ppolyte, poor
whining Alexandre--all fighting for _La Patrie_. And against them the
man who had tried to desert _La Patrie_.

So the night nurse continued her rounds, up and down the ward,
reflecting. And suddenly she saw that these ideals were imposed from
without--that they were compulsory. That left to themselves, Felix, and
Hippolyte, and Alexandre, and Alphonse would have had no ideals.
Somewhere, higher up, a handful of men had been able to impose upon
Alphonse, and Hippolyte, and Felix, and Alexandre, and thousands like
them, a state of mind which was not in them, of themselves. Base metal,
gilded. And they were all harnessed to a great car, a Juggernaut,
ponderous and crushing, upon which was enthroned Mammon, or the Goddess
of Liberty, or Reason, as you like. Nothing further was demanded of them
than their collective physical strength--just to tug the car forward, to
cut a wide swath, to leave behind a broad path along which could
follow, at some later date, the hordes of Progress and Civilization.
Individual nobility was superfluous. All the Idealists demanded was
physical endurance from the mass.

Dawn filtered in through the little square windows of the ward. Two of
the patients rolled on their sides, that they might talk to one another.
In the silence of early morning their voices rang clear.

"Dost thou know, _mon ami_, that when we captured that German battery a
few days ago, we found the gunners chained to their guns?"

PARIS,
18 December, 1915.

LA PATRIE RECONNAISSANTE

They brought him to the _Poste de Secours_, just behind the lines, and
laid the stretcher down gently, after which the bearers stretched and
restretched their stiffened arms, numb with his weight. For he was a big
man of forty, not one of the light striplings of the young classes of
this year or last. The wounded man opened his eyes, flashing black eyes,
that roved about restlessly for a moment, and then rested vindictively
first on one, then on the other of the two _brancardiers_.

"_Sales embusques!_" (Dirty cowards) he cried angrily. "How long is it
since I have been wounded? Ten hours! For ten hours have I laid there,
waiting for you! And then you come to fetch me, only when it is safe!
Safe for you! Safe to risk your precious, filthy skins! Safe to come
where I have stood for months! Safe to come where for ten hours I have
laid, my belly opened by a German shell! Safe! Safe! How brave you are
when night has fal