ndispensable instruments required for the hasty
dressings they gave before dispatching the patients to Sedan, which
they did as rapidly as they could secure wagons, the supply of which was
limited. There was an assistant surgeon in charge, with two subordinates
of inferior rank under him. In all the army none showed more gallantry
and received less acknowledgment than the litter-bearers. They could be
seen all over the field in their gray uniform, with the distinctive red
badge on their cap and on their arm, courageously risking their lives
and unhurriedly pushing forward through the thickest of the fire to
the spots where men had been seen to fall. At times they would creep on
hands and knees: would always take advantage of a hedge or ditch, or
any shelter that was afforded by the conformation of the ground, never
exposing themselves unnecessarily out of bravado. When at last they
reached the fallen men their painful task commenced, which was made
more difficult and protracted by the fact that many of the subjects had
fainted, and it was hard to tell whether they were alive or dead. Some
lay face downward with their mouths in a pool of blood, in danger of
suffocating, others had bitten the ground until their throats were
choked with dry earth, others, where a shell had fallen among a group,
were a confused, intertwined heap of mangled limbs and crushed trunks.
With infinite care and patience the bearers would go through the tangled
mass, separating the living from the dead, arranging their limbs and
raising the head to give them air, cleansing the face as well as they
could with the means at their command. Each of them carried a bucket
of cool water, which he had to use very savingly. And Maurice could see
them thus engaged, often for minutes at a time, kneeling by some man
whom they were trying to resuscitate, waiting for him to show some sign
of life.

He watched one of them, some fifty yards away to the left, working over
the wound of a little soldier from the sleeve of whose tunic a thin
stream of blood was trickling, drop by drop. The man of the red cross
discovered the source of the hemorrhage and finally checked it by
compressing the artery. In urgent cases, like that of the little
soldier, they rendered these partial attentions, locating fractures,
bandaging and immobilizing the limbs so as to reduce the danger of
transportation. And the transportation, even, was an affair that called
for a great deal of judgme