wound so small that
it was not worth a dressing. Yet that little piece of _obus_ lodged
somewhere inside his skull, above his left ear, so the radiographist
says, and he's paralyzed. Paralyzed all down the other side, and one
supine hand flops about, and one supine leg flops about, in jerks. One
bleary eye stays open, and the other eyelid stays shut, over the other
bleary eye. Meningitis has set in and it won't be long now, before we'll
have another empty bed. Yellow foam flows down his nose, thick yellow
foam, bubbles of it, bursting, bubbling yellow foam. It humps up under
his nose, up and up, in bubbles, and the bubbles burst and run in
turgid streams down upon his shaggy beard. On the wall, above his bed,
hang his medals. They are hung up, high up, so he can see them. He can't
see them today, because now he is unconscious, but yesterday and the day
before, before he got as bad as this, he could see them and it made him
cry. He knew he had been decorated _in extremis_, because he was going
to die, and he did not want to die. So he sobbed and sobbed all the
while the General decorated him, and protested that he did not want to
die. He'd saved three men from death, earning those medals, and at the
time he never thought of death himself. Yet in the ward he sobbed and
sobbed, and protested that he did not want to die.

Back of those red screens is Henri. He is a priest, mobilized as
_infirmier_. A good one too, and very tender and gentle with the
patients. He comes from the ward next door, Salle II., and is giving
extreme unction to the man in that bed, back of the red screens. Peek
through the screens and you can see Henri, in his shirt sleeves, with a
little, crumpled, purple stole around his neck. No, the patient has
never regained consciousness since he's been here, but Henri says it's
all right. He may be a Catholic. Better to take chances. It can't hurt
him, anyway, if he isn't. I am glad Henri is back of those red screens.
A few minutes ago he came down the ward, in search of absorbent cotton
for the Holy Oils, and then he got so interested watching the doctors
doing dressings, stayed so long watching them, that I thought he would
not get back again, behind the screens, in time.

See that man in the bed next? He's dying too. They trepanned him when he
came. He can't speak, but we got his name and regiment from the medal on
his wrist. He wants to write. Isn't it funny! He has a block of paper
and a pencil, and all