y
regretting that he had no periscope for the transom over the door.

There were two Generals who visited the hospital. The big General, the
important one, the Commander of the region, who was always beautiful to
look upon in his tight, well-fitting black jacket, trimmed with
astrakhan, who came from his limousine with a Normandy stick dangling
from his wrist, and who wore spotless, clean gloves. This, the big
General, came to decorate the men who were entitled to the _Croix de
Guerre_ and the _Medaille Militaire_, and after he had decorated one or
two, as the case might be, he usually continued on through the
hospital, shaking hands here and there with the patients, and chatting
with the _Directrice_ and with the doctors and officers who followed in
his wake. The other General was not nearly so imposing. He was short and
fat and dressed in a grey-blue uniform, of the shade known as invisible,
and his _kepi_ was hidden by a grey-blue cover, with a little square
hole cut out in front, so that an inch of oak-leaves might be seen. He
was much more formidable than the big General, however, since he was the
_Medecin Inspecteur_ of the region, and was responsible for all the
hospitals thereabouts. He made rather extensive rounds, closely
questioning the surgeons as to the wounds and treatment of each man, and
as he was a doctor as well, he knew how to judge of the replies. Whereas
the big General was a soldier and not a doctor, and was thus unable to
ask any disconcerting questions, so that his visits, while tedious,
were never embarrassing. When a General came on the place, it was a
signal to down tools. The surgeons would hurriedly finish their
operations, or postpone them if possible, and the dressings in the wards
were also stopped or postponed, while the surgeons would hurry after the
General, whichever one it was, and make deferential rounds with him, if
it took all day. And as it usually took at least two hours, the visits
of the Generals, one or both, meant considerable interruption to the
hospital routine. Sometimes, by chance, both Generals arrived at the
same time, which meant that there were double rounds, beginning at
opposite ends of the enclosure, and the surgeons were in a quandary as
to whose suite they should attach themselves. And the days when it was
busiest, when the work was hardest, when there was more work than double
the staff could accomplish in twenty-four hours, were the days that the
Generals usua