The medical staff, seven
in number, worked on day after day, and night after night, skilfully,
tenderly, ruthlessly. There were also a great many operations, and
scores of difficult critical decisions.
As we stepped out from among the blanketed forms I thought bitterly of
the 'glory' of war. Yet if there was any glory in war this was it. It
was here, in this patient suffering and obedience. These men might well
glory in their infirmities. This was heroism, the real thing, the spirit
rising to incredible heights of patient endurance in the foreseen
possible result of positive action for an ideal. The reaction from
battle is overwhelming. Passions that the civilised man simply does not
know, so colourless is his experience of them in ordinary days, are let
loose, anger and terror and horror and lust to kill. So for a while, as
nearly always happens, even wounds lost their power to pain in the
sleep of bottomless exhaustion. Those who could not sleep were drugged
with morphine. The moaning never stopped, but rose and fell and rose
again. It shook my heart. We turned from the ashen faces and went out
into the grey morning light.
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