d forces of
Nature. We marvelled more especially that flesh so delicate, the
product and the producer of harmony, could endure such shocks and such
dilapidations without instant disintegration.

Many men came to us with one or several limbs torn off completely, yet
they came still living.... Some had thirty or forty wounds, and even
more. We examined each body systematically, passing from one sad
discovery to another. They reminded us of those derelict vessels which
let in the water everywhere. And just because these wrecks seemed
irredeemably condemned to disaster, we clung to them in the obstinate
hope of bringing them into port and perhaps floating them again.

When the pressure was greatest, it was impossible to undress the men and
get them washed properly before bringing them into the operating-ward.
The problem was in these cases to isolate the work of the knife as
far as possible from the surrounding mud, dirt and vermin: I have seen
soldiers so covered with lice that the different parts of the
dressings were invaded by them, and even the wounds. The poor creatures
apologised, as if they were in some way to blame....

At such moments patients succeeded each other so rapidly that we knew
nothing of them beyond their wounds: the man was carried away, still
plunged in sleep; we had made all the necessary decisions for him
without having heard his voice or considered his face.

We avoided overcrowding by at once evacuating all those on whom we had
operated as soon as they were no longer in danger of complications.
We loaded them up on the ambulances which followed one upon the other
before the door. Some of the patients came back a few minutes later,
riddled with fragments of shell; the driver had not succeeded in
dodging the shells, and he was often wounded himself. In like manner
the stretcher-bearers as they passed along the road were often hit
themselves, and were brought in on their own hand-carts.

One evening there was a "gas warning." Some gusts of wind arrived,
bearing along an acrid odour. All the wounded were given masks and
spectacles as a precaution. We hung them even on the heads of the beds
where dying men lay... and then we waited. Happily, the wave spent
itself before it reached us.

A wounded man was brought in that evening with several injuries caused
by a gas-shell. His eyes had quite disappeared under his swollen lids.
His clothing was so impregnated with the poison that we all began to
co