“They throw away their shakos, their muskets, even their colours,” writes Victor Hugo. Alas, dropping with fatigue, some of them will even throw away their coats. You see them in shirtsleeves, running across the stubble. The firing gets hotter; suddenly a shell bursts, and a man is wounded in three places—hit in the back, scratched on the thigh, and deeply torn in the arm. He falls. To make matters worse it begins to rain. The ground soon becomes a slough. The battle passes off into the distance. Rain continues. Night comes. Our man, half drowned, and almost buried in a furrow, no longer hears a sound. He tries to rise, but finds it impossible. He strains his eyes to see something. The effort is useless. He is glued to the ground; he can see nothing beyond the tuft of grass where his head is resting, nothing unless it be, close at hand, the mist-wraiths which gradually surround him and hide him. In anguish he cries: “Maman, maman!” He believes himself lost. “Maman!” He screams this with all his might. It is an appeal, a complaint, a prayer. He is in pain. He is parched with thirst. “Maman, maman!” The stretcher-bearers have heard the cry. “The ambulance!” they shout to reassure him, making a speaking-trumpet of their hands. Here they are with their red lamps knocking against their legs. A red cross man takes our soldier on his back. The wounded man groans. What can be done? They let him groan. On the road is waiting a forage cart with straw on the bottom. It creeks and jolts; it is a bed of torture. It is packed with wounded. The rain never ceases. Our man feels that he is dying of cold, but he has the good luck to faint. The cart reaches a dilapidated farm. Beside the entrance are two lanterns, one white and the other red; it is the field hospital. As soon as its turn comes the blood-stained bundle is smartly brought in and placed upon a truss of fresh straw. Amid the horrible concert of lamentations the man gradually returns to consciousness. What pain! The chief hospital orderly comes by with his dark-lantern. He examines the newcomer. “Here’s another of them hit in the back,” he says with a growl. He summons assistance, and two or three men painfully turn the poor devil on to his face. “Have you the scissors?” “No, they are in use.” “Have you a knife?” “Here you are.” Rip, rip. With two slashes the orderly removes the back of the shirt. Rip, rip. He does the same with the rest. But this is sticking to the wound. “Oh, oh,” groans the patient. It is finished. The skin is free. “He has blood-stains on his trousers, too.” Rip, rip. “Hullo! what a nasty tear in his thigh.” Rip, rip. “Gently—how it sticks!” Half of the trousers, stiff and black with blood, is thrown into the alley way to join the other rags. At last comes the turn of the shirtsleeve. This is an easier job. Rip, rip. “Monsieur le Major.” “Yes,” answers the medical officer, at work at the other end of the barn. “Have you exposed the wounds?” “Yes, Monsieur le Major.”