We had known since midnight where we were to take up our quarters;
the suburb of G----was only an hour's march further on. In the
fields, right and left, were bivouacs of colonial troops with
muddy helmets; they had come back from the firing line, and seemed
strangely quiet. In front of us lay the town, half hidden, full of
crackling sounds and echoes. Beyond, the hills of the Meuse, on
which we could distinguish the houses of the villages, and the
continuous rain of machine-gun bullets. We skirted a meadow strewn
with forsaken furniture, beds, chests, a whole fortune which
looked like the litter of a hospital. At last we arrived at the
first houses, and we were shown the place where we were expected.
There were two brick buildings of several storeys, connected by a
glazed corridor; the rest of the enclosure was occupied by wooden
sheds. Behind lay orchards and gardens, the first houses of the
suburb. In front, the wall of a park, a meadow, a railway track,
and La Route, the wonderful and terrible road that enters the town
at this very point.
Groups of lightly wounded men were hobbling towards the hospital;
the incessant rush of motors kept up the feverish circulation of a
demolished ant-hill.
As we approached the buildings, a doctor came out to meet us.
"Come, come. There's work enough for a month."
It was true. The effluvium and the moans of several hundreds of
wounded men greeted us. Ambulance No----, which we had come to
relieve, had been hard at it since the night before, without
having made much visible progress.
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