And now, having seen the inn, let us pay a pious visit to the annex, the inevitable annex, alas! Around the wooden cross which dominates it is a piece of ground enclosed with an open fence, made of boughs of larch artistically intertwined. Within its bounds those tombs, too numerous already, preserve something of a military aspect, ranged as they are in such correct alignment and all with the same little crosses, adorned with a wreath of greenery. The Cross! In spite of all infidelity, denial, scorn, the Cross still remains the sign to which a tender instinct of atavism recalls us at the approach of death. There is not a tree, not a shrub, for none grow here: on the ground there is only the short grass that grows upon this wind-swept plateau. An attempt has been made, to be sure, to make borders of certain stunted plants found in the neighbourhood, but rows of pebbles last best. And in five weeks or so, thick shrouds of snow will begin to cover up everything, until another spring succeeds the snows and the grass grows green again, in the midst of still deeper oblivion. Nevertheless let us not pity them, for they have had the better part, these young dead who rest there on that glorious mountain-top which is destined to become once more, after the war, a solitude ineffably calm, high above forest, valley and plain. XVII FOR THE RESCUE OF OUR WOUNDED _August, 1915._ The preservation of the lives of our dear wounded, who day by day are stricken down upon the field of battle, depends nine times out of ten on the rapidity with which they are carried in; on the gentleness and promptness with which they are taken to the field hospitals, where they may be put into comfortable beds and left in the care of all the kind hands that are waiting for them. This fact is not sufficiently well known; often it happens that wounds which would have been trifling have become septic and mortal because they have been left too long covered with inadequate, uncleanly bandages, or have trailed for many hours on the earth or in the mud. In the first weeks of the war when we were taken unawares by the barbarians' attack, treacherous and sudden as a thunderbolt, it was not bullets and shrapnel alone that killed the sons of France. Often, too, it happened that help was slow in arriving; sufficient haste could not be made, and it was impossible to cope right at the beginning with these shortcomings, in spite of much admirable devotion and ingenuity in multiplying and improving the means of service. Since then helpers have poured in from all sides; gifts have been showered with open hands; organisation has been created with loving zeal, and things are already working very well. But much still remains to be done, for the work is immense and complex, and it is our duty to hold ourselves more than ever in readiness, in anticipation of great final struggles for deliverance.