each side
ran long, narrow, backless benches, on which the sick men and the
slightly wounded sat, waiting sorting. A grey twilight pervaded the
interior, and the everlasting Belgian rain beat down upon the creaking
canvas, beat down in gentle, dripping patters, or in hard, noisy gusts,
as it happened. It was always dry inside, however, and the earth floor
was dusty, except at the entrance, where a triangle of mud projected
almost to the doctor's table, in the middle.

The _Salle d'Attente_ was different. It was more comfortable. The
seriously wounded were unloaded carefully and placed upon beds covered
with rubber sheeting, and clean sacking, which protected the thin
mattresses from blood. The patients were afterwards covered with red
blankets, and stone hot water bottles were also given them, sometimes.
But in the sorting tent there were no such comforts. They were not
needed. The sick men and the slightly wounded could sit very well on the
backless benches till the _Medecin Major_ had time to come and examine
them.

Quite a company of "sitters" were assembled here one morning, helped out
of two big ambulances that drove in within ten minutes of each other.
They were a dejected lot, and they stumbled into the tent unsteadily,
groping towards the benches, upon which they tried to pose their weary,
old, fevered bodies in comfortable attitudes. And as it couldn't be
done, there was a continual shifting movement, and unrest. Heavy legs in
heavy wet boots were shoved stiffly forward, then dragged back again.
Old, thin bodies bent forward, twisted sideways, coarse, filthy hands
hung supine between spread knees, and then again the hands would change,
and support whiskered, discouraged faces. They were all uncouth,
grotesque, dejected, and they smelt abominably, these _poilus_, these
hairy, unkempt soldiers. At their feet, their sacks lay, bulging with
their few possessions. They hadn't much, but all they had lay there, at
their feet. Old brown canvas sacks, bulging, muddy, worn, worn-out, like
their owners. Tied on the outside were water cans, and extra boots, and
bayonets, and inside were socks and writing paper and photographs of
ugly wives. Therefore the ungainly sacks were precious, and they hugged
them with their tired feet, afraid that they might lose them.

Then finally the _Major_ arrived, and began the business of sorting
them. He was brisk and alert, and he called them one by one to stand
before him. They shuffle