Clerambault was brave enough when he was talking to the indulgent Perrotin, but he had scarcely got home when he was seized again by his hesitations. Sharpened by his sorrow, his sensitiveness anticipated the emotions of those around him; he imagined the discord that his words would cause between himself and his wife, and worse, without exactly knowing why, he was not sure of his daughter’s sympathy, and shrank from the trial. The risk was too great for an affectionate heart like his.
Matters stood thus, when a doctor of his acquaintance wrote that he had a man dangerously wounded in his hospital who had been in the great Champagne offensive, and had known Maxime. Clerambault went at once to see him.
On the bed he saw a man who might have been of any age. He lay still on his back, swathed like a mummy, his thin peasant-face all wrinkled and brown, with the big nose and grey beard emerging from the white bandages. Outside the sheet you could see his right hand, rough and work-worn; a joint of the middle-finger was missing—but that did not matter, it was a peace injury. His eyes looked out calmly under the bushy eyebrows; their clear grey light was unexpected in the burned face.
Clerambault came close and asked him how he did, and the man thanked him politely, without giving details, as if it were not worth the trouble to talk about oneself.
“You are very good, Sir. I am getting on all right.” But Clerambault persisted affectionately, and it did not take long for the grey eyes to see that there was something deeper than curiosity in the blue eyes that bent over him.
“Where are you wounded?” asked Clerambault.
“Oh, a little of everywhere; it would take too long to tell you, Sir.” But as his visitor continued to press him:
“There is a wound wherever they could find a place. Shot up, all over. I never should have thought there would have been room enough on a little man like me.”
Clerambault found out at last that he had received about a score of wounds; seventeen, to be exact. He had been literally sprinkled—he called it “interlarded”—with shrapnel.
“Wounded in seventeen places!” cried Clerambault.
“I have only a dozen left,” said the man.
“Did they cure the others?”
“No, they cut my legs off.” Clerambault was so shocked that he almost forgot the object of his visit. Great Heaven! What agonies! Our sufferings, in comparison, are a drop in the ocean. … He put his hand over the rough one, and pressed it. The calm grey eyes took in Clerambault from his feet to the crape on his hat.
“You have lost someone?”
“Yes,” said Clerambault, pulling himself together, “you must have known Sergeant Clerambault?”
“Surely,” said the man, “I knew him.”
“He was my son.”
The grey eyes softened.
“Ah, Sir! I am sorry for you. I should think I did know him, poor little chap! We were together for nearly a year, and a year like that counts, I can tell you! Day after day, we were like moles burrowing in the same hole. … We had our share of trouble.”
“Did he suffer much?”
“Well, Sir, it was pretty bad sometimes; hard on the boy, just at the first. You see he wasn’t used to it, like us.”
“You come from the country?”
“I was labourer on a farm. You have to live with the beasts, and you get to be like ’em. But it is the truth I tell you now, Sir, that men do treat each other worse than the beasts. ‘Be kind to the animals.’ That was on a notice a joker stuck up in our trench. … But what isn’t good enough for them is good enough for us. All right; I’m not kicking. Things are like that. We have to take it as it comes. But you could see that the little Sergeant had never been up against it before; the rain and the mud, and the meanness; the dirt worst of all, everything that you touch, your food, your skin, full of vermin. … He came close to crying, I could see, once or twice, when he was new to it. I wouldn’t let on that I noticed, for the boy was proud, didn’t want any help, but I would jolly him, try to cheer him up, lend him a hand sometimes; he was glad to get it. You see you have to get together. But before long he could stick it out as well as anybody; then it was his turn to help me. I never heard him squeal, and we had gay times together—must have a joke now and then, no matter what happens. It keeps off bad luck.”
Clerambault sat and listened with a heavy heart.
“Was he happier towards the last?” he asked.
“Yes, Sir, I think he was what you call resigned, just like we all were. I don’t know how it is, but you all seem to start out with the same foot in the morning. We are all different, but somehow, after a while it seems as if we were growing alike. It’s better, too, that way. You don’t mind things so much all in a bunch. … It’s only when you get leave, and after you come back—it’s bad, nothing goes right any more. You ought to have seen the little Sergeant that last time.”
Clerambault felt a pang as he said quickly:
“When he came back?”
“He was very low. I don’t know as I ever saw him so bad before.”
An agonised expression came over Clerambault’s face, and at his gesture, the wounded man who had been looking at the ceiling while he talked, turned his eyes and understood, for he added at once:
“He pulled himself together again, after that.”
“Tell me what he said to you, tell me everything,” said Clerambault again taking his hand.
The sick man hesitated and answered.
“I don’t think I just remember what he said.” Then he shut his eyes, and lay
