young priest. He wore the regulation Red Cross uniform,
but kept his cassock hanging on a peg behind his bed. He had pretty
frequent occasion to take it down. These small emergency hospitals,
within range of the guns, were reserved for only dangerous cases: men
whose wounds would not permit of their being carried further; and there
never was much more than a sporting chance of saving them. They were
always glad to find there was a priest among the staff. Often it was the
first question they would ask on being lifted out of the ambulance. Even
those who professed to no religion seemed comforted by the idea. He went
by the title of "Monsieur le Pretre:" Joan never learned his name. It
was he who had laid out the little cemetery on the opposite side of the
village street. It had once been an orchard, and some of the trees were
still standing. In the centre, rising out of a pile of rockwork, he had
placed a crucifix that had been found upon the roadside and had
surrounded it with flowers. It formed the one bright spot of colour in
the village; and at night time, when all other sounds were hushed, the
iron wreaths upon its little crosses, swaying against one another in the
wind, would make a low, clear, tinkling music. Joan would sometimes lie
awake listening to it. In some way she could not explain it always
brought the thought of children to her mind.

The doctor himself was a broad-shouldered, bullet-headed man, clean
shaven, with close-cropped, bristly hair. He had curiously square hands,
with short, squat fingers. He had been head surgeon in one of the Paris
hospitals, and had been assigned his present post because of his
marvellous quickness with the knife. The hospital was the nearest to a
hill of great strategical importance, and the fighting in the
neighbourhood was almost continuous. Often a single ambulance would
bring in three or four cases, each one demanding instant attention. Dr.
Poujoulet, with his hairy arms bare to the shoulder, would polish them
off one after another, with hardly a moment's rest between, not allowing
time even for the washing of the table. Joan would have to summon all
her nerve to keep herself from collapsing. At times the need for haste
was such that it was impossible to wait for the anaesthetic to take
effect. The one redeeming feature was the extraordinary heroism of the
men, though occasionally there was nothing for it but to call in the
orderlies to hold some poo