_The Wounded_
[Illustration: EVACUATING A HOSPITAL]
[Illustration: TRANSFERRING THE WOUNDED TO THE TRAIN]
One would like to say a little about the wounded men, of whom we have,
by this time, seen some thousands. But it is difficult to separate
one's impressions: the wounded come so fast and in such numbers,
and one is so closely concerned with the mechanical part of their
transportation, that very soon one ceases to have many human emotions
concerning them. And there is a pitiful sameness in their appearance.
They are divided, of course, into the two main classes of "sitting"
and "lying." Many of the former have come down on foot from the
trenches; one sees them arrive in the street at Montauville looking
round--perhaps a little lost--for the _poste de secours_ appointed for
this particular regiment or company. Sometimes they help one another;
often they walk with an arm thrown round some friendly shoulder. I
have seen men come in, where I have stood waiting in the _poste de
secours_, and throw themselves down exhausted, with blood trickling
from their loose bandages into the straw. They have all the mud and
sunburn of their trench life upon them--a bundle of heavy, shapeless
clothes--always the faded blue of their current uniform--and a pair
of hobnailed boots, very expressive of fatigue. They smell of sweat,
camp-fire smoke, leather, and tobacco--all the same, whether the man
be a peasant or a professor of mathematics. Sometimes, perhaps from
loss of blood, or nervous shock, their teeth chatter. They are all very
subdued in manner. One is struck by their apparent freedom from pain.
With the severely wounded, brought in on stretchers, it is occasionally
otherwise. If it is difficult to differentiate between man and man
among the "sitting" cases, it is still more so with the "lying." Here
there is a blood-stained shape under a coat or a blanket, a glimpse
of waxy skin, a mass of bandage. When the uniform is gray, men say
"_Boche_" and draw round to look. Then one sees the closely cropped
bullet head of the German. One might describe the ghastliness of
wounds, but enough has been said. At first, they cause a shudder, and
I have had gusts of anger at the monstrous folly in man that results
in such senseless suffering, but very soon the fatalism which is a
prevailing tone of men's thoughts in this war dulls one's perceptions.
It is just another _blessé_--the word "_gravement_," spoken by the
_infirmier_, as they bring him out to the ambulance, carries only the
idea of a little extra care in driving. The last we see of them is at
the hospital. At night we have to wake up the men on duty there. The
stretcher is brought into the dimly lighted, close-smelling room where
the wounded are received, and laid down on the floor. In the hopeless
cases there follows the last phase. The man is carried out and lies,
with others like himself, apart from human interest till death claims
him. Then a plain, unpainted coffin, the priest, a little procession, a
few curious eyes, the salute, and the end. His grave, marked by a small
wooden cross on which his name and grade are written, lies unnoticed,
the type of thousands, by the roadside or away among the fields.
Everywhere in the war zone one passes these graves. A great belt of
them runs from Switzerland to the sea across France and Belgium. There
are few people living in Europe who have not known one or more of the
men who lie within it.