-six hours, during which each one gave to the full measure of his powers, without a thought of self.

Four operation-wards had been arranged. The wounded were brought in unceasingly, and a grave and prudent mind p.r.o.nounced upon the state of each, upon his fate, his future.... Confronted by the overwhelming flood of work to be done, the surgeon, before seizing the knife, had to meditate deeply, and make a decision as to the sacrifice which would ensure life, or give some hope of life. In a moment of effective thought, he had to perceive and weigh a man's whole existence, then act, with method and audacity.

As soon as one wounded man left the ward, another was brought in; while the preparations for the operation were being made, we went to choose among and cla.s.sify the patients beforehand, for many needed nothing more; they had pa.s.sed beyond human aid, and awaited, numb and unconscious, the crowning mercy of death.

The word ”untransportable” once p.r.o.nounced, directed all our work. The wounded capable of waiting a few hours longer for attention, and of going elsewhere for it were removed. But when the buzz of the motors was heard, every one wanted to go, and men begging to be taken away entered upon their death agony as they a.s.sured us they felt quite strong enough to travel....

Some told us their histories; the majority were silent. They wanted to go elsewhere... and above all, to sleep, to drink. Natural wants dominated, and made them forget the anguish of their wounds....