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A DAY AT ECLISFONTAINE 99
At the altar a single lantern is burning, which seems to accen-
tuate the darkness. The church has been turned into a hospital.
It was now occupied by eighty wounded Germans. The short
pews were arranged in pairs facing one another, forming
with backs and seats roomy beds filled with straw. Each bed
thus improvised contained a badly wounded soldier. The
benches did not quite go round, and many of the wounded
were lying along the walls on straw, laid out on the stone
floor. Each one had been provided with a blanket, and the
space between the beds was sufficient for doctors and nurses
to move backwards and forwards without inconvenience. As
soon as their condition permitted, the patients were sent on
into Germany to make room for fresh convoys. Only the very
seriously wounded, who could not stand the transport, were
allowed to remain to die in peace or to recover as lifelong
cripples.
Up by the altar, by the light of a lantern, several young
doctors were busy round a patient who had just arrived and
who was to undergo an operation. More light was brought.
The head surgeon conducted me from bed to bed and was
indefatigable in his information about the various cases.
Quiet reigned inside the church, as its doors were kept closed,
but outside the rattle of wagons and tramping of horses’ hoofs
continued. A wonderful, almost eerie silence reigned inside,
one almost felt the struggle proceeding between life and death.
One might have been in some subterranean crypt with its
cold and musty atmosphere. We could hear the deep breathing
of the patients, but there was no complaining. Now and
again a soldier sighed, that was all. To complain would have
been to show inferiority to the others and to disturb their
rest. Most of them were asleep, dead-tired after the trials of
the day.
We pass from one to the other and speak in whispers so as
not to wake those who are asleep or disturb the solemn spirit
which had descended over these eighty heroes who had this
day gladly given their blood for their country. Now they are
dreaming their last dreams under their Iron Crosses. Soon
many of them will go to their eternal rest under the little
wooden crosses in the churchyard at Romagne. Their hearts,
now beating at fever-rate, will soon rest ice-cold under the
soil of France.
Here lies a man who has received a bullet right through the
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