In the dressing station, suffering as I was, I noticed two men forcibly controlling a wounded comrade. After a moment I recognized him as the little recruit who had prayed that the Germans might not pass the wire and come to bayonet fighting with us. His features were so changed that he seemed aged a dozen years and--believe it or not, as you will--his hair, which had been sleek and black, was entirely white. He had been only slightly wounded but the heavy bombardment had driven him entirely mad. He was continually crying for his mother. I afterward learned that he and his mother, who was blind, had lived together and had been warmly devoted to each other, but at the outbreak of the war, his mother felt it her duty to send him to fight. The boy recovered his mental faculties a month or two after being sent home. CHAPTER EIGHT After the first dressing of my wound, I was sent to our transport station, a short distance behind the lines, being told that in a few days I would be fit for duty again. There was a farm here. By the time I reached the farm house the pain of my wound was terrific. It was like a toothache all over my head and down into my neck and shoulders. Nevertheless, I threw myself onto a pile of straw in the barn and, after tossing about a while, managed to fall asleep. When I awoke it was daylight again, the entire night having passed. Leaning over me was a little French girl--she must have been about eight years old--with a pitcher of milk, which she held out toward me. In spite of the condition of my mouth, I managed to swallow the milk. I was almost starved and very weak. I tried to persuade the little girl to accept a franc for the milk, but she shook her head, and skipped off. Following her out of the barn, I met her mother to whom, also, I offered payment; she, too, refused it. We could hear the rumbling of big guns; shells were exploding not far away; then came the noise of transport wagons approaching the farm. I turned back toward the barn and had not gone more than ten paces when there was a crash overhead. Splinters and shrapnel spattered into the farm yard. I ducked and hastened my pace. Then there was a thud behind me, as if a bag of potatoes had been dropped from a lorry. Almost simultaneously came a scream from the little girl.