ed
from the front, and the doctors were just finishing with them. There was
a foul smell of blood and sweat and anaesthetics, and the light came
dismally through the dirty window-panes, showing dimly the rows and rows
of pale, weary faces on the thin pillows. Sometimes the gray blankets
came up to the chin, and the man looked dead already, he was so
dreadfully still, with his closed eyes and waxlike face. Another moaned
continuously, moving his head from side to side--"Oh, oh--Oh, oh." His
eyes were open, and hard and bright with fever. Several had their heads
wound with strips of bandages. You would hardly have known they were
human. Two or three were blind, with the bandage only round their eyes,
and it was strange to see the expression their hands took on--workmen's
hands with stubby fingers, now white and helpless-looking, and picking
at the cover aimlessly.

A nurse told me how an officer who had been blinded and was about to be
discharged and sent home, had committed suicide the other day. In some
way one of his men, who had been wounded in the arm, had been able to
smuggle in a revolver to him. The officer killed himself in the middle
of the night.

"I don't suppose he knew whether it was day or night, and took a chance
that no one was looking," I said.

"I think he knew it was night," she replied. "He could tell by the
others' breathing. I was night nurse. He was dead before I reached him.
The soldier gave himself up of his own accord. He will be
court-martialed, of course, though every one knows he did the best
thing. He said to us, 'He was my captain. He ordered me to get the
revolver, and I only obeyed orders. I would do it again.' We had a hard
time the rest of the night to quiet the men."

In a small room to one side were six men gone mad. They were quite
harmless and lay quietly in bed. Besides having their reason smashed to
bits by the horrors at the front, they were badly wounded. I was ashamed
to stand there looking at them. What was I? Suddenly, one of them, a
young boy surely not more than twenty-one or twenty-two, caught sight of
us, and he fixed his eyes upon us in a curious, concentrated way as if
to assure himself we were real. And then, all at once, abject terror
leapt into his eyes. His mouth opened and the cords of his neck stood
out. He threw both arms before his face as if to ward off somebody or
something. He began to scream out quick, unintelligible words in a
high-pitched, staccato vo