Most of them did not reply. A few shook their heads. "Nothing to be done." "More likely them?" They made a painful impression. More carts followed, these last drawn at a foot's pace. Orderlies signed to us that they contained the badly wounded. Their time was up. Why bother to transport them even? A vehicle passed at a trot going in the opposite direction empty. "What have you done with your cargo?" shouted another driver. "Going to load up again! Poor lads, turned into corpses, they are!" Frémont had turned very pale. "Let's be off!" he murmured. "Oh, rot!" I said rather fiercely. "Let's see as much as we can.... We may be in their place to-morrow." He stayed. A low cart appeared, containing two stretchers. On one of them was an officer with a bloodless face. He had a compress on his neck which dripped dark blood. On the other there was a young beardless corporal, whose respiration was rapid but even. Although awake, he persistently kept his eyes closed. What could his wound be? The orderly gave an expressive glance. A great-coat which had been thrown over the man hung down at the knee-joints. His two legs were gone. "No, no, come away!" Frémont repeated with a shudder. The horror of it! And it might so easily have been my turn to agonise to-morrow! By the fault of the politicians who had let loose this war! I cursed the allotted task, the yoke laid on so many, and my own acquiescence. Then my attention was distracted. An N.C.O. in the 30th who took an opportunity of getting out when his cart stopped--the horse had lost a shoe, I believe--asked for a drink. Someone offered him wine. "No. Water!" An uncanny voice, hoarse with fever. They brought him some water. He drank large gulps of it. I watched him. What was the matter with him, with his dark ringed eyes and pinched, mask-like face, and his body bent so queerly! He began to speak in short, staccato sentences. He described the engagement which had taken place the day before. The long wait in the trench under shell fire in the full glare of the sun. They had not seen the Bosches, but knew they were quite near by. The weariness and the enervation which increased as the day went on. The longing to be done with it, for the losses were becoming serious. The effect of the damned fairy tale accredited by the newspapers and even by the _communiqués_, according to which the enemy could never stand up against the bayonet. You could see the men half-pulling them out, the precious things, and looking at them longingly, so slim and sharp and shining...!