es_, provision vans, everything on
wheels that could be picked up on the battlefield, came rolling up
with their ghastly loads; and later in the day even carrioles and
market-gardeners' carts were pressed into the service and harnessed
to horses that were found straying along the roads. Into these motley
conveyances were huddled the men collected from the flying ambulances,
where their hurts had received such hasty attention as could be
afforded. It was a sight to move the most callous to behold the
unloading of those poor wretches, some with a greenish pallor on their
face, others suffused with the purple hue that denotes congestion; many
were in a state of coma, others uttered piercing cries of anguish; some
there were who, in their semi-conscious condition, yielded themselves to
the arms of the attendants with a look of deepest terror in their eyes,
while a few, the minute a hand was laid on them, died of the consequent
shock. They continued to arrive in such numbers that soon every bed in
the vast apartment would have its occupant, and Major Bouroche had given
orders to make use of the straw that had been spread thickly upon the
floor at one end. He and his assistants had thus far been able to attend
to all the cases with reasonable promptness; he had requested Mme.
Delaherche to furnish him with another table, with mattress and oilcloth
cover, for the shed where he had established his operating room.
The assistant would thrust a napkin saturated with chloroform to the
patient's nostrils, the keen knife flashed in the air, there was the
faint rasping of the saw, barely audible, the blood spurted in short,
sharp jets that were checked immediately. As soon as one subject had
been operated on another was brought in, and they followed one another
in such quick succession that there was barely time to pass a sponge
over the protecting oilcloth. At the extremity of the grass plot,
screened from sight by a clump of lilac bushes, they had set up a
kind of morgue whither they carried the bodies of the dead, which were
removed from the beds without a moment's delay in order to make room
for the living, and this receptacle also served to receive the amputated
legs, and arms, whatever debris of flesh and bone remained upon the
table.

Mme. Delaherche and Gilberte, seated at the foot of one of the great
trees, found it hard work to keep pace with the demand for bandages.
Bouroche, who happened to be passing, his face very red, h