all. Very angry, he was demanding of his orderly his
medicine chest which was missing from the luggage.
"My medicine chest, for God's sake!" he shouted. "Where is my medicine chest? And my instrument case? . . What did you do with my instrument case? Ah! for God's sake! . . ."
A little soldier of the reserves who suffered from an abscess on his knee came back hopping on one foot, crying, pulling his hair in despair. They did not want to attend to him. When it was my turn to go in I was all atremble. Inside the place which was dark, four patients, lying flat in the straw, were emitting rattling sounds like the cock of a musket; a fifth one was gesticulating, muttering incoherent words in delirium; still another, half-reclining, with head drooped on his chest, was moaning and asking for a drink in a feeble voice, the voice of an infant. Squatted in front of the fire place, an attendant was holding over the flame, on the end of a stick, a piece of stale pudding whose stench of burned grease filled the room. The adjutant did not even look at me. He shouted:
"Well, what's the matter now? . . . A bunch of lazy buggers. A good ten league run at a stretch will fix you up, you straggler. . . . Face about! . . . . March!"
On the threshold I met a peasant woman who asked me:
"Is this the place where you can see the doctor."
"Women now!" growled the adjutant. "What do you want now?"
"Beg pardon, excuse me, Doctor," rejoined the peasant woman, who came up very timidly. "I came for my son who is a soldier."
"Tell me now, old woman, am I here to keep track of your son, or what?"
With her hands crossed on the handle of her umbrella, timorous, she examined the place about her.
