den would
be carried to the tables in the dressing room. Long before these cases
could be disposed of, other ambulances had arrived, and the floor of
the outer room once more became covered with stretchers. Now and then
the sufferers could not repress their groans. One night a man was
brought in who looked very pale and asked me piteously to get him some
water. I told him I could not do so until the doctor had seen his
wound. I got him taken into the dressing room, and turned away for a
moment to look after some fresh arrivals. Then I went back towards the
table whereon the poor fellow was lying. They had uncovered him and,
from the look on the faces of the attendants round about, I saw that
some specially ghastly wound was disclosed. I went over to the table,
and there I saw a sight too horrible to be described. A shell had
burst at his feet, and his body from the waist down was shattered.
Beyond this awful sight I saw the white face turning from side to
side, and the parched lips asking for water. The man, thank God, did
not suffer very acutely, as the shock had been so great, but he was
perfectly conscious. The case was hopeless, so they kindly and
tenderly covered him up, and he was carried out into the room set
apart for the dying. When he was left alone, I knelt down beside him
and talked to him. He was a French Canadian and a Roman Catholic, and,
as there happened to be no Roman Catholic Chaplain present at the
moment, I got him to repeat the "Lord's Prayer" and the "Hail Mary,"
and gave him the benediction. He died about half an hour afterwards.
When the sergeant came in to have the body removed to the morgue, he
drew the man's paybook from his pocket, and there we found that for
some offence he had been given a long period of field punishment, and
his pay was cut down to seventy cents a day. For seventy cents a day
he had come as a voluntary soldier to fight in the great war, and for
seventy cents a day he had died this horrible death. I told the (p. 142)
sergeant that I felt like dipping that page of the man's paybook
in his blood to blot out the memory of the past. The doctor who
attended the case told me that that was the worst sight he had ever
seen.

One night a young German was brought in. He was perfectly conscious,
but was reported to be seriously wounded. He was laid out on one of
the tables and when his torn uniform was ripped off, we found he had
been hit by shrapnel and had ten or twelve wounds