"That's doing very well—very well indeed!" It was Bujard, the house-surgeon, who was speaking. "If everyone got on as quickly as you——" I no longer felt any pain. My gaze wandered round the huge room. It was warm and prettily decorated—the smoking-room in the M—— hotel, which had been converted into a hospital. My temperature was normal again and I experienced a sensation of relief and deliverance. How delightful it was to rest on this pliant mattress, in these cool sheets, to distinguish the prattle of my neighbours, and the patter of the sister's feet standing out from the subdued hubbub in the ward.
When the light tired me, I closed my eyes on this scene, and went over the vicissitudes of the nightmare I had just left behind....
My long prostration in a dying condition, on that deserted plateau; swoons from which I awoke at intervals; that deadly cycle; two days and two nights.[Pg 486] ... Ah! Faces were leaning over me. They pick me up and carry me away. Where am I? A stretcher, a motor.... Heavens, how my leg tears me! How thirsty I am!
In the train now, on some straw. Round me those poor unfortunates, spectres, drawing their last breath, can they be men? But I am like them! That first dressing in the train.... They snip and tear my trouser and drawers; my wound is exposed, all soiled; matter and congealed blood. There is some question of detraining me. A red-beard opposes the suggestion, I am put back on to the same straw, in a state of decay. The train starts again, and rolls on and on for days. Unexpected or unknown names of stations. The feeling of being tossed about from one end of France to the other. Oh, this heat, this jolting, this acrid, fetid odour of humanity.... I am sleeping, or dying, unconscious....
A very different period follows—Vichy. A hospital ward, this; and the same bed on which I am still lying. Washed and cared for, I am born anew. I joke with the sister, a cheery soul, an ex-nurse in the expeditionary corps in China; with the house-surgeon—he and I have mutual friends.
My wound is certainly severe—the fibula is shattered, the tibia fractured. I shall limp. But what matter? They have cut away a lot and extracted splinters of bone, and scraps of clothes.... Barring complications, I shall have five or six weeks of it, not more.
Heavens, how beautiful life is! The Battle of the Marne has just been fought. What inspiriting reading the newspapers make. The intoxication of Victory; our Victory. The very day I arrived I was able to[Pg 487] have two telegrams sent—their destinations will easily be guessed. Jeannine answered at once, by the ardent letter I had wished for. A promise in it makes my heart leap. The Landrys will arrange to come round by Vichy on their way to the South, where they spend each winter. There is only one slight shadow—an allusion to certain worries of the grandmother's, money matters, from what I can gather.
As to my father: here he is installed at my bedside.
My thoughts are pleasing ones, and linger over such memories. And then—and then!
A Saturday evening. Ever since the morning my leg seems to me to have got heavier.... Thirst dries the very marrow in my bones. My temperature suddenly rises 101.2°. When it is taken again 102.2°. What does it mean? Sunday at eight o'clock 104°. Professor Gauthier, who is called in for a consultation, examines me and seems put out. These confounded leg wounds!
More incisions, and a drainage tube is put back again, and we must wait and see.
What a day! I am consumed with thirst, and burning hot. My leg on fire right up to the hip, paroxysms of suffering, infernal shooting pains. Pus is forming in it. Exhaustion soon follows. My tongue is green, and I vomit. I no longer digest anything. Delirium sets in. I call Maman, I call Jeannine, in a despairing voice....
Those silhouettes of doctors. That consultation round my bed. A haze envelops me ... I hear music! Then Bujard's voice:
"Well, old chap...?"
Halloa, he's very affectionate!
[Pg 488]
"We may have to—amputate...!"
From the depths of my torpor, I have understood. "Yes, take it off! Take it off!" I implore them.
"That's right! Very sensible!" He nodded. "A leg! They make such excellent substitutes! And then...."
He emphasised this point: "You'll suffer no more, you know!"
Oh, how well he knows my weak spot. No more suffering—or fever....
How did it all happen? I had no notion of anything. I came round from the chloroform to find myself in my bed. My father said to me, with tears in his eyes:
"That's all over, Michel, you're saved!"
I slept and slept. I come to life again. I open my eyes. Have I been dreaming? I should be tempted to think so. I have difficulty in persuading myself of the reality of my misfortune. My gaze never rests without astonishment on the fold in my bed-clothes, where it sinks down over the stump of my excised thigh.
Stupefaction, yes: rather than distress. I am less crushed by it than I should have expected. What an abominable thing the existence of beings mutilated in this way used formerly to seem to me. To-day the fate which awaits me does not make me revolt. I smile, without too much melancholy, at the motherly words of encouragement from the excellent nun. I take note, almost with amusement of the sensations of itching in my missing sole and big toe, common in patients who have had a leg amputated.
The secret of my serenity is to be found in the fact that my thoughts return to the decisive engagement when leading my men. I had consented to the sacri[Pg 489]fice. Intoxicating moments which could only be paid for with my life! And this last week again, I had seen my coffin open; death flowed in my veins. Now Destiny had had mercy on me. I might well consider myself blest!
But this period did not last long. At the end of a few days, the memory of my recent tortures paled. The withdrawal of this shadow robbed my present condition of its tinge of consolation.
There were ten of us in this ward, all seriously wounded, and operated on under favourable conditions. The general atmosphere was one of cheerfulness. I was soon out of sympathy with it.
I had made friends with my next-door neighbour............