"There are three slightly wounded men. I am going to take on further,
and then there are some severely wounded..."
He opened the back of his car. On one side three soldiers were seated,
dozing. On the other, there were stretchers, and I saw the feet of the
men lying upon them. Then, from the depths of the vehicle came a low,
grave, uncertain voice which said:
"I am one of the severely wounded, Monsieur."
He was a lad rather than a man. He had a little soft down on his chin,
a well-cut aquiline nose, dark eyes to which extreme weakness gave an
appearance of exaggerated size, and the grey pallor of those who have
lost much blood.
"Oh! how tired I am!" he said.
He held on to the stretcher with both hands as he was carried up the
steps. He raised his head a little, gave a glance full of astonishment,
distress, and lassitude at the green trees, the smiling hills, the
glowing horizon, and then he found himself inside the house.
Here begins the story of Gaston Leglise. It is a modest story and a very
sad story; but indeed, are there any stories now in the world that are
not sad?
I will tell it day by day, as we lived it, as it is graven in my memory,
and as it is graven in your memory and in your flesh, my friend Leglise.
Leglise only had a whiff of chloroform, and he fell at once into a sleep
closely akin to death.
"Let us make haste," said the head doctor. "We shall have the poor boy
dying on the table."
Then he shook his head, adding:
"Both knees! Both knees! What a future!"
The burden of experience is a sorrowful one. It is always sorrowful to
have sufficient memory to discern the future.
Small splinters from a grenade make very little wounds in a man's legs;
but great disorders may enter by way of those little wounds, and the
knee is such a complicated, delicate marvel!
Corporal Leglise is in bed now. He breathes with difficulty, and catches
his breath now and again like a person who has been sobbing. He looks
about him languidly, and hardly seems to have made up his mind to live.
He contemplates the bottle of serum, the tubes, the needles, all the
apparatus set in motion to revive his fluttering heart, and he seems
bowed down by grief. He wants something to drink, but he must not have
anything yet; he wants to sleep, but we have to deny sleep to those who
need it most; he wants to die perhaps, and we will not let him.
He sees again the listening post where he spent the night, in advance of
all his comrades. He sees again the narrow doorway bordered by sandbags
through which he came out at dawn to breathe the cold air and look at
the sky from the bottom of the communication-trench. All was quiet, and
the early summer morning was sweet even in the depths of the trench.
But some one was watching and listening for the faint sound of his
footsteps. An invisible hand hurled a bomb. He rushed back to the door;
but his pack was on his back, and he was caught in the aperture like
a rat in a trap. The air was rent by the detonation, and his legs
were rent, like the pure air, like the summer morning, like the lovely
silence.
The days pass, and once more, the coursing blood begins to make the
vessels of the neck throb, to tinge the lips, and give depth and
brilliance to the eye.
Death, which had overrun the whole body like an invader, retired,
yielding ground by degrees; but it has halted now, and makes a stand at
the legs; these it will not relinquish; it demands something by way of
spoil; it will not be baulked of its prey entirely.
We fight for the portion Death has chosen. The wounded Corporal looks on
at our labours and our efforts, like a poor man who has placed his cause
in the hands of a knight, and who can only be a spectator of the combat,
can only pray and wait.
We shall have to give the monster a share; one of the legs must go. Now
another struggle begins with the man himself. Several times a day I go
and sit by his bed. All our attempts at conversation break down one by
one. We always end in the same silence and anxiety. To-day Leglise said
to me:
"Oh! I know quite well what you're thinking about!"
As I made no answer, he intreated:
"Perhaps we could wait a little longer? Perhaps to-morrow I may be
better..."
Then suddenly, in great confusion:
"Forgive me. I do trust you all. I know what you do is necessary. But
perhaps it will not be too late in two or three days...."
Two or three days! We will see to-morrow.
The nights are terribly hot; I suffer for his sake.
I come to see him in the evening for the last time, and encourage him to
sleep. But his eyes are wide open in the night and I feel that they are
anxiously fixed on mine.
Fever makes his voice tremble.
"How can I sleep with all the things I am thinking about?"
Then he adds faintly:
"Must you? Must you?"