In the tavern there was a Belgian doctor with a few soldiers to help
him, and a dozen wounded in the straw which had been put down on
the tiled floor. Another wounded man was sitting on a chair, and the
doctor was bandaging up a leg which looked like a piece of raw meat
at which dogs had been gnawing. Something in the straw moved and
gave a frightful groan. A boy soldier with his back propped against the
wall had his knees up to his chin and his face in his grimy hands
through which tears trickled. There was a soppy bandage about his
head. Two men close to where I stood lay stiff and stark, as though
quite dead, but when I bent down to them I heard their hard breathing
and the snuffle of their nostrils. The others more lightly wounded
watched us like animals, without curiosity but with a horrible sort of
patience in their eyes, which seemed to say, "Nothing matters...
Neither hunger nor thirst nor pain. We are living but our spirit is dead."
The doctor did not want us to take away his wounded at once. The
German shells were coming heavily again, on the outskirts of the
town through which we had to pass on our way out. An officer had
just come in to say they were firing at the level crossing to prevent the
Belgian ambulances from coming through.
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