________________________________________________
_ The next morning when Claude arrived at the hospital to see
Fanning, he found every one too busy to take account of him. The
courtyard was full of ambulances, and a long line of camions
waited outside the gate. A train-load of wounded Americans had
come in, sent back from evacuation hospitals to await
transportation home.
As the men were carried past him, he thought they looked as if
they had been sick a long while--looked, indeed, as if they could
never get well. The boys who died on board the Anchises had never
seemed as sick as these did. Their skin was yellow or purple,
their eyes were sunken, their lips sore. Everything that belonged
to health had left them, every attribute of youth was gone. One
poor fellow, whose face and trunk were wrapped in cotton, never
stopped moaning, and as he was carried up the corridor he smelled
horribly. The Texas orderly remarked to Claude, "In the beginning
that one only had a finger blown off; would you believe it?"
These were the first wounded men Claude had seen. To shed bright
blood, to wear the red badge of courage,--that was one thing; but
to be reduced to this was quite another,. Surely, the sooner
these boys died, the better.
The Texan, passing with his next load, asked Claude why he didn't
go into the office and wait until the rush was over. Looking in
through the glass door, Claude noticed a young man writing at a
desk enclosed by a railing. Something about his figure, about the
way he held his head, was familiar. When he lifted his left arm
to prop open the page of his ledger, it was a stump below the
elbow. Yes, there could be no doubt about it; the pale, sharp
face, the beak nose, the frowning, uneasy brow. Presently, as if
he felt a curious eye upon him, the young man paused in his rapid
writing, wriggled his shoulders, put an iron paperweight on the
page of his book, took a case from his pocket and shook a
cigarette out on the table. Going up to the railing, Claude
offered him a cigar. "No, thank you. I don't use them any more.
They seem too heavy for me." He struck a match, moved his
shoulders again as if they were cramped, and sat down on the edge
of his desk.
"Where do these wounded men come from?" Claude asked. "I just got
in on the Anchises yesterday."
"They come from various evacuation hospitals. I believe most of
them are the Belleau Wood lot."
"Where did you lose your arm?"
"Cantigny. I was in the First Division. I'd been over since last
September, waiting for something to happen, and then got fixed in
my first engagement."
"Can't you go home?"
"Yes, I could. But I don't want to. I've got used to things over
here. I was attached to Headquarters in Paris for awhile."
Claude leaned across the rail. "We read about Cantigny at home,
of course. We were a good deal excited; I suppose you were?"
"Yes, we were nervous. We hadn't been under fire, and we'd been
fed up on all that stuff about it's taking fifty years to build a
fighting machine. The Hun had a strong position; we looked up
that long hill and wondered how we were going to behave." As he
talked the boy's eyes seemed to be moving all the time, probably
because he could not move his head at all. After blowing out deep
clouds of smoke until his cigarette was gone, he sat down to his
ledger and frowned at the page in a way which said he was too
busy to talk.
Claude saw Dr. Trueman standing in the doorway, waiting for him.
They made their morning call on Fanning, and left the hospital
together. The Doctor turned to him as if he had something on his
mind.
"I saw you talking to that wry-necked boy. How did he seem, all
right?"
"Not exactly. That is, he seems very nervous. Do you know
anything about him?"
"Oh, yes! He's a star patient here, a psychopathic case. I had
just been talking to one of the doctors about him, when I came
out and saw you with him. He was shot in the neck at Cantigny,
where he lost his arm. The wound healed, but his memory is
affected; some nerve cut, I suppose, that connects with that part
of his brain. This psychopath, Phillips, takes a great interest
in him and keeps him here to observe him. He's writing a book
about him. He says the fellow has forgotten almost everything
about his life before he came to France. The queer thing is, it's
his recollection of women that is most affected. He can remember
his father, but not his mother; doesn't know if he has sisters or
not,--can remember seeing girls about the house, but thinks they
may have been cousins. His photographs and belongings were lost
when he was hurt, all except a bunch of letters he had in his
pocket. They are from a girl he's engaged to, and he declares he
can't remember her at all; doesn't know what she looks like or
anything about her, and can't remember getting engaged. The
doctor has the letters. They seem to be from a nice girl in his
own town who is very ambitious for him to make the most of
himself. He deserted soon after he was sent to this hospital, ran
away. He was found on a farm out in the country here, where the
sons had been killed and the people had sort of adopted him. He'd
quit his uniform and was wearing the clothes of one of the dead
sons. He'd probably have got away with it, if he hadn't had that
wry neck. Some one saw him in the fields and recognized him and
reported him. I guess nobody cared much but this psychopathic
doctor; he wanted to get his pet patient back. They call him 'the
lost American' here."
"He seems to be doing some sort of clerical work," Claude
observed discreetly.
"Yes, they say he's very well educated. He remembers the books he
has read better than his own life. He can't recall what his home
town looks like, or his home. And the women are clear wiped out,
even the girl he was going to marry."
Claude smiled. "Maybe he's fortunate in that."
The Doctor turned to him affectionately, "Now Claude, don't begin
to talk like that the minute you land in this country."
Claude walked on past the church of St. Jacques. Last night
already seemed like a dream, but it haunted him. He wished he
could do something to help that boy; help him get away from the
doctor who was writing a book about him, and the girl who wanted
him to make the most of himself; get away and be lost altogether
in what he had been lucky enough to find. All day, as Claude came
and went, he looked among the crowds for that young face, so
compassionate and tender. _
Read next: Book Five: "Bidding the Eagles of the West Fly On": Chapter 4
Read previous: Book Five: "Bidding the Eagles of the West Fly On": Chapter 2
Table of content of One of Ours
GO TO TOP OF SCREEN
Post your review
Your review will be placed after the table of content of this book
