"Take care. There are two awful cases. Step this way. The man on the top
shelf is dead. Lift them down. Steady. Lift the others out first. Now
carry them across the yard to the overcrowded ward, and lay them on the
floor if there are no beds, but lay them down and go for others. Take
the worst to the theatre: get the shattered limbs amputated and then
bring them back, for there is a man just dead whose place can be filled;
and these two must be shipped off to Calais; and this one can sit up."

[Page Heading: A WOUNDED GERMAN]

I found one young German with both hands smashed. He was not ill enough
to have a bed, of course, but sat with his head fallen forward trying to
sleep on a chair. I fed him with porridge and milk out of a little bowl,
and when he had finished half of it he said, "I won't have any more. I
am afraid there will be none for the others." I got a few cushions for
him and laid him in a corner of the room. Nothing disturbs the deep
sleep of these men. They seem not so much exhausted as dead with
fatigue.

A French boy of sixteen is a favourite of mine. He is such a beautiful
child, and there is no hope for him; shot through the abdomen; he can
retain nothing, and is sick all day, and every day he is weaker.

I do not find that the men want to send letters or write messages.
Their pain is too awful even for that, and I believe they can think of
nothing else.

All day the stretchers are brought in and the work goes on. It is about
5 o'clock that the weird tired hour begins when the dim lamps are