CHAPTER XX

DISCHARGED

“Come, _mon vieux_, swallow this; it will set you up.”

A sergeant of the 88th Territorials is speaking. I see his white number as he bends over me. I swallow the contents of the cup at one draught. Ouf! it’s strong; it burns, but I feel my strength coming back.

Where am I?

I am behind a bank in a dugout cut in the side of the trench. How I got there I don’t know. I have lost all idea of things.

I am anxious about Morin. They don’t know, but they say that they saw stretcher-bearers pick him up.

I have received my reckoning, but I shall recover. I feel my trousers and boots heavy with a tepid dampness. I feel a shooting pain in the groin and something like a warm stream flows drop by drop.

The stretcher-bearer, Bertrand, an old college friend, now a Dominican, stops a second beside me, hurrying on to more pressing cares, to the more seriously wounded. He speaks kindly simple words, but what they are I know not. He speaks of country, the sun, my wife.

My wife, the sun, the country, the return to life, the walks as of old in the woods, in the hills, the dreams at twilight, the cherished plans, the talk of love. Life is beginning again. Yes, we will begin all that again. And it will be finer now ... after the test.

A great relaxation comes; tears flow. I hardly suffer, but I am weak. I want to sleep.

The stretcher-bearers will come presently, as I know, at nightfall. And through the roof of boughs I see the sun die away and the stars come out.

The bombardment rolls in distant thunder; they say that it is increasing, coming nearer.

Does that mean a counter attack?

The sinister heavy blow of a great Boche shell shakes the earth of my dugout, and the leaves of my roof fall in torrents on my covering.

I already feel anxious to get away. I am afraid now. I dread the final wound which will tear me, shatter me, kill me.

It is dark night. Great drops begin to fall. It is going to rain very hard. The stretcher-bearers have come. I have to move so that they can place me on the stretcher. I feel the warm stream gush out; it is very strong this time.

And I fainted.

* * * * *

At the casualty clearing station at Villers an old major with a white beard gives me an injection of antitetanic serum.

Another examines my gaping wound.

“Iodine dressing, H. O. E.[2] Discharge to private life.”

And an automobile takes me speedily to the station where the sanitary train waits with steam up.

The sanitary train!... For two days each roll of the wheels sounds in my head like a great bell; and the belt which binds me seems tightened into the most atrocious notch; at each turn of the wheels, at every movement it seems to me that the stream will begin to flow again, and that this time it will all flow out until it is exhausted ... with my life.

Then, one evening, the rolling ceased; my stretcher was unhooked and they gave me something to drink.... I woke up in the hospital.

A white bed, lights, nurses in white, who speak, who smile, who glide over the floors without making a noise.

Can it be true? I no longer hear the noise, the hammering of cannon, and the infernal rolling of autos and caissons. It is strange.

“Take No. 7 to the operating room,” says the head doctor.

I am No. 7.

The operating room.... It is all bright and white; through haggard eyes I look at the shining knives, the reflection of the glass, but a sharp odor seizes me, sickens me, stifles me.

I am stifling.... My breath stops in my chest and no longer reaches my throat.... I am stifling.... No, I hear the bells.... I hear the bells.... How good they sound!

* * * * *

Is it a dream?

An anxious face, shining eyes, lips trembling with a kiss, the beautiful loved hair with its familiar perfume.

And the gentle caress on my forehead.

Both arms close about it feverishly, as if never to let it go, on this dear being who brings with her kiss: love, life, the future.

“Oh! you! you! at last! forever!”

“Yes, Georges, yes, forever. I am here.”

And the nurse standing at the foot of the little brass bed smiles with tears in her eyes.

FOOTNOTES

[1] Commandant’s Post.

[2] Hospital for the Discharged.

End of Project Gutenberg's Covered With Mud and Glory, by Georges Lafond