But Calmel, Calmel! No one who knew him will ever wish to forget him. Never did a man more passionately desire to live! Never did a man attain greater nobility by his endurance and resignation! He suffered mortal wounds which at every moment the light of the life within him repudiated. It was he who, during a night bombardment, addressed his hospital comrades, exhorting them to be calm, with his authoritative moribund voice. “Come, come!” he used to say; “we are all men here, are we not?” Such is the strength of the spirit that these words alone, uttered by such a man, were capable of restoring order and confidence in the hearts of everyone. It was to Calmel that a plump civilian, entrusted with some business or other with the armies, said one day with jubilant conviction: “You appear to be badly hit, my brave man. But if you knew what wounds we inflict on them, with our 75! Terrible wounds, old boy, terrible!” Each day brought visitors to Hill 80. They came from Amiens in sumptuous motor cars. They chatted as they traversed the great canvas hall, as if at a prize exhibition of agricultural produce: to the wounded they addressed a few words that were in keeping with their personal station, their opinions and dignity. They wrote notes on memorandum-books and sometimes accepted invitations to supper from the officers. There were foreigners, philanthropists, politicians, actresses, millionaires, novelists, and “penny-a-liners.” Those who were looking for strange sensations were sometimes admitted to the “mosque” or the operation-room. They went away, well content with their day when the weather was fine, in the sure knowledge that they had seen some queer things, heroic fighters, and a model establishment. * * * * * But silence! I have pronounced their names--Freyssinet, Touche, Calmel--and the memories which they leave in my heart are too noble to be mingled with bitterness. What has become of Hill 80 deserted? The battle has advanced towards the east. Winter has come; the city of tents has furled its canvas, as a fleet of sailing ships which must prepare for new destinies. Often, in imagination, I see again the bare plateau and the immense burial ground left derelict in the fields and the mists, like the wreckage of innumerable ships down in the depths of the sea. RÉCHOUSSAT’S CHRISTMAS Réchoussat repeated in a shrill, strained voice: “I tell you, they’re not coming after all.” Corporal Têtard turned a deaf ear to this. He was sorting out his stock on a table: lints, oil, rubber gloves reminiscent of the fencer, probes enclosed in a tube like vanilla cornets, a basin of enamelled sheet-iron resembling a big bean, and a bulging vase with a wide gaping mouth, looking like anything at all. Réchoussat affected an air of indifference. “They needn’t come if they don’t wish to. Anyway, I don’t care.”