X

Once upon a time, Paga would have been called un type; now he is un numero. This means that he is an original, that his ways of considering and practising life are unusual; and as life here is reduced entirely to terms of suffering, it means that his manner of suffering differs from that of other people.

From the very beginning, during those hard moments when the wounded man lies plunged in stupor and self-forgetfulness, Paga distinguished himself by some remarkable eccentricities.

Left leg broken, right foot injured, such was the report on Paga"s hospital sheet.

Now the leg was not doing at all well. Every morning, the good head doctor stared at the swollen flesh with his little round discoloured eyes and said: "Come, we must just wait till to-morrow." But Paga did not want to wait.

Flushed with fever, his hands trembling, his southern accent exaggerated by approaching delirium, he said, as soon as we came to see him.

"My wish, my wish! You know my wish, doctor."

Then, lower, with a kind of pa.s.sion:

"I want you to cut it off, you know. I want you to cut this leg. Oh! I shan"t be happy till it is done. Doctor, cut it, cut it off."

We didn"t cut it at all, and Paga"s business was very successfully arranged. I even feel sure that this leg became quite a respectable limb again.

I am bound to say Paga understood that he had meddled with things which did not concern him. He nevertheless continued to offer imperative advice as to the manner in which he wished to be nursed.

"Don"t pull off the dressings! I won"t have it. Do you hear, doctor?

Don"t pull. I won"t have it."

Then he would begin to tremble nervously all over his body and to say:

"I am quite calm! Oh, I am really calm. See, Michelet, see, Brugneau, I am calm. Doctor, see, I am quite calm."

Meantime the dressings were gradually loosening under a trickle of water, and Paga muttered between his teeth:

"He"s pulling, he"s pulling.... Oh, the cruel man! I won"t have it, I won"t have it."

Then suddenly, with flaming cheeks:

"That"s right. That"s right! See, Michelet, see, Brugneau: the dressings have come away. Sergeant, Sergeant, the dressings are loosened."

He clapped his hands, possessed by a furtive joy; then he suddenly became conscious, and with a deep furrow between his brows, he began to give orders again.

"Not any tincture of iodine to-day, doctor. Take away those forceps, doctor, take them away."

Meanwhile the implacable forceps did their work, the tincture of iodine performed its chilly function; then Paga yelled:

"Quickly, quickly. Kiss me, kiss me."

With his arms thrown out like tentacles, he beat upon the air, and seized haphazard upon the first blouse that pa.s.sed. Then he would embrace it frantically.

Thus it happened that he once showered kisses on Michelet"s hands, objects by no means suitable for such a demonstration. Michelet said, laughing:

"Come, stop it; my hands are dirty."

And then poor Paga began to kiss Michelet"s bare, hairy arms, saying distractedly:

"If your hands are dirty, your arms are all right."

Alas, what has become of all those who, during days and nights of patient labour, I saw gradually shaking off the dark empire of the night and coming back again to joy? What has become of the smouldering f.a.ggot which an ardent breath finally kindled into flame?

What became of you, precious lives, poor wonderful souls, for whom I fought so many obscure great battles, and who went off again into the realm of adventure?

You, Paga, little fellow, where are you? Do you remember the time when I used to dress your two wounds alternately, and when you said to me with great severity:

"The leg to-day, only the leg. It"s not the day for the foot."

XI

Sergeant Lecolle is distinguished by a huge black beard, which fails to give a ferocious expression to the gentlest face in the world.

He arrived the day little Delporte died, and scarcely had he emerged from the dark sleep when, opening his eyes, he saw Delporte die.

I went to speak to him several times. He looked so exhausted, his black beard was so mournful that I kept on telling him: "Sergeant, your wound is not serious."

Each time he shook his head as if to say that he took but little interest in the matter, and tried to close his eyes.

Lecolle is too nervous; he was not able to close his eyes, and he saw Delporte dead, and he had been obliged to witness all Delporte"s death agony; for when one has a wound in the right shoulder, one can only lie upon the left shoulder.

The ward was full, I could not change the sergeant"s place, and yet I should have liked to let him be alone all day with his own pain.

Now Lecolle is better; he feels better without much exuberance, with a seriousness which knows and foresees the bufferings of Fate.

Lecolle was a stenographer "in life." We are no longer "in life,"

but the good stenographer retains his principles. When his wounds are dressed, he looks carefully at the little watch on his wrist. He moans at intervals, and stops suddenly to say:

"It has taken fifty seconds to-day to loosen the dressings. Yesterday, you took sixty-two seconds."

His first words after the operation were:

"Will you please tell me how many minutes I was unconscious?"

XII

I first saw Derancourt in the room adjoining the chapel. A band of crippled men, returning from Germany after a long captivity, had just been brought in there.

There were some fifty of them, all looking with delighted eyes at the walls, the benches, the telephone, all the modest objects in this waiting-room, objects which are so much more attractive under the light of France than in harsh exile.