]
Those slightly wounded have not much merit, it must be confessed, in
being resigned or even joyful. After a rapid dressing at the first
station they will rest several days at the hospital at the front, and
then get leave of convalescence which they will pass with their
families. A wound for them, who can bear a little suffering, means an
unexpected holiday and supplementary permission. They are only sorry if
they are hit stupidly, out of action or at the beginning of a
well-prepared attack, and prevented from going on with it. Let us leave
them to their good luck, and stay longer with the severely wounded,
those, for instance, who have a leg or arm broken, a fractured jaw,
vertebra or ribs bruised, or are deprived of one of their senses--blind,
deaf, paralyzed. We unhesitatingly acknowledge that these three last
categories of wounded feel their misery profoundly, and need time to get
used to it. Those, happily much more numerous, who have only temporarily
or permanently lost the use of one of their limbs, generally consider
themselves very fortunate. "I have the good wound!" they affect to say,
meaning that the War is over for them. So at least they express
themselves, not at all wishing to be admired, and trying as it were, to
minimize their courage in bearing their trial.
[Sidenote: Self-sacrifice of the wounded.]
[Sidenote: "Arise, ye dead!"]
But aside from this paradoxical attitude, they frequently speak and act
in the most simple, touching way! It is common to hear one say to the
stretcher-bearer who comes to fetch him: "Take my comrade here first; he
is much more wounded than I; I can wait.
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