er them, blew through them, crashed to pieces a swinging window
down at the laundry, and loosened the roof of Salle I. at the other end
of the enclosure. It was just ordinary winter weather, such as had
lasted for months on end, and which the Belgians spoke of as vile
weather, while the French called it vile Belgian weather. The drenching
rain soaked into the long, green winter grass, and the sweeping wind was
bitter cold, and the howling of the wind was louder than the guns, so
that it was only when the wind paused for a moment, between blasts, that
the rolling of the guns could be heard.

In Salle I. the stove had gone out. It was a good little stove, but
somehow was unequal to struggling with the wind which blew down the
long, rocking stove pipe, and blew the fire out. So the little stove
grew cold, and the hot water jug on the stove grew cold, and all the
patients at that end of the ward likewise grew cold, and demanded hot
water bottles, and there wasn't any hot water with which to fill them.
So the patients complained and shivered, and in the pauses of the wind,
one heard the guns.

Then the roof of the ward lifted about an inch, and more wind beat down,
and as it beat down, so the roof lifted. The orderly remarked that if
this Belgian weather continued, by tomorrow the roof would be clean
off--blown off into the German lines. So all laughed as Fouquet said
this, and wondered how they could lie abed with the roof of Salle I.,
the Salle of the _Grands Blesses_, blown over into the German lines. The
ward did not present a neat appearance, for all the beds were pushed
about at queer angles, in from the wall, out from the wall, some
touching each other, some very far apart, and all to avoid the little
leaks of rain which streamed or dropped down from little holes in the
roof. This weary, weary war! These long days of boredom in the hospital,
these days of incessant wind and rain and cold.

Armand, the chief orderly, ordered Fouquet to rebuild the fire, and
Fouquet slipped on his _sabots_ and clogged down the ward, away outdoors
in the wind, and returned finally with a box of coal on his shoulders,
which he dumped heavily on the floor. He was clumsy and sullen, and the
coal was wet and mostly slate, and the patients laughed at his efforts
to rebuild the fire. Finally, however, it was alight again, and radiated
out a faint warmth, which served to bring out the smell of iodoform, and
of draining wounds, and other smell