The hospital clothes consisted of a pajama suit of much-faded flannelette, but I was glad to get into it, and doubly glad to get rid of my shirt and tunic, which were stiff on one side with dried blood.  From the lazaret, where I had my bath, I could see the gun platform with its machine guns, commanding every part of the Giessen Prison.  The guard pointed it out to me, to quiet my nerves, I suppose, and to scare me out of any thought of insubordination.  However, he need not have worried—­I was not thinking of escaping just then or starting an insurrection either.  I was quite content to lie down on the hard straw bed and pull the quilt over me and take a good long rest.

CHAPTER IV

THE LAZARET

The lazaret in which I was put was called “M.G.K.,” which is to say Machine Gun Company, and it was exactly like the other hospital huts.  There were some empty beds, and the doctor seemed to have plenty of time to attend to us.  For a few days, before my appetite began to make itself felt, I enjoyed the rest and quiet, and slept most of the time.  But at the end of a week I began to get restless.

The Frenchman whose bed was next to mine fascinated me with his piercing black eyes, unnaturally bright and glittering.  I knew the look in his eyes; I had seen it—­after the battle—­when the wounded were coming in, and looked at us as they were carried by on stretchers.  Some had this look—­some hadn’t.  Those who had it never came back.

And sometimes before the fighting, when the boys were writing home, the farewell letter that would not be mailed unless—­“something happened”—­I’ve seen that look in their faces, and I knew... just as they did... the letter would be mailed!

Emile, the Frenchman, had the look!

He was young, and had been strong and handsome, although his face was now thin and pinched and bloodless, like a slum child’s; but he hung on to life pitifully.  He hated to die—­I knew that by the way he fought for breath, and raged when he knew for sure that it was going from him.

In the middle of his raging, he would lean over his bed and peer into my face, crying “L’Anglaise—­l’Anglaise,” with his black eyes snapping like dagger points.  I often had to turn away and put my pillow over my eyes.

But one afternoon, in the middle of it, the great silence fell on him, and Emile’s struggles were over.

* * *

Our days were all the same.  Nobody came to see us; we had no books.  There was a newspaper which was brought to us every two weeks, printed in English, but published in German, with all the German fine disregard for the truth.  It said it was “printed for Americans in Europe.”  The name of it was “The Continental Times,” but I never heard it called anything but “The Continental Liar.”  Still, it was print, and we read it; I remember some of the sentences.  It spoke of an uneasy feeling in England “which the presence of turbaned Hindoos and Canadian cowboys has failed to dispel.”  Another one said, “The Turks are operating the Suez Canal in the interests of neutral shipping.”  “Fleet-footed Canadians” was an expression frequently used, and the insinuation was that the Canadians often owed their liberty to their speed.