Somehow it seemed strange that there could be any happiness left in the world.

“Thanks awfully,” said the orderly.  “It must ‘a’ bin the uncertainty what upset ’im.  I’m bloody glad yer came in.  Yer’ve done ‘im a world o’ good.  I took to the pore bloke some’ow—­I allus feels pertickler sorry fur wounded Fritzes, I dunno why.  I ’xpect ‘e’s got a missis an’ kiddies just like meself....  Good-night!”

“Good-night,” I answered, and added mentally: 

“Your profession of soldier, the most degrading on earth, has not degraded you.  You are engaged in the most infamous and sordid war that was ever fought, and yet you have remained uncontaminated—­there is no honour or decoration in all the armies of the world good enough for you.”

We entered our marquee and made our beds.

All at once I noticed how utterly tired I was both in mind and body.  I crept under the blankets and closed my eyes and saw a vast confusion of red and yellow patches, of severed limbs and staring eyes and blue, distorted faces of suffocating men.  They thronged the darkness in ever increasing numbers and then they arranged themselves into a kind of gigantic wheel that began to turn slowly round and round.  And suddenly I became conscious of a grief so intense that it seemed almost like physical pain, but weariness soon mastered every other sensation and I fell into a dreamless sleep.

V

WALKING WOUNDED

“The war is doing me good as though it were a bath-cure.”

(FIELD MARSHAL VON HINDENBURG.)

Some had dirty bandages round their heads.  Some had their arms in slings.  Others had hands so thickly swathed that they looked like the huge paws of polar-bears.  Many were caked with mud and wore tattered uniforms.  Some limped or hobbled along.  Others could walk unaided.  Some leaned heavily on our shoulders and some we had to carry on our backs.

As each one entered the waiting-room—­a little wooden shed opposite the swing-doors of the operating theatre—­we took off his boots and tunic and made him sit down in front of the glowing stove.  From time to time an orderly would shout across from the theatre: 

“Next man!”

And we would take the “next man” over and help him to mount one of the tables.

They were all very quiet at first and many sat with bowed heads.  Some were dreading the operation, others, who were not badly wounded, looked bright and cheerful, as well they might, for they were going to have a holiday, perhaps in England, but anyhow at the Base, where they would enjoy a respite from danger, hardship, and misery—­a respite that might last for weeks.  And in the meantime the war might come to an end—­one could never tell.

Two infantrymen with packs and rifles passed by.  They had been discharged from the C.C.S. and were going to rejoin their units.  They stopped outside the waiting-room for a few minutes and looked enviously at the wounded sitting round the stove inside, and murmured with deep conviction:  “Lucky devils.”