ammunition had rubbed this spot in like a favorite corner of a sofa.

How many I had seen crouching there like that, for ten--often twelve
hours, when the wagons had left too early, or had been overcrowded, or,
after violent fighting, had stood waiting in line at the munitions depot
behind the lines. Happy fellows, some of them, with broken arms or legs,
the war slang, "a thousand-dollar shot," on their pale, yet laughing
lips--enviously ogled by the men with slight wounds or the men sick with
typhoid fever, who would all gladly have sacrificed a thousand dollars
and a limb into the bargain for the same certainty of not having to
return to the front again. How many I had seen rolling on the ground,
biting into the earth in their agony--how many in the pouring rain, half
buried already in the mud, their bodies ripped open, groaning and
whimpering and outbellowing the storm.

This man seemed to be only slightly hurt in the right leg. The blood had
oozed out on one spot through the hastily made bandage, so I offered him
my first-aid package, besides cognac and cigarettes. But he did not
move. It was not until I laid my hand on his shoulder that he raised his
head--and the face he showed me threw me back like a blow on the chest.

His mouth and nose had come apart, and crept like a thick vine up his
right cheek--which was no longer a cheek. A chunk of bluish red flesh
swelled up there, covered by skin stretched to bursting and shining from
being drawn so tight. The whole right side of his face seemed more like
an exotic fruit than a human countenance, while from the left side, from
out of grey twitching misery, a sad, frightened eye looked up at me.

Violent terror slung itself round my neck like a lasso.