It's all right; we are smashing them!"
[Sidenote: Their first thought for victory.]
I, personally, received such answers from wounded who came to us from
the Chemin-des-Dames, or from the fort of Malmaison. When I asked for
news, my mind preoccupied with their individual sufferings, their first
thought was to tell me of the victory. The ordinary French phrase for
"How are you? _Comment ca va-t-il?_" (literally: How goes it?) may apply
to an event or to a person. This being so, it is never of himself that
the newly-wounded soldier thinks, but of what is interesting to
everybody--the common success. I went to welcome a patient brought in
October 26th and asked: "You came tonight?"
"Yes, Father."
"Not too tired by the journey?"
"No, not too much."
"What wound?"
"Jaw pierced by a bullet, arm broken, wound in the thigh."
"How goes it?"
[Sidenote: The wounded are delighted with the success of the attack.]
"Very well! The wounded who came to the hospital at the front were
delighted, we had gotten everything we were trying for!"
"You were in the attack?"
"Unfortunately no, I was wounded the day before."
"In the bombardment?"
"Yes, while we were filling up the trenches to make a way for the tanks
toward the fort of Malmaison."
"That must have been pretty constant thundering?"
"Yes, but very soon we did not think of it. In the little bombardments
you hear the shells coming and try to get to shelter, but, in those
great days, when it is going on all the time, you can no longer
distinguish anything, it is a continual noise, a kind of huge snoring.
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