"Tell my wife..."

That manly face is not the face of one who could be deceived by soft words and consoling phrases. The white blouse turns away. The surgeon"s eyes grow dim behind his spectacles, and in solemn tones he replies:

"We will not fail to do so, friend."

The patient"s eyelids flutter--as one waves a handkerchief from the deck of a departing steamer--then, breathing in the ether steadily, he falls into a dark slumber.

He never wakes, and we keep our promise to him.

IV

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 pa.s.sed 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 p.r.i.c.k 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 pa.s.s 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 ap.r.o.n. 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 ap.r.o.n 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.

VI

A lamp has been left alight, because the men are not asleep yet, and they are allowed to smoke for a while. It would be no fun to smoke, unless one could see the smoke.

The former bedroom of the mistress of the house makes a very light, very clean ward. Under the draperies which have been fastened up to the ceiling and covered with sheets, old Louarn lies motionless, waiting for his three shattered limbs to mend. He is smoking a cigarette, the ash from which falls upon his breast. Apologising for the little heaps of dirt that make his bed the despair of the orderlies, he says to me:

"You know, a Breton ought to be a bit dirty."

I touch the weight attached to his thigh, and he exclaims:

"Ma doue! Ma doue! Caste! Caste!"

These are oaths of a kind, of his own coining, which make every one laugh, and himself the first. He adds, as he does every day:

"Doctor, you never hurt me so much before as you have done this time."

Then he laughs again.

Lens is not asleep yet, but he is as silent as usual. He has scarcely uttered twenty words in three weeks.

In a corner, Mehay patiently repeats: "P-A, Pa," and the orderly who is teaching him to read presses his forefinger on the soiled page.