A true picture of an Ambulance at the front, overflowing with wounded the evening of a battle, I find in these lines by an eyewitness: "Some moderate complaints among the crowded stretchers: one asks for a drink, one wants relief for pain, a bed, a dressing, to be quickly attended. But let some story be told in the group, some incident come out like a trumpet-call, all faces brighten, the men lift themselves a little, the mirage of glory gives them heart again. I commemorate with piety the anonymous example of a little Zouave, doubled over on himself, holding his bullet-pierced abdomen in both hands, whom I heard gently asked: 'Well, little one, how goes it?' Oh, very well, _mon Lieutenant_, our company has passed the road from B---- to the south; we had gotten there when I was knocked out. It's all right; we are smashing them!" [Sidenote: Their first thought for victory.] I, personally, received such answers from wounded who came to us from the Chemin-des-Dames, or from the fort of Malmaison. When I asked for news, my mind preoccupied with their individual sufferings, their first thought was to tell me of the victory. The ordinary French phrase for "How are you? _Comment ca va-t-il?_" (literally: How goes it?) may apply to an event or to a person. This being so, it is never of himself that the newly-wounded soldier thinks, but of what is interesting to everybody--the common success. I went to welcome a patient brought in October 26th and asked: "You came tonight?" "Yes, Father." "Not too tired by the journey?" "No, not too much." "What wound?" "Jaw pierced by a bullet, arm broken, wound in the thigh." "How goes it?" [Sidenote: The wounded are delighted with the success of the attack.] "Very well! The wounded who came to the hospital at the front were delighted, we had gotten everything we were trying for!" "You were in the attack?" "Unfortunately no, I was wounded the day before." "In the bombardment?" "Yes, while we were filling up the trenches to make a way for the tanks toward the fort of Malmaison." "That must have been pretty constant thundering?" "Yes, but very soon we did not think of it. In the little bombardments you hear the shells coming and try to get to shelter, but, in those great days, when it is going on all the time, you can no longer distinguish anything, it is a continual noise, a kind of huge snoring. Then you are quite calm." [Sidenote: They do not speak of what they have done or seen.] These are a few illustrations, a few rays of light, such as one still gets sometimes. I do not know if they will become more frequent with the new evolution of the War. They have been rare, and never followed by long expansiveness. Our wounded soldier of the fourth year of the War did not like to speak of what he had done nor of what he had seen. What may be the reasons for his silence? In seeking to interpret them we penetrate a little into the psychology of this taciturn man.