The forbidden zone

They were very big men. They must have stood six feet three or four in their socks, but, of course, I never saw them standing up. I only saw them horizontal, carried in on stretchers, flat on their backs. One of them I saw next morning in his bed, the other one I only saw on his stretcher in the receiving hut. He was carried away, was never put into a bed. I knew I would never see him again. His pal knew it, too.

It was a mistake their coming to us. The English were co-operating with the French in the attack, and these two had been picked up in the confusion by a French ambulance. I remember how surprised I was when I saw the khaki uniforms. It was the same night that the blind man came in, or, to be exact, it was toward morning of the same day.

The hut was still crowded with wounded. The door still kept opening and shutting to let in the stretcher-bearers. We seemed to be making no headway. The men came in as fast as we could despatch them to the operating rooms. Would there never be an end to it? Would the sound of the ambulances lurching in at the gate never stop? What, I asked myself, was the toll of this last failure to break the German line? How many men had passed through my hands during the last thirty-six hours? I did not know. I had not tried to count them. They were carried in and carried out, and they were always there—the same ones, it seemed to me—suffering the same pain, with the same wounds gaping, the same blood pouring out of them. Cold—they were all so cold—half frozen—and we warmed them, thawed them back to life; and yet there they were, still so cold, still wrapped in cold death; and the dying were still dying, and they were all so courteous about it. They all spoke with such courteous voices, using such beautiful phrases, as if they were in my drawing-room. They apologised gravely in their exhaustion for the dirt, the blood, the ugly wounds.

“Do not trouble, sister. Do not give yourself so much trouble, I beg of you.”

“I am sorry, Madame, my bandage is leaking. I would not trouble you, but I think I am bleeding.”

“I beg your pardon. No, it is not too bad; no, not unbearable. I didn’t mean to do that. A thousand pardons. It is nothing. Yes, I am comfortable now—quite comfortable. Do not trouble yourself in the least, Madame.”

Most of them were peasants. The French, I realised, were a nation of peasants. But how was it that, even in their agony, they spoke so beautifully, had such perfect manners, chose such pleasant words; and even when they lay there waiting hour after hour, getting weaker and weaker, that their small thin dying voices, scarcely more than whispers, still kept that note of elegance?

“Yes, I am a little tired, Madame, but it is of no consequence, I assure you.”

“That I should die while I wait here is a mere trifle that you must not allow to disturb you,” was what they seemed to be saying to me.

I was so accustomed to this elegance of mind among my poilus that I no longer noticed it. I took it for granted. I did not think about it until the two British Gunners came in. Then suddenly I realised that there are two types of courage, the British and the French, as there are two types of men.

The Gunners were pals. They lay side by side staring at the roof. If they were pleasantly surprised to find an English nurse in this barn of a place, they gave no sign of it. Even the red-faced one, who sat up leaning on his elbow when I approached, took me for granted. The other one lay motionless; his face was grey and damp. Neither of them spoke while I looked at their tickets. The red-faced giant was wounded in the leg, otherwise there was nothing wrong with him; the other was wounded in the abdomen; it was clear that there was no hope for him. I would send him through at once to Rouviere. He would save him if he could be saved, but I knew it was useless. I knelt beside him, looking at his ticket. His name was written on it, and the name of his regiment. I do not remember his name, but he came from somewhere in Lancashire. I was wondering whether I should ask him his address and offer to write to his family. Something in my attitude as I knelt there seemed to strike him. He turned his head ever so slightly toward me, and asked, “Is it serious, sister?”

“Yes,” I answered, “it is serious. You are wounded in the stomach. That is always very serious.”

For a moment he stared into my eyes, then he turned his head away again, shutting me out. I was dismissed, he had nothing to say to me. I rose to my feet and looked from one to the other. But just as I was moving away, the dying one turned his head again and looked across at his pal. There was a dumb interchange of some sort between them, then the red giant spoke.

“Stick it,” he said. That was all he said. They didn’t talk any more; they had nothing more to say to each other. A few minutes later the stretcher-bearers carried the Gunner, who was wounded in the abdomen, away to the operating room. He died under the anæsthetic. His pal didn’t see him again. I don’t know where they took him or where he was buried or where his home was. The other Gunner didn’t tell me. He didn’t ask me anything about his friend.

I found him the next day in one of the wards sitting up in bed eating his dinner. He didn’t say anything when he saw me. He looked very fit and very big, and he seemed to have a good appetite. There was no expression of any kind on his face.

I said, “Good morning. How are you?”

He answered something. I couldn’t understand what he said, so I asked him again, saying, “I didn’t quite catch what you said.”

“A1 at Lloyd’s, Madam,” he repeated. That was what he had said.

They were the only two wounded Tommies that passed through my hands during the four years of the war, and that was all that they said to me. I don’t know any more about them. The big red one was taken to the British evacuating station that afternoon in an ambulance. There was nothing much the matter with him. He didn’t say good-bye. I didn’t see him when he left. I remember the only two phrases I heard him utter, one to his pal and one to me:

“Stick it.”

“A1 at Lloyd’s, Madam.”