Part 37

Auger is busy writing up his "book."

It is a big ledger some one has given him, in which he notes the important events of his life.

Auger writes a round schoolboy hand. In fact, he can just write sufficiently well for his needs, I might almost say for his pleasure.

"Would you care to look at my book?" he says, and he hands it to me with the air of a man who has no secrets.

Auger receives many letters, and he copies them out carefully, especially when they are fine letters, full of generous sentiments. His lieutenant, for instance, wrote him a remarkable letter.

He also copies into his book the letters he writes to his wife and his little girl. Then he notes the incidents of the day: "Wound dressed at 10 o'clock. The pus is diminishing. After dinner Madame la Princesse Moreau paid us a visit, and distributed caps all round; I got a fine green one. The little chap who had such a bad wound in the belly died at 2 o'clock...."

Auger closes his book and puts it back under his bolster.

He has a face that it does one good to look at. His complexion is warm and fresh; his hair stiff and rather curly. He has a youthful moustache, a well-shaped chin, with a lively dimple in the middle, and eyes which seem to be looking out on a smiling landscape, gay with sunshine and running waters.

"I am getting on splendidly," he says with great satisfaction. "Would you like to see Mariette?"

He lifts up the sheet, and I see the apparatus in which we have placed the stump of his leg. It makes a kind of big white doll, which he takes in both hands with a laugh, and to which he has given the playful name of "Mariette."

Auger was a sapper in the Engineers. A shell broke his thigh and tore off his foot. But as the foot was still hanging by a strip of flesh, Auger took out his pocket-knife, and got rid of it. Then he said to his terror-stricken comrades: "Well, boys, that's all right. It might have been worse. Now carry me somewhere out of this."

"Did you suffer terribly?" I asked him.

"Well, Monsieur, not as much as you might think. Honestly, it did not hurt so very, very much. Afterwards, indeed, the pain was pretty bad."

I understand why every one is fond of Auger. It is because he is reassuring. Seeing him and listening to him one opines that suffering is not such a horrible thing after all. Those who live far from the battle-field, and visit hospitals to get a whiff of the war, look at Auger and go away well satisfied with everything: current events, him, and themselves. They are persuaded that the country is well defended, that our soldiers are brave, and that wounds and mutilations, though they may be serious things, are not unbearable.

Yet pain has come to Auger as to the rest. But there is a way of taking it.

He suffers in an enlightened, intelligent, almost methodical fashion. He does not confuse issues, and complain indiscriminately. Even when in the hands of others, he remains the man who had the courage to cut off his own foot, and finish the work of the shrapnel. He is too modest and respectful to give advice to the surgeon, but he offers him valuable information.

He says:

"Just there you are against the bone, it hurts me very much. Ah! there you can scrape, I don't feel it much. Take care! You're pressing rather too hard. All right: you can go on, I see what it's for...."

And this is how we work together.

"What are you doing? Ah, you're washing it. I like that. It does me good. Good blood! Rub a little more just there. You don't know how it itches. Oh! if you're going to put the tube in, you must tell me, that I may hold on tight to the table."

So the work gets on famously. Auger will make a rapid and excellent recovery. With him, one need never hesitate to do what is necessary. I wanted to give him an anaesthetic before scraping the bone of his leg. He said:

"I don't suppose it will be a very terrible business. If you don't mind, don't send me to sleep, but just do what is necessary. I will see to the rest."

True, he could not help making a few grimaces. Then the Sergeant said to him:

"Would you like to learn the song of the grunting pigs?"

"How does your song go?"

The Sergeant begins in a high, shrill voice:

Quand en passant dedans la plai-ai-ne On entend les cochons... Cela prouve d'une facon certai-ai-ne Qu'ils non pas l'trooo du... bouche.

Auger begins to laugh; everybody laughs. And meanwhile we are bending over the wounded leg and our work gets on apace.