A few days before the death of Tricot, a very annoying thing happened to
him; a small excrescence, a kind of pimple, appeared on the side of his
nose.
Tricot had suffered greatly; only some fragments of his hands remained;
but, above all, he had a great opening in his side, a kind of fetid
mouth, through which the will to live seemed to evaporate.
Coughing, spitting, looking about with wide, agonised eyes in search of
elusive breath, having no hands to scratch oneself with, being unable to
eat unaided, and further, never having the smallest desire to eat--could
this be called living? And yet Tricot never gave in. He waged his own
war with the divine patience of a man who had waged the great world war,
and who knows that victory will not come right away.
But Tricot had neither allies nor reserves; he was all alone, so wasted
and so exhausted that the day came when he passed almost imperceptibly
from the state of a wounded to that of a dying man.
And it was just at this moment that the pimple appeared.
Tricot had borne the greatest sufferings courageously; but he seemed to
have no strength to bear this slight addition to his woes.
"Monsieur," stammered the orderly who had charge of him, utterly
dejected, "I tell you, that pimple is the spark that makes the cup
overflow."
And in truth the cup overflowed. This misfortune was too much. Tricot
began to complain, and from that moment I felt that he was doomed.
I asked him several times a day, thinking of all his wounds: "How are
you, old fellow?" And he, thinking of nothing but the pimple, answered
always:
"Very bad, very bad! The pimple is getting bigger."
It was true. The pimple had come to a head, and I wanted to prick it.
Tricot, who had allowed us to cut into his chest without an anaesthetic,
exclaimed with tears:
"No, no more operations! I won't have any more operations."
All day long he lamented about his pimple, and the following night he
died.
"It was a bad pimple," said the orderly; "it was that which killed him."
Alas! It was not a very "bad pimple," but no doubt it killed him.
V
Mehay was nearly killed, but he did not die; so no great harm was done.
The bullet went through his helmet, and only touched the bone. The brain
is all right. So much the better.
No sooner had Mehay come to, and hiccoughed a little in memory of the
chloroform, than he began to look round with interest at all that was
happening about him.
Three days after the operation, Mehay got up. It would have been useless
to forbid this proceeding. Mehay would have disobeyed orders for the
first time in his life. We could not even think of taking away his
clothes. The brave man never lacks clothes.
Mehay accordingly got up, and his illness was a thing of the past.
Every morning, Mehay rises before day-break and seizes a broom. Rapidly
and thoroughly, he makes the ward as dean as his own heart. He never
forgets any corner, and he manages to pass the brush gently under the
beds without waking his sleeping comrades, and without disturbing those
who are in pain. Sometimes Mehay hands basins or towels, and he is as
gentle as a woman when he helps to dress Vossaert, whose limbs are numb
and painful.
At eight o'clock, the ward is in perfect order, and as the dressings are
about to begin, Mehay suddenly appears in a fine clean apron. He watches
my hands carefully as they come and go, and he is always in the right
place to hand the dressing to the forceps, to pour out the spirit, or
to lend a hand with a bandage, for he very soon learned to bandage
skilfully.
He does not say a word; he just looks. The bit of his forehead that
shows under his own bandages is wrinkled with the earnestness of his
attention--and he has those blue marks by which we recognise the miner.
Sometimes it is his turn to have a dressing. But scarcely is it
completed when he is up again with his apron before him, silently busy.
At eleven o'clock, Mehay disappears. He has gone, perhaps, to get a
breath of fresh air? Oh, no! Here he is back again with a trayful of
bowls. And he hands round the soup.
In the evening he hands the thermometer. He helps the orderlies so much
that he leaves them very little to do.
All this time the bones of his skull are at work under his bandages, and
the red flesh is growing. But we are not to trouble about that: it will
manage all alone. The man, however, cannot be idle. He works, and trusts
to his blood, "which is healthy."
In the evening, when the ward is lighted by a night-light, and I come
in on tiptoe to give a last look round, I hear a voice laboriously
spelling: "B-O, Bo; B-I, Bi; N-E, Ne, Bobine." It is Mehay, learning to
read before going to bed.