Part 4

"Why do you make the same complaints as Carre?"

Marie is only a peasant, but he showed me a face that was really offended:

"It's not true. I don't say the same things."

I said no more, for there are no souls so rugged that they cannot feel certain stings.

Marie has told me the story of his life and of his campaign. As he is not very eloquent, It was for the most part a confused murmur with an ever-recurring protestation:

"I was a good one to work, you know, strong as a horse."

Yet I can hardly imagine that there was once a Marie Lerondeau who was a robust young fellow, standing firm and erect between the handles of a plough. I know him only as a man lying on his back, and I even find it difficult to picture to myself what his shape and aspect will be when we get him on his feet again.

Marie did his duty bravely under fire. "He stayed alone with the wagons and when he was wounded, the Germans kicked him with their heavy boots." These are the salient points of the interrogatory.

Now and again Lerondeau's babble ceases, and he looks up to the ceiling, for this takes the place of distance and horizon to those who lie upon their backs. After a long, light silence, he looks at me again, and repeats:

"I must have been pretty brave to stay alone with the wagons!"

True enough, Lerondeau was brave, and I take care to let people know it. When strangers come in during the dressings, I show them Marie, who is making ready to groan, and say:

"This is Marie--Marie Lerondeau, you know. He has a fractured thigh, but he is a very brave fellow. He stayed alone with the wagons."

The visitors nod their heads admiringly, and Marie controls himself. He blushes a little, and the muscles of his neck swell with pride. He makes a sign with his eyes as if to say: "Yes, indeed, alone, all alone with the wagons." And meanwhile, the dressing has been nearly finished.

The whole world must know that Marie stayed alone with the wagons. I intend to pin a report of this on the Government pension certificate.

Carre was only under fire once, and was hit almost immediately. He is much annoyed at this, for he had a good stock of courage, and now he has to waste it within the walls of a hospital.

He advanced through a huge beetroot field, and he ran with the others towards a fine white mist. All of a sudden, crack, he fell! His thigh was fractured. He fell among the thick leaves, on the waterlogged earth.

Shortly afterwards his sergeant passed again, and said to him:

"We are going back to our trench, they shall come and fetch you later."

Carre merely said:

"Put my haversack under my head."

Evening was coming on; he prepared, gravely, to spend the night among the beetroots. And there he spent it, alone with a cold drizzling rain, meditating seriously until morning.

It was fortunate that Carre brought such a stock of courage into hospital, for he needs it all. Successive operations and dressings make large drafts upon the most generous supplies.

They put Carre upon the table, and I note an almost joyful resolution in his look. To-day he has "all his strength, to the last ounce."

But just to-day, I have but little to do, not much suffering to inflict. He has scarcely knitted his brows, when I begin to fasten up the apparatus again.

Then Carre's haggard face breaks into a smile, and he exclaims:

"Finished already? Put some more ether on, make it sting a bit at least."

Carre knows that the courage of which there was no need to-day will not, perhaps, be available to-morrow.

And to-morrow, and for many days after, Carre will have to be constantly calling up those reserves of the soul which help the body to suffer while it waits for the good offices of Nature.