Oh yes, they are fully exposed. So is the wounded man! He had nothing on when he was brought in beyond a shirt and trousers. Now his shirt lacks an arm and most of the back, while his trousers have but one leg! Poor devils, whom the panic of retreat and the orderly’s knife have reduced to this condition. Such men as these may well speak of “havoc.” And if the field hospital is in the hands of the enemy, the patients in this condition will have to endure two or three days of railway travelling, slowly jolted along in the foreigner’s cattle trucks. Just now I was talking about our new comrades. They had known the extremity of wretchedness. Two or three weeks had passed. There they were, behind the curtain of Bavarian bayonets, standing on their own feet, their clothing a little worn; but they were full of pluck, and, considering everything, almost gay. Doubtless a Frenchman might see reason for surprise at their equipment, for this was somewhat unusual. But no German could find anything to laugh at; he could not but feel that he was looking at true French soldiers. I was grateful to our comrades for the spirit and ingenuity which had enabled them, by the use of chance expedients, to assume a military, a French aspect, under the eyes of the enemy. In certain conditions, coquetry is heroic. Dominating the troop was a gigantic chasseur d’Afrique whose appearance drew the most indolent in the fort to look at him. Seen close at hand, he was simply a foot soldier of the 146th, from Toul, who had cut himself a chéchia [elongated fez] out of a red trouser-leg. Beside him was a dragoon, sporting an extremely elegant police-cap manufactured from the same cloth. A chasseur alpin partially concealed beneath his ample cloak a perfectly new pair of greenish trousers, bought from a sutler through the hospital gate at Ingolstadt. A colonial infantryman of the 6th, from Tarare, who had received a horrible wound in the shoulder, had a linesman’s coat and an artilleryman’s trousers. It was only his red-anchored képi, saved from the general wreck, which revealed him to be a marine. I regret to say that some of our warriors wore peaceful-looking civilian caps of grey cloth which would have given an unsoldierly appearance to Ney himself. Nevertheless, this debris of broken regiments, rigged out at haphazard as it arrived from the battlefield, soiled, torn, and deplorable odds and ends collected from the abandoned slaughter-houses and thrown pell-mell into transport wagons, had now an appearance that was far from being filthy or wretched. Besides, the men were smiling. On the other hand, the soldiers who come here direct from the battlefield are far from smiling! Their brains are filled with terrible visions. They anticipate cunning tortures. They are astonished that their throats have not yet been cut. I was struck by their aspect as of hunted beasts when the gate of the fort was opened wide to admit them.