Page:War's dark frame (IA warsdarkframe00camp).pdf/154

124 see a man's grief for himself, so we hurried on. It was necessary to call upon a bleak cynicism, equal to the surgeon's; to recall that the most likely end for the youth of Europe is a room like this, or else a common grave, or a resting place unblanketed even by the friendly earth.

In another ward we saw above the bed-clothes of the end cot a young face, square, thick-lipped, a little animal-like,

“A prisoner," the surgeon explained with a smile. “We were afraid we were going to lose him, but he's coming right enough now, and he likes it here. He's a great favourite with the nurses.'

The German did, indeed, have an air of contentment, but he glanced at the Tommies in the neighbouring beds, at the pleasant, quiet nurses, at the surgeon who had pulled him through, and his expression held a great question, as if he would ask why he had been commanded to strafe such friendly and lovable people.

We drove across the plateau to a convalescent camp.

The commandant, an elderly grey-haired man in a colonel's uniform, welcomed us for the moment into his official family. He was really like that—a paternal type—a father with a gigantic